How Technology Changed My Real Estate Business in the Last 25 Years

[Don Konipol]

How Technology Changed My Real Estate Business in the Last 25 Years

25 years ago I decided to “formalize” by hard money / private money investments and start an investment fund and syndicate these note opportunities. I was thinking of the ways my work life has changed due to technology advancements since 2000.

1. I used to pay a site visit to every property of which we were considering lending or purchasing an existing note. Now with Google Earth and other apps I can gather enough “feel” for the property to only site visit a property that we are ready to fund

2. Appraisals were mailed to us (3 copies) in paper form with actual photos pasted onto the appraisal. Now of course we obtain them by email in PDF format.

3. Requests for loans were most often made over the phone or in person with potential borrowers paying us a visit at our offices. We now do 10 times the volume and haven’t met with a borrower in person in 10 years. Requests for loans come in through our interactive loan application accessed on our website

4. To raise capital from investors I gave "talks" at various real estate investment groups and self directed IRA providers (about 5 per month). Now, our Reg D 506c offerings allow advertising and general solicitation, almost all our new investors learn about us either on line or through an existing investor

5. To stimulate deal flow (loan requests or note offers) I used attend about 15 commercial real estate meetings a month; now I email a newsletter or update every month to 15,000 commercial mortgage and loan broker contacts I have through LinkedIn.

6. At one time back in 2004 or 2005 we held about 50 notes, meaning we were receiving and depositing 50 checks per month, sending out 50 invoices by U.S. Postal Service, and recording same in Quickbooks. Further, we were writing about 40 checks and mailing them to our investors as monthly distributions. We now ACH payments direct from borrowers accounts by a process that is automatic without the need for human intervention, those payments are automatically recorded, and the program we use ACHs distributions into our investors accounts.

7. When I started it took a lot of effort to enter enough data to be able to generate meaningful financial reports. Now the reports are generated and updated everyday and available to my partner and I on our business platform.

8. In 2000 I was emailing quarterly reports to investors regarding their holdings and information about the properties they were invested in. Now investors can find out all this and more 24/7 by accessing the investor module of our on line platform.

9. We used to deliver our PPM, Operating Agreement and Subscription Agreement by US Postal Service; around 2005 we started using email, but still had to receive a hard copy with ink signature. Now investors subscribe using our online platform and Docusign.

10. We were spending a ton of money on fax paper that was full of unsolicited advertising for - well - fax paper among other annoying things. Now our fax machine is in storage next to our Betamax recorder, eight track tape, and Blockbuster membership card.

If you’ve been in business or investing for 25 years I’d love to hear how technology has changed the way you work!

[Jay Hinrichs]

for us.

1. docusign  genius

2. drop box for file storage.

3. google earth

4. Advances with banks being on line so our investors can see the checking account where their money is 24/7.