Imagine owning only one-eighth of a house. You get many of the benefits of a regular holiday home, except you share the ownership with seven other parties. Would that interest you? This week I catch up with Austin Allison. Austin co-founded a platform called Pacaso which enables second-home ownership through a fractional ownership model. Through this model of home ownership, Pacaso is able to increase the utilisation of a second home from 10-15% to roughly 90%. Within six months of launching, the business scored a $1 billion valuation which skyrocketed the startup to unicorn status. In this episode, Austin and I discuss the fractional home ownership model, how Pacaso acquires properties, the spectrum of buyers, and the purchasing process. We also dig deeper into his entrepreneurial journey and how he's built such an impressive company in just two years.

Discussion points

03:10 What is Pacaso

06:45 Timeshare vs Fractional Ownership

08:20 How scheduling works

14:00 Adoption of the fractional ownership model

17:51 Ways of acquiring properties

19:40 The spectrum of buyers

21:16 Austin's entrepreneurial journey

25:17 Challenges Austin's faced

29:00 Raising money for a startup

32:00 Working with investors

34:25 Austin's expectations

36:00 Family support

38:20 The mechanics of a company like Pacaso

40:00 Benefits of co-ownership

43:07 How Pacaso makes money

45:00 How the homes are sold

46:37 How real estate brokers react to Pacaso

Show Sponsors:

Smartkas: Providing food security as a service [https://www.instagram.com/smartkastech/?hl=en]

Najahi Events: The UAE's leading event promotor [https://www.instagram.com/najahievents/?hl=en]

Socials:

Spencer Lodge

https://www.instagram.com/spencer.lodge/?hl=en

https://www.linkedin.com/in/spencerlodge/

https://www.youtube.com/c/SpencerLodgeTV

Austin Allison

https://www.instagram.com/gaustinallison/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/austinallison

https://mobile.twitter.com/gaustinallison