Today’s RealTrending features Marnie Blanco, vice president of industry relations for Pacaso. Marnie shares how the company is tweaking its strategy, trends in co-ownership and what brokers and agents can do to compete in today’s market.
Here is a small preview of today’s interview with Marnie. The transcript below has been lightly edited for length and clarity:
Tracey Velt: Who would you say your ideal customer is?
Marnie Blanco: Well, we have a couple of different customers. You could look at it from a consumer perspective but also from a real estate perspective as well.
When the company first started, the entire mission is to make second home ownership possible and more enjoyable for more people. We all know people who would love to have a second home and because it’s not accessible or affordable to have the type of home you want, you’re not able to get it.
With second homes, people are in the homes maybe six to eight weeks a year at the most and then the homes sit empty the rest of the time. We all know it’s a lot of work to just keep up your own home, much less two of them or even some of these folks who have even maybe three or four different homes. And so, that audience is really important to us because it makes the dream of second home ownership more possible.
But what we found after we launched the company, there’s a whole other audience too. There’s the audience of homeowners who can afford a high-end luxury home, $5, $6, $10 million but they don’t want to because, like I said earlier, they don’t want to have to take care of the whole home by themselves. They know they’re not going to be using it. Maybe they have other homes they go to. It makes it more logical for them to have a co-owned home where they can share the home with other owners.
Once Pacaso buys the home, we find the owners. We then move to a property management role at that point. So, the home is completely taken care of from the second you walk in the door to the second you close it and leave and everything in between. It’s almost like checking into a hotel.
RealTrending features the brightest minds in real estate. Twice a month, brokerage leaders, top agents, team leaders, and industry experts share their success secrets, trends, and lessons learned navigating this ever-changing industry. Hosted by Tracey Velt and produced by Elissa Branch.
