In this episode, I have the opportunity to interview Roofstock CEO, Gary Beasley. Roofstock is a leading real estate investment marketplace that he co-founded in 2015. Gary caught the entrepreneurial bug while earning an MBA at Stanford, and spent most of his career building businesses in the real estate, hospitality, and tech sectors.

We began as we often do by diving into Gary’s background. He talked about growing up in small midwestern towns learning a bit about the business from his dad who owned a commercial real estate brokerage firm. Gary said things really changed for him when he went to school at Northwestern and how the environment really opened his eyes to the different possibilities available to him. He decided to go to business school after working a couple of years in real estate, thinking that he wanted to do something different but ended up right back in real estate after earning his MBA from Stanford.

Gary talked about his early work experience and his different roles. He talked about how much he learned and how his confidence grew when he was able to perform duties that he had not done previously. After several years as a CFO and president for ZipRealty, he decided to take a year off to work on various projects. He took some time to teach some entrepreneur courses at Stanford and ended up making a proposal to a solar panel technology company that led to another leadership role.

Gary took some time to explain the circumstances that led him to start Roofstock and the advantages of their platform. Some of these include fast sales, costs associated with selling homes are lower than through traditional means, there is no downtime for the investment and very little disruption to the tenant. As part of this discussion, I talked a lot about why using Roofstock is desirable for an investor in my situation. Gary outlined several of the benefits and guarantees that are integral to the Roofstock marketplace.

We then discussed where Gary thinks the housing market is headed. He said that it is so hard to predict the future because there are so many variables, but it is very interesting that the housing market is still so hot after several months of the pandemic. He stressed that because of the pandemic, people are valuing their homesteads more than ever and that is having an interesting impact on the market.

Gary has an incredibly interesting background and was a great guest, so please join us for this uber-informative episode of the Just Start Real Estate Podcast!

“One of the best things about college is how it expands your horizons and your viewpoint of what is possible.”

“I encourage people to view college as a time of exploration and not necessarily as a practical, pre-professional period.”

“College really teaches you how to think.”

“Early in your career, do things for the experience, not for the money.”

“The more difficult the decision, the less it matters what you decide.”

“You lean on experts that can help you.”

“Make sure you are surrounded by the right people.”

“Embrace the process and everything will be okay.”

“If you stay where you are comfortable, I hope you are comfortable where you currently are because that is where you will remain.”

“We are trying to break down the geographic barriers to real estate investing.”

“When you are building a marketplace, it has to be on a foundation of trust.”

“It has to be trust first, then growth, and then profitability.”

Roofstock