Why the Monopoly Man?
For nearly a century, the board game famous for causing fights on family vacations became the first introduction to the world of real estate for many. The Monopoly Man, adorned in a top hat, bow tie, and three-piece suit, became a symbol of the real estate mogul. In part, the imagery was fun, whimsical, and innocent; however, the character paints a picture of unattainable wealth achievable through real estate.
Background - An Inkling of an Idea
Growing up playing the game and listening to parents/mentors / uber drivers, the concept of real estate investing became incredibly attractive to me. Entering my early 20s, I became obsessed with investing in a property of my own. One problem: I had no clue what I was doing. I took courses, spent 180+ hours achieving my real estate license, and finally acquired a property.
In the process of buying my first property, I faced countless archaic processes, nearly quit 10 times, and looked for any affordable alternative path to directly invest in real estate. I was met with no solutions.
After working with tech companies, crypto banks, and financial institutions in Goldman Sachs’ Investment Banking group, I took a month off and walked throughout all of New York with a little black notebook. Every time I had a coherent stream of thought, I stopped in a coffee shop. I would sweat all over the notebook and feverishly write a blockchain concept to solve the inefficiencies in traditional real estate. After averaging 10 miles a day in post-pandemic NYC summer for a month, I went back and complained to my girlfriend: “If only I had the right co-founder.”
After the aforementioned month, I moved to Dallas to work for the Real Estate Investing Group in GS. Thrilled by the distance between us (sarcasm), my incredibly patient girlfriend still heard my plethora of complaints from 1,300 miles away. One night after the millionth complaint, (if she’s reading this, apologies and thank you!), she snapped. In a s*** or get off the pot moment, I would either have to find a co-founder or shut up.
Next Steps - Time to Start S****ing
After meeting my co-founder at a group happy hour, I knew I had to have him on my team. He had personally invested in multiple properties and was driven, passionate, and sick at tennis. After a week, I called him asking him to meet me in a greasy diner. I brought the notebook. Seeing the sweat stains and smears in the notebook, he listened to me go on for 2+ hours. He was hooked, and after 6 more hours of planning, we had the basis for mogul.
After countless all-nighters, numerous investor pitches, and multiple tennis matches, we are incredibly proud to introduce mogul to the world.
Why Invest in Real Estate
Simple: stability, cash flow, and tax benefits
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Stability - Real estate is a tangible investment with inherent value. The property generates cash flow through rental income. Shelter is one of life’s necessities; therefore, the stability of cash flow and appreciation weather all economic environments. This stability allows investors to put leverage, or debt, on the property to increase returns. Positive leverage is the result of an investor putting a mortgage on the property to increase the returns on their equity. If an investor buys a property for $100 all cash, and the property increases by 10%, the investor’s return is 10%. If they “lever up” and buy the property with 80% debt, the same 10% increase in value results in an investor return of 50% ($100 property value - $80 debt = $20 invested, property increases to $110 - $100 property value = $10 increase / $20 investment = 50%).
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Cash Flow - If you rent, you pay rental income to property investors each month. A reliable, steady, long-term stream of cash that goes right into the investor’s pocket minus the operating expenses.
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Tax Benefits - The tax code rewards property owners with several valuable deductions and credits, including depreciation, tax credits, and tax-free exchange. Depreciation is the process of recovering part of your investment through deductions on your annual income tax return. The IRS allows you to deduct a certain percentage of your building’s cost each year over 27.5 years (39 years for the nonresidential property). Tax credits provide dollar-for-dollar reductions in what you owe Uncle Sam—they're even better than deductions because they reduce taxes dollar for dollar instead of just cents off per dollar spent/invested as with standard deductions.
What We Do
We partner with investment property owners looking to sell part or all of their equity in a property. Through a streamlined diligence and underwriting process, we arrive at an agreed-upon price with the owner. They onboard the property onto our platform through a streamlined process, and we sell the property to all investors on our marketplace. After the property is sold, the investors in the property receive all of the monetary benefits of owning the property. Our platform unlocks additional benefits via the strategic application of blockchain, including but not limited to daily dividends, real-time appreciation, tax benefits, governance structure, low time commitment, and liquidity.
Why Invest using mogul
As mentioned earlier in the post:
- Daily Cash Flow - We distribute rental income on a daily basis
- Real-Time Appreciation - We track property value in real time through third-party data providers and a proprietary valuation model
- Flexible Investment Horizon - Investors can sell their ownership stake on our marketplace at any time
- Low Time Commitment - Day-to-Day operations are in the hand of a licensed real estate professional, while the investor only votes on major decisions
- Full Tax Benefits - We provide investors with a K-1 at the end of the year to receive all of the tax benefits achieved during their respective ownership period
- Invest Alongside Pros - Each property is vetted by real estate professionals with billions of dollars in transactional experience, and they co-invest alongside the users to keep all incentives aligned
Why Blockchain
Blockchain and real estate were made for one another, literally. In 1998, Nick Szabo posted the idea in a white paper about deed registration happening online through cryptographically encrypted transactions. He theorized the technology made sense, but the third party needed to validate each transaction would present potential bad actor problems. Then, Satoshi Nakomoto came along with the Bitcoin and decentralized consensus nearly 10 years later.
Real estate is always the last mover in a technological sense. We are just now seeing the benefits of proptech; however, at mogul see the myriad of benefits blockchain creates when applied to the archaic processes of real estate. Each slow, inefficient process can be replaced with smart contracts.
As such, we apply blockchain to every aspect of the transactional process so that we can keep down costs and pass along those savings to the end user. We continuously find ways to benefit from the application of the technology and pass it all to you: the user.
Conclusion
We launched our platform, and the registration for our waitlist is open. We would greatly appreciate it if you could check us out, and if you like it, register. If not, register again and tell us why. Either way, we look forward to providing everyone with direct access to real estate investing with our first property launching coming soon.