Investing

Eve Picker: Hey, everyone, this is Eve Picker, and if you listen to this podcast series, you’re going to learn how to make some change.

Eve Picker: Hi there. Thanks so much for joining me today for the latest episode of Impact Real Estate Investing. My guest today is Matt Hoffman, whose primary interest these days is the intersection of housing and technology. He’s an active early-stage investor in companies with tech-enabled solutions that can transform the housing sector in a way that increases affordability and sustainability.

Eve Picker: He’s also a founding partner in HEALTH+, a suite of telehealth services bringing healthcare and lower-cost prescription medications to lower-income residents of multifamily housing. This is built on his background of over 25 years’ experience in the private, public, and non-profit sectors, as a social and business entrepreneur and serving as a policy advisor to the U.S. Secretary of Commerce.

Eve Picker: Be sure to go to Eve Picker.com to find out more about Matt on the show notes page for this episode and be sure to sign up for my newsletter, so you can access information about impact real estate investing and get the latest news about the exciting projects on my crowdfunding platform, Small Change.

Eve Picker: Hi, Matt. Welcome. Thank you for joining me.

Matt Hoffman: Pleasure to be here, Eve.

Eve Picker: I know that your interests have shifted over the years, and you worked as a developer in a large mission-driven organization for a while, but you’re now pretty squarely focused on technology and innovation. I’m just wondering how that shift happened.

Matt Hoffman: While working in residential development for 15 years, in one capacity or another, it became very clear that the housing market was getting away from most Americans, whether they were renting or seeking home ownership. By that, I just mean it just wasn’t accessible or affordable. People obviously are housed, but not in an optimal way. Looking at the market, a question that I asked myself, coming from a policy background, was how could we transform the way that we build, that we preserve housing in the country?

Matt Hoffman: Although there certainly are some key policy levers that we could pull, I felt that the biggest shift could come from the market side, itself, and through the application of technology, which really has not penetrated the housing sector like it has most other sectors of our economy. That really was the draw – trying to solve for the housing affordability challenge that the US faces right now and looking for entrepreneurs who were looking to apply technology and business model innovation enabled through technology to the housing market.

Eve Picker: You created HousingTech Ventures?

Matt Hoffman: I did. HousingTech Ventures is a technology-focused venture fund seeking early-stage companies – seed stage and Series A – that have solutions that are tech-enabled solving a problem in the housing market in a way that, at scale, could increase housing affordability. The way I think about it is where are the entrepreneurs in the housing sector that could provide that kind of transformation or disruption, even, to the marketplace that Uber did to the taxi market or Airbnb to the hotel market? It’s not so much that they eliminated the incumbents, but they really forced those incumbents and the regulators who oversee those markets to change their business practices.

Matt Hoffman: We need to see that in the housing market, and the evidence is clear. We have 7.4 million units-  a shortage of 7.4 million units that are affordable to lower-income Americans. We need to add 400,000 new units per year – that’s a net number – to serve the number of renter households that are coming into the market over the next decade; that’s 4 million units right there. We need to add 8 million units of home ownership over the next decade for the new household formation. We clearly are not going to get there using the same practices that we’ve been using over the past several decades. In fact, it’s getting harder as we try and address existential issues, like climate change, which, rightfully so, are forcing us to change our policies, which unfortunately make it harder to produce housing.

Eve Picker: Yes.

Matt Hoffman: We need that kind of disruption and transformation in the housing sector.

Eve Picker: I usually think about this in terms of building, construction, disruption, but I’m sure you’re thinking about it in in other ways. Can you tell us about any disruptors that you are seeing that are very different?

Matt Hoffman: Sure. I’m very excited, first, about what we’re seeing in the construction-tech sector; entrepreneurs who are applying technology to how we build. Fortunately, there’s a lot of capital flowing to those companies; whether that’s 3-D printing, or construction-site management, or the use of drones, or robotics, especially related to bricklaying and drywall hanging; lots of opportunity in construction tech, and that’s all good. That’s automation, which produces greater efficiency, which will lower the cost of inputs to produce housing.

Matt Hoffman: I have been focused more on business-model innovation that’s enabled through technology. What excites me about that, first and foremost, is it’s less obvious, and there’s not as much capital flowing, so I tend to be attracted to harder problems to solve. Automation, in general, is happening throughout the economy. It’s finally penetrating construction and the building trades, and that’s going to happen over time. The real challenge is how can we accelerate change? I think that’s through business-model innovation.

Matt Hoffman: Let me give you a couple of examples of the type of companies that I’m interested in. There’s a company, for example, in Seattle called CityBldr, an early-stage company that is using machine learning in identifying opportunities to build housing, by-right, according to the zoning code, by aggregating potential development parcels, which is a very difficult [cross talk]

Eve Picker: -it’s very difficult. Yeah.

Matt Hoffman: What I like about the CityBldr’s approach is there are sophisticated software tools for developers to use to do that type of modeling, but the approach that CityBldr is taking is both on the supply and demand side. So, the supply side are the landowners, the current landowners, who essentially have a lock on the property. The demand side, in this case, is the developers or even cities that are seeking economic development and revitalization for an area. This tool is egalitarian in that it enables both parties to come to the table and look what could be built and does a pro forma that demonstrates to both sides what the economics are of the deal and what the land value the deal can tolerate.

Matt Hoffman: I’m hopeful that through this type of analytics being applied in the marketplace, we’ll be able to unstick deals that don’t get done for a variety of reasons and put tools in the hands of both buyers and sellers to enable development to happen and to enable it to happen by-right, so we can get the highest and best use for land that’s appropriately placed, that’s in demand, and that can help alleviate the housing challenge. That’s a machine-learning example.

Matt Hoffman: We also have companies that are unlocking credit opportunities for people who’ve been shut out of the credit markets. There’s a company based here in Washington, D.C., where I am, called TILL (T-I-L-L) that’s working with renters who are either no-file, or thin-file, to use the credit vernacular. In other words, they have no credit or poor credit. These renters, like anyone, sometimes experience unforeseen challenges that restrict their cash flow.

Matt Hoffman: Example: someone is doing all the right things. They’re housing themselves and their family. They’re working, and the car breaks down; they need to pay $1,000 to get the car repaired, and they need the car in order to get to work. But now they’ve spent $1,000 on the car that they were going to spend on rent. They don’t have savings. What do they do? Really, their only … They have two options. One is to not pay the rent. They don’t pay the rent, not only do they face late fees, but they could get evicted. The other option is to go to a payday lender, which will likely charge upwards of 400-percent APR and put them into an endless cycle of late fees and loan renewals. These are loans that are designed for the customer to fail.

Matt Hoffman: TILL saw the opportunity with these borrowers to provide them with a loan structure that’s designed for them to succeed. In other words, it’s not a predatory situation. TILL can provide the service and make money without preying on these very vulnerable borrowers. What does that do? That’s essentially de-risks the credit from the landlord because TILL pays the landlord directly, and it also enables the tenant to bridge whatever minor financial crisis that they’re currently facing, get back on track, and, most importantly, stay housed. They don’t have to move themselves or their family and potentially end up on the street. Those are just two examples. One is, obviously, zoning. One is credit. There are many others I could give, as well.

Eve Picker: Be sure to go to EvePicker.com and sign up for my free educational newsletter about impact real estate investing. You’ll be among the first to hear about new projects you can invest in. That’s EvePicker.com. Thanks so much.

Eve Picker: Yeah, I think I saw one … I think it was New York Times, just this week, where these two guys started a company where they help people with rental security deposits, which I suppose might be another barrier of entry for a lot of people.

Matt Hoffman: Exactly. Again, that’s a credit-based model, or financial-services- based model. There’s so much opportunity for business-model innovation around financial services and credit. In the US, if you want to house yourself, most people have only two options. You either sign a 12 -month lease, which does require an additional security deposit, or you sign a 30-year mortgage.

Matt Hoffman: We are much more sophisticated than that. We can offer people a host of options for both home ownership and for renting that can better suit their economic situation, and even their temporal needs. Maybe someone only is prepared to obligate themselves for three or six months instead of the standard 12 months. Unfortunately, the business models have not only been locked in by the market side, but also by regulation, much of it very well-intentioned for tenant protection, but, to a large extent, I think that’s inhibited owners and landlords from innovating and offering other solutions. I think that’s largely, in part, because we’ve had too many bad actors in the real estate market who’ve preyed on tenants who, especially at the lower end of the income spectrum, are very vulnerable. We’ve had some pretty heavy handed regulations which, when that occurs, tend to inhibit innovation.

Eve Picker: Well, I can see why you’re fascinated by all of this. Still, that’s like how on earth do we bridge the 7.4 million short? That’s crazy. That’s a very big number.

Matt Hoffman: One way to do that is not only through production. There’s no way we’re going to build our way out of this in the near term. The shortage for affordable units is actually 7.4 million. That’s according to the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, which is the annual report, which is the Bible of the industry. If you put a number on that of $200,000 per unit, that’s $1.5 trillion of capital, we would need to build our way out of it. Not to mention, how would we address the labor issues, the labor supply issues? We clearly don’t have enough construction workers in the country, right now; as well as where would we build it, permitting, et cetera? We could not build our way out of this.

Matt Hoffman: We also need to look … That’s the supply side, but there is the demand side. We are seeing co-housing and other models emerge where, again, we’re moving away from the traditional model of one tenant or two tenants per unit and looking at unrelated parties sharing spaces in ways that are not locked into that 12-month lease. There are companies, like Nesterly, out of New York, which is opening up a service in Boston that matches millennials with seniors who have extra rooms in their apartment that they’d like to rent. The millennials that they’re targeting are typically seniors- I’m sorry, students, of which Boston has only 250,000 full time students. Plenty of market share there for them to penetrate.

Matt Hoffman: Then, other companies, like Common, and Starcity that are bringing co-housing to the multifamily market. PadSplit, which is bringing co-housing to the single-family-rental market. On the demand side, we’re filling in with different models that can not necessarily produce new units but can house more people. That’s going to be essential because the two biggest demographic cohorts in our country are millennials, which is a bigger cohort than the baby boomers, and seniors. Those two cohorts – millennials, and seniors – will continue to be the largest for the next couple of decades. Their housing needs are significantly different than what has become the typical housing scenario – which I referred to earlier – of 12-month lease or 30-year mortgage that has dominated the marketplace for the last multiple decades.

Eve Picker: Yeah, okay. I think that’s right. Family structure is also changing. The house for mom, dad and 2.3 kids isn’t really quite the way we live anymore is it? Or many of us-

Matt Hoffman: It’s not. You actually have a pretty interesting innovator in Pittsburgh who’s addressing that. Brian, at Module, has a company that’s thinking of the home as essentially an expanding unit. Constructing a new home, starter home, that’s two bedroom/one bath, but it’s built in a way such that you can add on additional components as a family’s needs change. Add a bedroom and a bath as children are introduced into the equation; add an accessory dwelling unit, if parents come home to live, or even students who’ve graduated and return to live at the family home while they start their careers.

Matt Hoffman: This notion of being able to stay in place … When we talk about aging in place, we often think of people in their 60s, 70s, and 80s not wanting to go to a nursing home and holding onto the family home or an apartment. What I think the new definition of aging in place, that Module and others, who are introducing the concept of a transforming home, bring to the market is that the home can be more than just a single- serve a single purpose or a single point in time without major renovation.

Eve Picker: Yes. Still, my frustration with a modular market like that is it’s so expensive. It really- it just hasn’t reached the point yet where it makes a lot of sense for most people. It’s, I think, a good idea, but it’s still extremely expensive, but maybe that will change really soon.

Matt Hoffman: One of the things we need to change, I think, with regard to that – and I’m not a modular expert per se – but oftentimes the cost of development or construction only looks at the structure until the point it’s delivered to the marketplace and not at the ongoing operating costs. I think that factory-built housing, whether it’s modular, or panelized, or manufactured, most people would agree it produces a better product. It’s better built.

Matt Hoffman: It’s not built in the environment where it’s exposed to rain, weather, and other issues, so the operating costs can be reduced – there’s fewer repairs, the seals are tighter, et cetera. I think, over the next few years, my prediction would be that we’ll find that people who are developing and financing housing will do a better job of calculating forward costs and not just the project-related costs, when they’re factoring in the viability of factory-produced housing.

Eve Picker: Really, what it requires is for financial institutions to factor in those forward-looking costs so that someone building a modular home gets a credit for it, because the operating expenses are going to be lower, and therefore, they can maybe borrow more. I think that’s part of the problem. People are trying to hit a budget at the beginning of a project. They only have this much money, and they need that much space.

Matt Hoffman: That’s exactly right. I think that this all goes back to a very valuable lesson I learned called the Golden Rule. I didn’t learn it in Sunday school. I actually learned it early on in my career as a developer. It’s not the Golden Rule that you think. This Golden Rule is he or she who has the gold, makes the rules. I learned that as a developer, getting very frustrated, going to banks, trying to borrow money for projects that I thought were extremely compelling and would be financially rewarding. But as a new, young developer, I was consistently getting rejected for my loan applications. A more seasoned developer said that my problem was I didn’t understand the Golden Rule when I was trying to argue the logic of investing in my project.

Eve Picker: That’s right. Anyway, I do think that innovation has to occur at the bank level, at the mortgage level, along with all of this. It’s pretty hard to borrow money, as you know, not only because it’s the first project you’re doing, but also because it’s different. It doesn’t fit the cookie-cutter project that banks want to invest in. I hope bankers are listening here … Anyway, you also have another company that you’re a partner in, HEALTH+. I’m wondering how that fits into all of this.

Matt Hoffman: I decided that one of the best ways to be a venture capitalist was to understand the other side of the table. It was actually a little bit more serendipitous than I’m presenting in that expression. As I started to structure HousingTech Ventures, I was approached by someone in the insurance business I’d known for a long time. He explained that one of the products that he sells to employers is a telehealth product that rides alongside the standard health insurance that people get offered from their employers.

Matt Hoffman: It’s a 24/7 service called Teladoc that any employer that offers it to their employees, the employee can call, speak with a licensed medical doctor, 24/7, either over the phone or video-chat platform that’s offered through their app. What he explained was that employees love this, because most of the time … In fact, the industry reports about 70 percent of the time, visits to the doctor could be handled over the phone. This is cold and flu, upper respiratory, sore throat, earaches, stomach ache, things of that nature.

Matt Hoffman: Oftentimes, I’m sure you’ve had the experience where you know that you need an antibiotic or some other medication, but you need to go see the doctor in order to get the prescription written. You go, and it turns out to be the exact scenario you predicted. With the tele-health, you obviate the need for transportation, for the unexpected hours that you can end up waiting in the doctor’s waiting room, even though you have an appointment, or worse, for some people who go to emergency rooms for non-emergency care, that can be a significant amount of time – four to five hours – not to mention that it’s a use of resources that are needed elsewhere.

Matt Hoffman: His epiphany was what if we replace the employer with the landlord and offered this product to especially lower-income renters who struggle to access health care? Having spent 15 years in affordable housing and interacted with many lower-income renters and understanding the difficult situation that they’re often in having to make difficult choices, I recognized that this would be an invaluable tool. The question really was, could we get landlords to see that by having healthier tenants, it would be worthwhile them paying for the healthcare.

Matt Hoffman: It’s at a price point where it really does make sense, because a healthier tenant is someone who goes to work, and lower-income people mostly or hourly workers, which means shift work. So, if they are awakened at 3:00 in the morning by a child who is not feeling well, and they have to be at work at 6:00 or 7:00 in the morning, they’re put in a very difficult situation. Do I take my child to the doctor, and if I do, do I potentially miss work, and if I miss work, do I get fired? Since, most shift work, that is the penalty for not showing up. Or, do I go to work, and my child remains untreated? In this country, with the resources we have – the doctors, not to mention the capital – people shouldn’t be in that situation.

Matt Hoffman: This really isn’t a social program because, for the landlord, if that tenant misses work and it disrupts their income, they’re likely to have to move out, either of their own choice or through eviction. If that happens, it can cost the landlord $2,500 to $4,000 in turning that unit. So, it really does make sense to prophylactically provide a tenant with access to this type of healthcare. We started this company about five months ago, and we’ve already started rolling out with several landlords, and we’re getting very positive feedback.

Eve Picker: That’s fabulous. So, you’re a startup?

Matt Hoffman: I’m a startup, so that’s why I’m kind of eating my own lunch … That’s not the right expression, but eating my own cooking, because I am out in the marketplace with large- and medium-sized landlords, primarily, trying to sell them something, just like startups are coming to me, trying to sell me on an investment in their company. I understand the challenges of presenting your case, knowing that you’re right, and believing in what you’re doing, and having people on the other side of the table say no, or even worse than no is maybe [cross talk] maybe puts you in no man’s land.

Eve Picker: I’m going to connect you to a landlord who I think might be interested, in D.C., okay, when we’re finished. I think it’s a fabulous idea.

Matt Hoffman: Wonderful.

Eve Picker: What do you like best about the world of real estate impact investing? We’re clearly in the middle of it.

Matt Hoffman: What excites me about impact investing in real estate is that traditional real estate investing is all about yield. I think whether it’s commercial or residential, we’ve really gotten away from the power of architecture, and design, and the effect that the built environment has on the human condition. The impact side of real estate investing brings that back to the table.

Matt Hoffman: I’m in Washington, D.C.. If you come visit us downtown, now, every new building, because of the height restriction we have here, is a glass box that’s built out the lot line. I can put you on almost any street, and there’s very little distinction between any of the buildings, and you’d have no visual reference for where you were, especially if we took away the street signs. I think that’s really a missed opportunity, not just for the aesthetics of the city, but it really diminishes the livability of the city, because it becomes just a purely functional place. I think that architecture, both on the commercial and residential side, and how we build communities is so critical to our existence, to our positivity, to our engagement with each other.

Matt Hoffman: Impact investing, in my opinion, is bringing that element back in. Maybe less so on the design side, because you still have the economics of the deal, which are largely driven by land costs and the cost of capital, which we were talking earlier, but how people live in structures, whether they’re single-family, or multifamily, or even commercial properties. The impact investing side is bringing that element to the table again. For people who are passionate about society, whether it’s connected to real estate or not – if that passion is connected to real estate or not – I think can participate now in real estate investing and the power of real estate to determine what our society- how it evolves.

Eve Picker: Maybe equity crowdfunding has a little role in that, because communities can actually also participate in what’s going to happen in their community. That’s what I would hope for it anyway.

Matt Hoffman: Oh, absolutely, because impact investing is all about alignment of values with the investment. You have capital; you have values; you deploy the capital in a way that aligns with those values. I think that’s what I’m driving at with how we can connect something more than just the economics of a real estate deal to that deal, whether that’s about affordable housing, education, health care, job training, employment, whatever that might be. Certainly, climate change, that’s the most obvious one. We’re seeing a decent amount of capital, I think, flow into real estate that is more sensitive to climate change. We have a long way to go, though.

Eve Picker: Where do you think the future of real estate impact investing lies? You say we have a long way to go; what’s kind of the [cross talk]

Matt Hoffman: When it comes to money, I think that people have good intentions, but, at the end of the day, most people want the highest deal that they can get in any investment. We need to build awareness globally, not just in the US, about the long-term effects of any investment and make more transparent that the investments that you make that yield the highest returns often fly in the face of your personal values. We, as an impact … Someone who’s been involved in impact investing for the last decade or so, I don’t think we’ve made that message very clear to people. I think it’s the most powerful element of impact investing.

Matt Hoffman: I think that most capital that’s deployed in impact investing in the future will be done at the local level, because that’s where people will be able to touch and feel their money making a difference. When we abstract investing, like we have, the sophistication of the financial markets now is such that if you have some means and are invested, you have exposure globally, and you don’t have to have millions of dollars to do that. You can do that through unsophisticated retail accounts and financial advisors, as most for 401ks, or those types of vehicles have access to. When you abstract it, you remove that personal connection. Impact investing enables us to reinstitute that connection, and I think that’s going to be the most compelling thing that unlocks more capital that goes into charter schools, affordable housing, healthcare clinics, et cetera, that we deem to be true impact.

Eve Picker: I hope that’s right, because I think you’re right; I think people still thinking, first and foremost, about the financial return and not the triple bottom line. It feels to me like, in the impact investing world, people want both. They’re not willing to compromise yet. I hope that changes a little bit.

Matt Hoffman: Well, I think if you continue to promote these types of conversations and raise awareness, it’ll be a big step forward to doing that.

Eve Picker: Good, good. I have three sign-off questions for you that we talked about before, and I’d love to know your answer. The first is what do you think is the key factor that makes a real estate project impactful to you?

Matt Hoffman: For me, the key factor is does it have an element that can be modeled by others to change how we house people? Impact is about transforming what we’re doing right now. I love projects where I can look at something and say, “I haven’t seen that before, and that can be applied over there, and over there, and over there, and replicated time and time again, at scale.” I think that that’s the key factor for me.

Eve Picker: That’s pretty interesting. Then, crowdfunding can benefit an impactful real estate investor in just raising money, but I wonder if you think it can benefit in other ways, as well.

Matt Hoffman: I do. I think that crowdfunding has the ability to bring new partners together at the local level. As I was referencing a few minutes ago, these local projects, whether they’re economic development, trying to drive new jobs, or retain jobs in a community, or build senior housing, which we need a lot more of, or transform a downtown, all of these elements, I believe, get people excited. It’s the crowdfunding element, where everyone can participate in achieving that vision that I think can make the big difference. Obviously, bringing the capital to the table is essential and the primary purpose of crowdfunding, but there’s a strong social element to it that can bind a community together that I think is equally as valuable.

Eve Picker: I do agree with you. Finally, this is a really hard one – if you could change one thing that would make real estate development better in the US, what would that be?

Matt Hoffman: Without a doubt, it would be eliminating or, at best, modifying single-family zoning. We’ve seen two examples of it in this past year, in Minneapolis, and the state of Oregon. Those regulations have been passed. I’m a firm believer that we need to densify many- not all, but many neighborhoods and at least put the power of that densification back in the hands of property owners and local urban planners.

Matt Hoffman: Without that, and our inability to continue to sprawl – we shouldn’t do anyway, but especially in light of climate change – and our lack of ability to invest in new infrastructure, we’re going to continue to languish in this current period of having an immense shortage of affordable housing. Without a doubt, for me, it’s eliminating single-family zoning and allowing much denser development to happen in neighborhoods that are well-located, connected to transit, near good schools, and in economically thriving areas.

Eve Picker: Well, that was really fabulous. Thank you, Matt. I really enjoyed talking to you, and I’m sure we’ll talk again.

Matt Hoffman: Thank you, Eve.

Eve Picker: That was Matt Hoffman. There is no doubt that finding affordable housing solutions through technology is foremost in Matt’s mind. He’s thinking big, sourcing companies like CityBldr, which uses machine learning to aggregate land, or credit companies, like TILL, trying to solve credit issues for low-income tenants, and Matt has thrown his hat into the ring by launching his own startup, HEALTH+. With a shortage of 7.4 million affordable housing units today, we need Matt to keep thinking big.

Eve Picker: You can find out more about impact real estate investing and access the show notes for today’s episode at my website site, EvePicker.com. While you’re there, sign up for my newsletter to find out more about how to make money in real estate while building better cities. Thank you so much for spending your time with me today, and thank you, Matt, for sharing your thoughts. We’ll talk again soon, but for now, this is Eve Picker signing off to go make some change.