Breaking Down Barriers to Real Estate Investing: Meet addy

We all have choices on how and with whom to spend our time; it is one of the most important choices you can make. I am in the fortunate position to spend my time working with some of the most extraordinary technology entrepreneurs and their companies in diverse industries. From that vantage point, I have a rare view to many of the changes underway that promise a better tomorrow. 

One of those companies that I am really excited about is addy which officially launched today to unlock real estate investing for Canadians. For almost 2 years now, I have been helping the team build the technology, business model, and thinking to drive a transformational opportunity. There is still lots of work to do, but if successful, people will wonder why an opportunity like this didn’t always exist.

addy was born out of the understanding that while home ownership and real estate investing are one of the most important wealth generators, the majority of people are left out. Worse still is that with the current pandemic driving governments to print money, real estate prices will continue to climb making it even harder for those without vast sums of cash to participate.

Given today’s economic climate and in a world that is becoming more unequal, giving access to a generation left out of Real Estate could help in a big way. This is why Michael Stephenson, Stephen Jagger, Adrienne Uy and I embarked on a mission to find another way “in” that didn’t follow the traditional set of rules. We believe everyone should have the opportunity to own property through access to real estate investing at any amount, regardless of income, age, or other conflicts. Thus, addy was born to provide an avenue into the real estate market without the large upfront cost of a downpayment and enables diversification across a variety of asset types. The company uses technology to democratize this asset class and enable people to own real estate for as little as $1 (a property will go live on August 11).

Joining us on this journey is an incredible roster of leaders who are equally as committed to transforming the real estate industry, including:

• Steve Evans, Board Member - President of Sunstone Realty Advisors and Co-Founder and former CEO of Pure Industrial Real Estate Trust (formerly Canada's dominant "pure-play" industrial property REIT, founded in 2007 and traded on the TSX; sold to Blackstone in 2018 for $3.8B) and Pure Multi-Family REIT LP (a Canadian based vehicle offering exposure to institutional quality US multi-family real estate assets, founded in 2012 and traded on the TSX; sold to Cortland in 2019 for US$1.2B).
• Pascal Spothelfer, Board Member - Pascal has held senior executive roles, in both Europe and Canada, across industry sectors ranging from technology, not for profit organizations and academia, President & CEO of Genome BC since 2016.
• Keith Spencer, Board Member - Technology lawyer at a leading Canadian law firm, retired Co-Leader of the firm’s Start-Up & Emerging Company Services Group, recipient of The BC Tech Association’s “Bill Thompson Lifetime Achievement Award”, Board member of numerous emerging Canadian technology companies.
• Thuan Pham, Advisor - Former Chief Technology Officer at Uber. Prior to that, he was VP of Engineering at VMware, Westbridge, and DoubleClick. He holds a BS in computer science and engineering and an MS in EE/CS from MIT.

The entrepreneurial spark comes from envisioning the way the world could work versus the way it does now. In other words, the opportunity to create something better comes from observing something broken or that doesn’t work the way you believe it should. The current Real Estate market - that either locks out most participants because they cannot save enough to get in, or requires them to be overweighted in it, is a prime example. Change is never easy. There will be many hurdles to overcome - but working with great people who truly care about others, on an opportunity that could change an industry for the better is something incredibly exciting. 

To learn more about addy, become a member of addy’s network, and invest in real estate, visit addyinvest.com. Join the @addyinvest community on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Instagram. Tune in to the addy podcast on iTunes and Spotify.

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