Theo K. Browne: Meet the Real Estate Tech Founder: Tom Owen from Home Bay

In our latest real estate tech entrepreneur interview, we’re speaking with Tom Owen, co-founder of Home Bay. He has a long industry track record, and we’re glad to have him as a recent addition to the Geek Estate Mastermind.

Without further ado…

What do you do?

I am the co-founder of Home Bay. I mostly work on product. Formerly I co-founded Zurple, and I still own a traditional real estate brokerage in Coronado, California, called Owen Properties.

What problem does your product/service solve?

Home Bay uses a combination of technology and processes to greatly reduce the amount of Realtor time necessary to facilitate a sale. To supplement those technology and processes, we have a team of highly experienced brokers who answer consumer and agent questions from a centralized location. The above creates large cost savings that we pass on to consumers. For real estate listings, we generally charge $2000 to $3500 to facilitate a sale. On the buy-side, we rebate back half of the commission.

There are thus two key pain points Home Bay solves:

We are much less expensive than the traditional Realtor
We are able to respond more quickly to consumer needs because of our centralized team that is available 9am to 8pm, seven days a week. Consumers love quick access to quality Realtors. We’ve now closed over 1,000 transactions for buyers and sellers.

What are you most excited about right now?

I am most excited about the ability of our software to coach home sellers through an offer, 24/7. Our database is programmed at the zip code level, and it can literally comment on offers in real time based on the local real estate norms.

For example, if a buyer in Houston at the $200,000 price point asks for a $1,000 home warranty, the software will inform the seller that the buyer is overreaching and suggest an appropriate amount for the price point and zip code. This AI-based real estate coaching exists for all major aspects of an offer.

What’s next for you?

We recently launched in Houston and now cover California, Florida, Georgia and Illinois. We are in the process of expanding our footprint beyond Houston homes for sale to cover all of Texas and launching in Colorado. We hope to cover most of the United States over the course of the next 18 months. We are also spending a lot of time enhancing our buyer search experience.

What’s a cause you’re passionate about and why?

I am passionate about politics. I formerly worked in the White House Speechwriting Office in the Clinton administration, and the political bug never left me. For the last 12 years, I have spent approximately 6 weeks a year living in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. I keenly follow international politics, particularly as they relate to Mexico.

Thanks to Tom for sharing his story. If you’d like to connect, find him on LinkedIn here.

Meet The RE Tech Entrepreneur We’re constantly looking for great real estate tech entrepreneurs to feature. If that’s you, please read this post — then drop me a line (drew @ geekestatelabs dot com).