Unison with Thomas Sponholtz | E164

In this 164th episode of Fintech Impact, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, and host interviews Thomas Sponholtz, CEO of Unison, a company that enables equity financing of residential real estate and gives institutional investors access to the world’s largest asset class! Episode Highlights: 0:33 – Thomas Sponholtz introduces Unison. 3:16 – What was the impedance for the creation of Unison? 6:06 – Thomas explains the consumer experience when working with Unison. 7:37 – To what degree is Unison participating in the change in the value of the house? 8:44 – What happens if the homeowner sells the property at a loss? 9:36 – How long do these deals take to get closed? 11:10 – Thomas discusses the return expectations by investors. 13:24 – How much attention is paid to regional diversification? 16:00 – Jason and Thomas discuss the potential risk for residential homeowners. 19:28 – Thomas discusses Unison’s goal of giving people the experience of having a home without the financial commitment of owning. 20:25 – What kind of feedback has Unison gotten back from its clients? 23:28 – If Thomas could change something about his company and his industry, what would he change? 26:09 – What has been the biggest challenge in getting Unison to where it is today? 27:24 – Thomas shares the motivations that get him up every morning. 3 Key Points Unison introduced equity financing to residential homeowners while also enabling institutional investors to get access to the world’s largest asset class. By bearing a high percentage of risk than the homeowner, Unison bears a disproportionate percentage of both gains and losses. Investing in a single home brings as much volatility as investing in the stock market while diversifying your portfolio with thousands of properties across the country can lower volatility from 15% to 5%. Tweetable Quotes: “When you retire, your biggest expense is most likely to be housing but you could not invest in housing as an asset class as an institution.” – Thomas Sponholtz “Theoretically, this could be closed in a week, in practice because of that coordination between the homeowner and appraiser, it typically takes about 2 or 3 weeks.” – Thomas Sponholtz “To date, the only option for investment in residential real estate has largely been residential REITs, in which case you’re dealing with a renter environment, not an ownership environment.” – Jason Pereira “A single home has the same volatility as the stock market.” – Thomas Sponholtz “Communicating directly to the consumer is a lot easier sometimes than through an intermediary.” – Thomas Sponholtz Resources Mentioned: Facebook – Jason Pereira’s Facebook LinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedIn FintechImpact.co – Website for Fintech Impact JasonPereira.ca – Sign up for Jason Pereira’s newsletter Woodgate.com – Website for Woodgate Financial Unison.com – Website for Unison Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.