The Exchanges

Q And is this, by the way, is this, is your revenue model, is it like a marketplace almost?

A That's exactly right. So, you know, so our approach on this is, uh, as a consumer, you pay simple fees for the services that you need. Say, I want to see a home. I found it online. That's 50 bucks. Um, the thing that's awesome about it is instead of working with one agent, suddenly kind of Uber-like you are working with an army of agents. So that invitation goes out to all the agents in that area. Uh, it's accepted on a first-come, first-served basis. Uh, And so you get an agent when you want, where you want, you pay just for what you need. And when you buy or sell the home, you actually get the entire commission rebated back to you. And that's usually three percent of the home value. And no matter if you're, I think you're in Leesburg, if you're buying in Leesburg, that's a big check. If you're buying in San Francisco, that's a big check. So consumers love it.

AI assessment note: “That's exactly right. So, you know, so our approach on this is”

Q Got it. Okay. Fair enough. Um, let's go back to how you make money. So what percentage are you taking from the real estate agent and what percent are you taking from the home buyer or seller?

A So the home buyer and seller just pays for what they need and only that. So we've got different fees for different, uh, for different types of services. So in order to tour home, that's about 50 bucks. Uh, in order to put in an offer, that's 200 bucks, and then the key about our model is that you are not on your own. This is not do-it-yourself real estate. You actually have an agent with you every step of the way, and you're, and it's simple and transparent in that you are paying for what you need. And, uh, the, the take on that varies by service, and it, and it may vary on zip code, and that could be anything from zero, where all of it is passed through to the agent. To up to 50%. Um, so most platforms, you know, they vary somewhere between that and usually it's in the sort of 10 to 20% and that's about what we net out at.

AI assessment note: “usually it's in the sort of 10 to 20% and that's about what we net out at.”

Q Okay. Break that down for me. Cause I, there's a lot of percentages. I get all confused. Uh, I'm buying a home in San Francisco using your platform for 500 grand. Uh, how much, how much of that goes to the real estate agent?

A So it, you know, it depends on the services that you need, but let's say you're shopping online, you found it on, on Zillow and Trulia, and you want to see that home. So you order up a service that's 50 dollars, and all of that 50 dollars goes to the agent for what I would call the top of funnel services. You can either pay as you go, or you can pay later and pay at the close of the transaction. So on average, the consumer's Pay about 2000 dollars to have agents represent them through the transaction. And I don't know what home you're buying for 500,000 in San Francisco. There's not too many, uh, but, but if you purchase a 500,000 dollar home, you get the entire agent commission rebated back to you. And, uh, so that's usually three percent of the home and that's a 15,000 dollar check and that's big money. Now, the key here is, uh, We always get this question, which is why would an agent do this? Why would they give up 15,000 dollars? And they're getting paid about, you call it a thousand to 1500 dollars to do the various services along the way. Because the choice for these agents is not a choice between 15,000 dollars and 1500 dollars. It's really a choice of zero dollars or 1500 dollars. Our agents can continue to pursue traditional real estate. They can continue to go after that. They're all in a 1099 status. This is really the largest licensed, trained, insured, and underuti…

AI assessment note: “on average, the consumer's Pay about 2000 dollars to have agents represent them”

Q So it's not, it's not either or, right? It's icing on the cake.

A Yeah, and you know, some, think about it this way. There's two million agents out there, and three out of four of them are in some sort of part-time capacity. I guarantee some of your listeners are holding a real estate license, but they're also students, or entrepreneurs, or mothers, or fathers. And right now, the current compensation, while you've got to be on, if you're full stack, you've got to be on all, all day, every day. It's very hard to break into. So this is a way for them just to specialize. And I'll give it, give an example. We've got one person that loves doing the paperwork and loves doing negotiation. And right now they hate doing showing homes. Well, with us, they can just accept the offers that come in and say, I'll put in offers and help people transaction through clothes and get paid to do that and never have to leave their, their office. We have other people that love showing homes and they only want to work on weekends though. So they just get Service requests on the weekends. They accept those.

AI assessment note: “Yeah, and you know, some, think about it this way.”

Q Let's do this, man. It's going to be fun. What does golden key do and how do you make money?

A So golden key is unbundled on demand, no commission real estate. And many of your listeners, I'm sure I've thought about buying or selling a home. It's the largest asset that they purchase. And technology has really just changed the front end of that funnel. Uh, you'll, they'll probably use Zillow or truly to find the home, but then in order to get into the home, uh, Uh, they've got to do what our parents and grandparents did, which is call a real estate agent. Yeah. Well, and if I, well, in my case, I, I was sitting outside of a home two and a half years ago and I'd found it online. I was sitting there with my wife and I said, I'm not going to call a real estate agent in order to do this. It's not that I didn't need some help. I just didn't want the full stack commission base help. So I ended up, um, Breaking into the house. Uh, it was vacant at the time. The statute of limitations has passed on that. Uh, but, you know, people hack this thing a lot of different ways. They become agents. They try to negotiate down on fees. And what we realized is, why don't we just unbundle what agents do? And so the real problem that we're solving is not just on the consumer side, but the agent side. So agents make about sixty billion dollars of commissions. And these commissions add up. If you use an agent to buy and sell a home, you actually destroy over 50% of your home equity and the fees …

AI assessment note: “golden key is unbundled on demand, no commission real estate”

Q That's okay. Um, are there, what's your, what's your number one city that most of the deals do those deals are in?

A So, uh, we started a pilot market in Raleigh, Durham, and that's where, uh, that's where one of our offices is. That's where I am. Uh, but we have executed, and one of the powers of this model is because we're not a brokerage. Uh, brokerages have to get licensed and insured in every state, but we work with agents in every state, and so we've executed transactions in now 22 states. And, um, I, you know, customer acquisition costs on both supply and demand is zero. Uh, and really this is when you give people the largest check of their life and they feel like what they are, which is the smartest home buyer or seller on the block. And they also have happy agents that are getting paid for what they do. Word of mouth spreads on this.

AI assessment note: “we started a pilot market in Raleigh, Durham, and that's where”