How did OptIn Ventures come to be?
This is a great story! Actually, none of us are private equity type guys. Richard and I are primarily real estate brokers to the core! I’m talking 45 years’ experience in my case! I met Carl years ago, and with his experience running huge business divisions... We got involved with Harsh through joint ventures we were doing in Austin, and he was a great resource. All four of us have been participating in or driving real estate joint ventures very successfully, and one day asked ourselves why not combine our talents and do this in a more formalized fashion.
It has been obvious to all of us that you can hardly swing a dead cat without hitting investors trying to buy real estate who lack the ability to scale their efforts. My issue was that I had no time to do the fund raising because I am awash in projects generated by over 2,300 commercial agents in the Keller Williams system throughout North America. It can be overwhelming at times and normally these are what we’d consider “mid-level” projects that big time investment groups consider too small to mess with. But many were incredibly good projects. Doing a more formalized and structured fund was logical to us.
The beauty of real estate
You can imagine how often I am speaking in front of a large group of Realtors about investing. Just for fun, I will pull a copy of the Wall Street Journal that morning and stand up on stage where I have clearly highlighted an article written by a Wall Street “Bear” and another article written by a Wall Street “Bull”. All in the same days’ paper! My point to the audience is simply that unless youa sit in the board room of that public company, it is often hard to predict the market. Further, even if you could do that, can anyone explain GM’s stock price versus TESLA’s today? I’m waiting….
The simple answer is you can’t. The beauty of real estate is that the indices that drive valuation can be uncovered and used to deduce a fairly predictable outcome. In simple terms you can predict real estate valuation with a high degree of accuracy provided you have the data you need and the expertise to interpret that data. The variables that drive real estate values are often in the public domain. Supply and demand, job growth, city politics, development ordinances, availability of utilities, local competition, that list is extensive but in almost all of the cases, the data can be acquired! There is a saying in the real estate industry that “all real estate is local”. Having the expertise from a local agent or developer is often a critical factor in your success. Being able to source a great deal because of being the first to discover it or being able to get it at the right price is crucial as well. There is a reason that years ago, “Spot” the dog was able to predict the stock market as well as the experts, investing in stocks is almost an art. Real Estate investing is not.
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