076: How to Buy and Sell Single Family Rental Property Portfolios

On this episode of the InvestFourMore Real Estate Podcast I interview Greg Rand, who is the CEO of OwnAmerica. Greg has been in the real estate industry his entire life as a technology expert in the 1990’s, an agent, and the head of a company with 25 offices and over 1,000 agents. Greg created OwnAmerica as a platform for single family real estate investors. Real Estate investors can see rental properties for sale all across the country for free on OwnAmerica site.

Investors can also upload their own portfolios onto the system, where they can see what return they are getting and what the Own America system values them at. Investors want to sell their portfolios they can as well, and OwnAmerica has 9 of the top ten single family institutional homes buyers using their platform. On this show we talk to Greg about how he got started, what it was like running a company with 25 real estate offices, and much more on Own America.

How did Greg get started in the real estate industry?

Greg’s mom became a real estate agent and broker when he was growing up. He was around the industry, but did not want to be an agent. He did see the success she had in the real estate industry and knew he wanted to be a part of it. After he graduated from college, he was heavily involved in real estate technology. Before the internet, real estate agents had complete control of house listings. They had MLS books that listed all the houses for sale, and they used those books to help clients find and buy homes. Greg worked on a number of projects that helped consumers gain more information about homes that were for sale. He helped create public kiosks that showed homes for sale, and even recording services where people could ask for information and it would be faxed to them.

Greg started to work with a company helping teach agents how to use technology. He would travel all across the country working with agents on how to use this brand new thing called the Internet. He also taught agents how to use digital cameras and other new technologies that were changing the industry.

How did Greg get started as a real estate agent and broker?

In 1997 Greg’s mom convinced him to come work with her in her real estate office. Greg became an agent and broker, but he did not do much selling himself. He was focused on growing the company and managing the office. He was able to grow the company significantly. He helped add new offices and new agents, multiplying the size of the company by ten! They created a mortgage company and title company along with the real estate office to maximize profits.

Greg had to deal with many agents and saw many traits of the best agents in his office. He says the best agents obviously worked hard and had a plan, but they also differentiated themselves from the pack. Working with investors is one way that agents can reach a large client base, since most agents have no idea what a good investment is. He also talks about retirement plans for agents, or the lack of retirement plans. Most agents do not create a business they can sell, unless they build a team or start an office.

Why did Greg start OwnAmerica?

Greg started OwnAmerica because there was no platform for single family investment properties. If you own single family rentals and want to sell them, most agents will tell you to get the tenant out so it will sell. If you have 10, 20, or 50 single family homes you want to sell, it can take a while to get them all vacant. The easiest way to sell would be to find another investor who wants the tenants in the houses. Greg also ran into large hedge funds who wanted to buy thousands of homes in different areas of the country. Those hedge funds went to real estate offices to see if they could get a national system in place to purchase homes. What the hedge funds found, was that the real estate offices were set up to sell individual homes in each market, they could not accommodate a large national client. The hedge funds had to find agents in every market they bought in.

OwnAmerica was created to help investors, and hedge funds buy and sell single family rental property portfolios.

How can you use OwnAmerica?

I set up my rental property portfolio on OwnAmerica’s site and they gave me an idea of what my portfolio was worth to other investors for free. They also gave me ROI and many other calculations on my portfolio all for free. OwnAmerica also works very closely with real estate agents across the country as I signed up as an agent to help other investors sell their portfolios as well. You can get much more information here.