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I think I read in a separate article (maybe the Fortune one) that you're focused on mid-market homes in the $250k--$500k range, in a few metro regions across th

I think I read in a separate article (maybe the Fortune one) that you're focused on mid-market homes in the $250k--$500k range, in a few metro regions across the country. Notably absent in the Bay Area. In hindsight this looks like a great move since your value add to sellers is liquidity, and you collect an illiquidity premium, so to speak. Meanwhile, the Bay Area sellers are certainly not lacking in liquidity. So 2 questions: 1) In hindsight staying away from the Bay Area looks great but I have to think there must have been a temptation to be a player in your "home market". What was the conversation like between the founding team to eschew the local market? (I think many companies default to addressing the Bay Area first without putting in much thought into it, and it is sometimes ill advised) 2) Blackstone was buying lower end homes from 2009--2014 or so. Is the transaction volume in this segment not robust enough for your business model (i.e. hard to find buyers)? Pricing model too uncertain/unpredictable? I think we had coffee once back in 2013 when you were still at Addepar. Congrats on the move; always thought this could be a tremendous business since news first broke about the company.

jdross 10y ago
1) We're building a business, so we do what's best for the company and customers and don't pay much attention to vanity-based things like winning our home market. SF is a hard market for this business, so we simple don't operate here :) We also haven't had much trouble hiring incredible people -- relevant to HN I think we're up to 8 former YC founders 2) We generally buy from $125K to $500K, so we do hit a lot of that low end. Below that, fixed transaction costs are quite high as a % of home value. Thanks! We all really appreciate the support, the team's working really hard to redefine a space that hasn't seen enough innovation in the past half century.

jdross 10y ago

1) We're building a business, so we do what's best for the company and customers and don't pay much attention to vanity-based things like winning our home market. SF is a hard market for this business, so we simple don't operate here :) We also haven't had much trouble hiring incredible people -- relevant to HN I think we're up to 8 former YC founders 2) We generally buy from $125K to $500K, so we do hit a lot of that low end. Below that, fixed transaction costs are quite high as a % of home value. Thanks! We all really appreciate the support, the team's working really hard to redefine a space that hasn't seen enough innovation in the past half century.