Fintech Impact

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

1. Unison introduced equity financing to residential homeowners while also enabling institutional investors to get access to the world’s largest asset class.
2. By bearing a high percentage of risk than the homeowner, Unison bears a disproportionate percentage of both gains and losses.
3. 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