Roofstock hits $2Bn property transaction milestone and sees home seller numbers increase by 10

Buoyed by strong growth, award-winning real estate marketplace makes strategic investments in user experience and long-term innovation.

Roofstock, a leading online marketplace for investing in the $3 trillion single-family rental home sector, announced it has surpassed $2 billion in transaction value since it debuted in 2016. The company’s momentum underscores the enormous pent-up demand from investors seeking exposure to U.S. housing and Roofstock’s success in leveraging technology to help investors access the asset class - making real estate investing nearly as easy as buying stocks.

There was also significant growth on the supply side. The number of home sellers on Roofstock’s marketplace increased by 10x from 2018, creating a steady pipeline of investment opportunities for prospective buyers throughout the year. The key benefits to sellers include selling 77 percent faster on Roofstock than through typical channels, the ability to sell tenant-occupied properties and significantly reduced fees compared to traditional brokerages.

Roofstock CEO Gary Beasley said: 

“Achieving $2 billion in transactions on our marketplace is a validation of our original thesis that people would be willing to buy homes, sight unseen, from anywhere in the world. Investors are hungry for exposure to tangible real estate assets and we’ve given them an avenue to get in the game, armed with extensive information and a robust set of services to support them at every step of the process. We’re excited to continue improving and rolling out new products in the year ahead.”

These announcements come on the heels of a $210 million transaction Roofstock helped facilitate through its platform on behalf of Invitation Homes, the nation’s largest institutional owner of single-family rental properties. Roofstock’s platform is unique in that it can serve both large institutional investors and retail investors seeking to buy or sell individual homes, or even fractional shares of homes.

Roofstock’s success with investors has enabled the company to invest in itself over the last year, with multiple new hires, awards and product releases that position the company for long-term success, including:

• The soft launch of Roofstock Platform Services, which leverages REACT, the company’s proprietary Real Estate Analytic Cloud Technology. This robust Real Estate as a Service offering effectively creates the real estate investment “cloud” for investors. Roofstock Platform Services allows institutional investors with no infrastructure or experience in single-family rentals to efficiently achieve the direct real estate exposure they seek by leveraging the Roofstock platform and management infrastructure. The service will be available to new institutional investors in January 2020.
• Enhancing its proprietary data engine with an updated Neighborhood Rating system. To improve investors’ insight into the potential performance of individual properties, Roofstock introduced enhanced neighborhood safety and local school data into its neighborhood rating rubric. Now, the amount and type of local crime as well as the quality of local schools and other risk indicators will impact the rating of properties on Roofstock’s marketplace, giving users a more well-rounded understanding of a potential investment.
• Entrepreneur Magazine naming Roofstock as a 2019 Entrepreneur 360 award winner. Roofstock’s sound financial health, dominant position within its niche and track record of steady year-over-year improvement were key factors in securing this prestigious award, placing it among the top startups in the world according to Entrepreneur’s evaluators.
• Hiring staff critical to supporting continued growth, including a Chief Product Officer, General Counsel, Controller and Head of Retail Sales. In October, Ketan Babaria joined the company as Chief Product Officer to spearhead product innovation. Geoffrey Thompson joined as General Counsel, Kristine Radhakrishnan joined as Controller, and in November Amy Kirsch joined as Head of Retail Sales.

Matt Harris of Bain Capital Ventures said: 

“Roofstock’s incredible growth can be attributed to its rockstar employees, dynamic leadership team and a unifying vision to make the benefits of real estate investing available to everyone. Roofstock is leading the transformation of this industry, using technology to create a platform that offers more access, more opportunity and a better experience than anything previously available.”

SOURCE Roofstock

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