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 PointsUnison 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 FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInFintechImpact.co – Website for Fintech ImpactJasonPereira.ca – Sign up for Jason Pereira’s newsletterWoodgate.com – Website for Woodgate FinancialUnison.com – Website for Unison Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.