Theo K. Browne: Meet the Real Estate Tech Founder: Sahil Gupta from Patch Homes

In our latest real estate tech entrepreneur interview, we’re speaking with Sahil Gupta from Patch Homes.

Without further ado…

What do you do?

I’m the co-founder of Patch Homes, a financial institution that’s focused on unlocking home-equity wealth for homeowners in a debt-free manner.

For most Americans their home is their single largest asset Yet, existing options for pulling cash out of their homes force consumers to take on more debt i.e. home equity loans, HELOCs or sell their home This leaves many americans asset rich, but cash flow sensitive. Add to that, that in recent years many banks have exited the home-equity business leaving a big-gap in the market.

We believe that there should be a way to tap into the equity of their asset without selling their home or adding on more debt. With Patch Homes, we’re addressing a big market gap by offering homeowners a payment-free financing option for their home-equity wealth. Patch offers homeowners a lump sum payment, and in exchange we share in the future appreciation or depreciation of the home’s value. Homeowners can pay us out within 10-years without any interest or monthly payments in the interim.

What problem does your product/service solve?

We see a gap in financial markets where the banks are only capable of offering consumer credit offerings (home equity loans, HELOCs etc.). These products do not address the key pain-point for many homeowners: cash-flow sensitivity. Many Americans after paying their mortgage, credit card payments, student loans, and monthly bills just don’t have much left at the end of every month.

As a result, for these homeowners, accessing home equity via a credit offering is not a real option.With Patch Homes, we enable homeowners to access the equity without the additional debt-burden or stress of a monthly payment. Through our offering, we’re creating financial alignment that is a true partnership between homeowners and Patch, that positively impacts a homeowners financial profile and that has the potential to unlock more than a trillion dollars of wealth for consumer spending.

What are you most excited about right now?

Over the past year, we’ve have seen the impact that our product can have on people’s lives. We’ve partnered with and helped homeowners overcome challenges that they wouldn’t have been able to solve without Patch. Correspondingly, the demand for Patch has been way more significant than we thought when we started. As a result, we’ve had to quickly scale up our investments in technology, data science and on the capital markets side of the business in the past 6 months.

I’m very excited to leverage our new product offerings and platform to help more homeowners across the county, and have a positive impact on our customers financial lives. On average we’ve saved the homeowners we have partnered with >$1,000 a month with an average increase in their credit score of 40 points.

What’s next for you?

We believe in developing ‘human-centered financial products’ to help solve consumer pain-points. In fact, our approach to the real estate market is the exact opposite of fee based approach from traditional market players and we intend to build upon that foundation for years to come.

In the near term, we are looking at expanding into new markets this year to work with more homeowners – Oregon, Utah, Arizona, Colorado, New York to name a few. We’re also partnering with institutions to help bring a new approach to real-estate investments and asset management.

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

I’m an immigrant in the US, and consider myself lucky to have an opportunity to build a company with an amazing team and founders. That said, not everyone gets such an opportunity in today’s world. At a personal level, I deeply care about providing entrepreneurs who come from non-traditional background the opportunity to build their businesses on an equal footing with everyone else.

I believe that the more diverse our entrepreneurs and teams are, the better businesses we can build. So, in my own small way, I try to help other founders to pay it forward, and help them achieve their dreams.

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

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).

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