Automate and Integrate Property and Owner Data with Sean O’Toole

Sean O’Toole is the Founder and CEO of Property Radar. He was also a three-time startup guy in Silicon Valley in the 90s. He launched his first software company, ForeclosureRadar.com at the age of 18 and has been a serial entrepreneur for 25+ years. This brought together his passion for technology, real estate, finance, and economics to build something great. He has also begun to fulfill a larger vision with the launch of PropertyRadar.com with the continued goal of bringing greater transparency and stability to the real estate market.

Did you know, Sean taught himself to program and write software professionally at the age of 14? He was selling computers by 16 and writing software. He started his first software company at 18. That gift at 10 years old of getting access to a computer, at least back in 1978 was a huge game-changer for him.

Sean is very good at Math, Logic, and computers, which to him is a perfect world. Gifted!

Watch the episode here:

Brett:

I’m excited to welcome you to the show with me Sean O’Toole. Sean, how are you doing?

Sean:

I’m doing great. Thanks for having me.

Brett:

Excellent. Sean, by the way, is I believe, the founder of Property Radar, and their whole purpose is helping you to discover opportunity and property and owner data. I’m gonna have him tell his full story. But this episode, we’re gonna be focusing on automating and integrating property and owner data. So Sean, take it away. Give us a little bit more about your story and your current focus.

Sean:

Yeah, so I was a three-time startup guy in Silicon Valley in the 90s. And after the .com crash, ended up flipping houses and commercial property. Over 160 flips, ranging from small houses to 30,000 square foot industrial to Taco Bell to all kinds of stuff. And then, just before the foreclosure crisis launched the first version of this company, which we called Foreclosure Radar, and we were in the right place, right time for the foreclosure crisis. And then as the foreclosure crisis wound down, we expanded to cover all properties rather than just those in foreclosure.

Brett:

Excellent, so amazing. So that’s a part of that crash. By the way, I’m from the Sacramento region of Fremont. So at the time there in the Silicon Valley, Dad growing up Custom Homes room additions in the 80s. So we’ve seen the boom and the bust a bit. It’s such an interesting place to grow up and to see the rapid change in technology, and systems, and processes, as well as being on the commercial real estate background, and seeing that kind of shift. So before we go into all of that, there’s so much to cover. I’m really excited about all of the meat, we’re going to be able to kick off the bone here for this interview, I want to take one step back, Sean, you know, I want you to go back perhaps before it could be the university days or even growing up, I want you to picture that moment of time. I want you to think about perhaps maybe a gift or two that you believe you were given, you know, I believe we’ve all been given certain gifts in this life. Some people call them strengths, some people call them superpowers, I believe their God-given gifts, and I believe these gifts are being given to us to be a blessing have helped or help to others. So I’m curious, maybe one of those one or two gifts that you believe you were given, and how does that help how you help people today?

Sean:

Yeah, I mean, there’s just one period that made the biggest difference for me. My parents bought a computer when I was 10, to help run their business, their home business. Basically, after they were done at five, I got to jump on and start playing with it, taught myself to program ended up writing software professionally by 14, was selling computers by 16 and writing software and started my first software company at 18. And you know, that gift at 10 years old of getting access to a computer, at least back in 1978 was a huge game-changer. You know, just such a big, it’s a little later than Bill Gates and some others. But it was back in that timeframe that was just incredible. My son’s now 18, a freshman in college, and boy from the time he was zero to 10, I spent an incredible amount of time thinking about what do I do for him that gives him those same opportunities for the rest of his life.

Brett:

Amazing, by the way. You can learn more about Sean O’Toole at propertyradar.com and I’d still remember my dad bringing in the first Apple Computer. He was in construction and real estate and stuff. But he brought it in, I remember looking at this thing like you know, and just playing with it as a young kid to never got into the coding or anything like that. Part of me there is curious too with your kids if they take after you or not. What part of your personality or your strengths really was able to excel at the coding.

Sean:

You know, my dad was a logic and philosophy professor, and I was good at math. So math plus logic plus computer was just like, kind of a perfect world for me. So I really just kind of instantly grokked it. And, you know, as you remember, it was that late 1970s was first Apple twos that folks started to show up with, there wasn’t a lot to do, like, it was a flashing cursor just waiting for something. And you really had to, you know, it took a while for there to be any games or really any and even those were terrible. So, you know, programming the thing was kind of the thing and for whatever reason, I dug in.

Brett:

Yeah, that’s really I love that math, push the logic plus the computer, it was like it was your language to speak and your dad to help you teach and inspire that and to let you go loose on the computer. Love that. Okay, so now let’s dive right into how you help people now with propertyradar.com. But I want to know this, what’s the most rewarding part of what you do? And then simply, what is property radar?

Sean:

So, the most rewarding part of what we do is, I mean, over the years, we have helped thousands of folks. I talked about Richard. Richard was kind of wiped out in the .com crash, you know, he was at retirement age, and was really kind of lost, and found us, found our software in Foreclosure Radar. We basically taught him how to flip foreclosures, and he used our software to find those deals. Definitely a few years of hard work, but I got a really nice note from him. Probably 2012, basically saying, you know, that was, he was so depressed in 2008, after the crash, and really didn’t, he thought he’s gonna have to spend the rest of his life working. And, you know, he said, you know, basically, thanks to you. Not only have I replaced all of the money, I lost in the crash, but I’ve expanded on it. And I now have, I don’t remember what it was something like 20 rentals, and I am far better set than I was. I never would have done that if the crash hadn’t happened. And if we hadn’t found your, your product, so. And we have lots of those stories, and those are the ones that really keep me keep me going. You know, there’s a lot of people selling public records data, which is essentially what we do to big business. You know, Home Depot knows when you take out a home equity line of credit, and they start hitting you up for the barbecues and the home remodel projects. But your small local folks don’t. And, you know, if you’re at a large commercial brokerage and you have access to costar, that’s awesome, super expensive. But if you’re a smaller broker, you know, smaller broker or whatever, or that’s just a lot of money for you, you know, we give you access to the majority of the same data for a tiny fraction of the cost. So helping those small businesses compete in a world that’s increasingly owned by big business is definitely what gets me up in the morning.

Brett:

Amazing, absolutely unlocking basically the next chapter for one of your customers, Richard, right. If his life where he went from 2008, you’re not sure what’s going to happen, you know, losing the job, to shifting and pivoting to buying rentals. And not only is he replaced, you know what he lost, but now he’s far ahead of what he was before. For him, it’s definitely one of those blessings in disguise. But he’s using your software on a daily basis to unlock pre-foreclosures, unlock opportunities, find deals. Is that a fair summary there?

Sean:

Yeah, he was buying at the foreclosure auctions versus pre-foreclosures. But yeah, absolutely. Right.

Brett:

Excellent.

Sean:

So we have plenty of pre-foreclosures and plenty to buy other off-market deals and plenty doing commercials. So I mean, it’s there’s a lot of mortgage folks looking for, you know, folks who want to refi or, etc. So or eliminate PMI. So there’s a whole bunch of use cases, public records are just this really fertile ground that most people don’t realize. And if you’re in the real estate business, you’re so blessed because public records let you know every potential customer by name, and use hundreds of criteria to focus your marketing efforts on the ones most likely to do business with you.

Brett:

Perfect, so actually, I want to try to do some hands-on, if you’re ready for some hands-on

Sean:

Sure.

Brett:

‘Cause I’m not a property radar customer and I want to talk about automating integrating this type of data because I am a Commercial Real Estate Broker, Multifamily Broker here in Sacramento. We’re caught at constantly trying to build a database, you know, Excel files, CRMs, you know, search for LLCs, you know, trying to do all of those things, especially in the old-old age, very manual. And of course, then costar helps to add great service in your MLS, I also have costar and it’s expensive. So I’m maybe your ideal client, as well, capital gains tax solutions, we’re also sourcing and trying to help people who have highly appreciated primary homes, because of the deferred sales trust, we’re able to defer capital gains taxes, not using a 1031 on sale, the primary home, and so constantly trying to find out where we can target best. So walk me through that, how do I integrate your property radar, and then automate all of that together? Does that make sense?

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