loftyai

9 ms·

31.
by loftyai 7y ago
You have a very valid point here. Our hope is that we can help them find new homes as well. Most of the homes selected by our algorithm tend to be very affordable, so a larger segment of the market can take advantage of appreciating home pr
32.
by loftyai 7y ago
We do not use census data, because they are extremely outdated. It's part of the reason we can make accurate predictions before other companies can, since they do look at census data. We use alternative data, which has recently become
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by loftyai 7y ago
Yes, your interpretation is correct! 1. we hedge on both broader market REITs/ETFs as well as localized ones, depending on how many contracts we have in the local market. 2. Because we hedge on both, the probability of this is very low
34.
by loftyai 7y ago
Haha it's not really about the stock itself. It's about how you bet in the market. If you truly believe that the market will fall, you can short sell and index fund or purchase some put options on that index. If the market does fa
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by loftyai 7y ago
Great question! In our agreement, we set the initial sales price for the customer. However, for every 30 days it does not sell on the open market, they can lower the price by up to 5% until it sells. So, if it ultimately sells for a loss as
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by loftyai 7y ago
Thanks for your question! I believe my main post or the responses might have been unclear. If so, my apologies. But your understanding isn't correct. Other companies are not insuring your downside. We are the only counter party you hav
37.
by loftyai 7y ago
Thanks for your question! We decided to do this model, because we originally sold our predictions and analytics to larger investment funds, but we noticed that when our predictions came true, we left so much money on the table. The funds we
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by loftyai 7y ago
We do have case studies, but they are bad in the case of presentation. We are a small team so when we decided to keep our analytics internal facing, we didn't spend anytime producing marketing materials or prospectuses. So, most of the
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by loftyai 7y ago
This might not be the case everywhere in the country, but typically, the seller is responsible for the agent fees. This means that if we recommend an agent for our customer, who is the buyer, that agent is actually paid for by the seller. W
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by loftyai 7y ago
You're absolutely right about this, and it is something we have and are considering everyday. I will be honest and say, at the moment, we do not have a perfect solution yet. One of the things we looked into before starting the company
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by loftyai 7y ago
Thanks! 1. A few of the top and more intuitive things we found in the bay area to be indicative of an upswing include an increase in food trucks and vietnamese restaurants. As well as increases in the number of social media postings about p
42.
by loftyai 7y ago
Our customers have 2 options. They can choose to sell, at which point, the 20% is based on gross profit realized. Or they can choose to buy us out. At which point the 20% is based on the "on paper appreciation" calculated by using
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by loftyai 7y ago
Per the operational parts of your question, it will be our lawyers who would be maintaining the 3rd party account and making sure the money gets sent to people who are owed the loss coverage. In terms of our our underwriting process works.
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by loftyai 7y ago
Ah got it! Sorry for the misunderstanding. Essentially in the case of our demise, our investors are not able to claw back the money in the 3rd party account. The rights will transfer over to our law firm to maintain kind of like an estate.
45.
by loftyai 7y ago
This is a great idea! We do not currently do this, but we do take into consideration the availability of gigabit internet as well as overall connection speeds for different neighborhoods. This has actually proven to be statistically signifi
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by loftyai 7y ago
That's a great point! This is why we deduct any home improvement costs from the gross profit calculation. So, if you spent 10,000 fixing the pipes and the gross profit was originally 100,000, we would actually deduct that from the gros
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by loftyai 7y ago
Hopefully my other reply answered your concern as well. If not, let me know, and I'll be happy to go into more detail.
48.
by loftyai 7y ago
Great question! So, we actually maintain a 3rd party account that is only allowed to invest in short-term US treasury notes. We track all the properties in our portfolio daily. Any on paper depreciation will result in us depositing funds in
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by loftyai 7y ago
Most of the real estate experience comes from our advisors. One is a prominent consultant for cities on economic development using real estate. Another started Clarion Parters, which is a massive real estate investment fund. One of our earl
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by loftyai 7y ago
Yes, we actually hedge with both depending on the area the property is located in. I hope you don't mind me not mentioning the specific products, since we don't want people in the market to bid up our hedging instruments and make
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by loftyai 7y ago
Thanks for your interest! The ideal timeline is actually 5 years if we want to see the majority of the growth. However, since we won't be making any revenue from the agreement until at the end of the term, 5 years is too long for a sta
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by loftyai 7y ago
Haha thanks, you beat me to it! :)
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by loftyai 7y ago
Great question! The Starbucks Strategy is actually well known in the industry. Believe or not, large real estate developers and investors will often follow the same signals. They also look for things like Trader Joe's or Whole Foods op
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by loftyai 7y ago
Haha not at all, since we never ended up investing. We were inexperienced and didn't really know what to look for. Homes that required extensive rehab seemed too daunting and a turnkey property in a nice neighborhood was too expensive.
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Launch HN: Lofty AI (YC S19) – Real estate investment with alternative data
81 points by loftyai 7y ago|105 comments