Episode 6 - Dispo chat: Paul Wakim from Twnsqr
Welcome to the latest installment of That Real Estate Tech Guy! We’re talking with Paul Wakim, a tech entrepreneur that started a dispositions platform for real estate investors to sell properties to buyers, and connect with other top investors across the country. Jordan and Paul discuss the importance of a powerful network, as well as leveraging the power of your buyers list while also keeping it secure.
From the onset, Paul set out to make a professional real estate investors dispo platform, one that provides investors with complete control over the investment process.
“We’re trying to push our customer, and the real estate investor community, to realize that if you have a deal, and it’s a good deal, sure somebody is going to buy it. But if you’re not the top authority in your market, you probably don’t have as good a relationship with the top buyers in your market. We’ve created a way for you connect and work with somebody like that on Twnsqr.”
Paul goes on to explain the three ways you can use the platform: you can send deals to buyers, send your deals to a closed, exclusive marketplace, or you can send your deals to other users on the platform to see if they have the right buyer. It’s always been important to the founder that users of TwnSqr maintain complete control over their buyers list the entire time.
“You have complete control. There are some competitors in our space that have a model where you upload your buyers list, and everybody else on the platform automatically has access to all of those buyers that you upload. And we're sometimes mistaken to have the same exact business model. TwnSqr offers the ability to control your deal and the ability to control your buyers list.”
Tune into the episode to hear more about why TwnSqr is a perfect platform for new investors that want to leverage the credibility of their peers to make more money, as well as what technology products Paul considers must-haves. Hint: it’s not just smrtPhone ;)
About Paul Wakim & TwnSqr
Paul Wakim got started in the real estate industry in 2016 right out of college: he and his girlfriend Shannon (now wife) started a real estate photography business with a single drone that gave Paul as a graduation gift. Paul absorbed tons of knowledge about real estate investing from podcasts, agents, and the investors he met via their business, so a year later he decided to get his real estate license. Through being an agent, it dawned on him – there is no real estate without a seller, and all the sellers he met were selling their homes for the same 5 or 6 reasons.
In 2018, Paul taught himself how to code in Python to create an algorithm to predict who was going to sell their home by identifying people who showed signs of those 5 or 6 common selling traits. He met his friend and co-founder Mitch Tracy while rock climbing, and by mid-2019 Mitch had quit his job to join TwnSqr full-time to refine and drastically improve the algorithm.
Through trial and error, Paul and Mitch ended up with the version of TwnSqr that we have today – the premiere off-market property dispositions tool that connects real estate investors with one another and, eventually, the largest institutional buyers in the world. The ultimate goal is to support sellers, investors and buyers of all sizes through world class technology!
About That Real Estate Tech Guy Podcast
That Real Estate Tech Guy is the only podcast focused on helping Real Estate Investors make better technology decisions to close more deals and make more money. It is your weekly chance to explore how technology can help your real estate business explode. Informed by decades of REI and technology experience, Jordan gets into the details with seasoned tech and real estate industry leaders to bring you the lessons you need to get ahead. Learn from guest successes and failures, get the inside scoop on the next