Point is an alternative to traditional home equity loans and HELOCs. The way it works is that you actually sell a portion of your property. Here’s an example:
In this scenario, the home is worth $1M. Point makes an offer to buy 10% of today’s value in exchange for 20% of the home’s future appreciation on a 5 year term. You pay a 3% fee when the $100,000 (10%) is paid out, but you don’t make any monthly payments. You just give up potential future appreciation. (If the home doesn’t appreciate, Point doesn’t make money.)
What’s interesting about this model is that traditionally “housing” has meant one of two things. Either you own 0% of the home (i.e. you rent) or you own 100% of the home (usually with the help of a mortgage).
Point is making it easier for you to potentially own 95% or 90% of your home. They are taking an equity stake, which is why there are no monthly payments associated with it.
The investment angle is that homeowners get to diversify their wealth out, and (Point) investors get to diversify in, without having to worry about actually managing the property.
Would you use this as a tool to unlock your home equity wealth?
Real estate is a highly levered asset class, which means that pricing is sensitive to interest rate changes.
Larry Summers recently published a post on his blog where he argued that the Fed (US) is being far too complacent about their ability to respond effectively to a future recession. He sees this as their biggest monetary policy challenge going forward.
Given the potential impact to real estate and city building as a whole, I thought I would summarize some of his key points:
Private sector GDP growth in the US averaged 1.3% over the last year
Since the 1960s, this level of tepid growth has typically foreshadowed a recession
Larry sees > 50% chance that the US economy will enter a recession in the next 3 years
400-500 basis points of monetary easing is usually needed to counter recessionary pressures
The Feds will likely not have this much room to play with when the next recession comes along
I don’t think anyone could have predicted that rates would remain so low for so long. (10-year Treasury = ~1.6% at the moment.) Still, my view has been that rates in Canada and the US won’t be posting meaningful increases anytime soon. And Larry’s post reinforces that for me.
What’s your view?
Earlier this week the Wall Street Journal published an article claiming that the celebrated venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz was lagging behind its elite peers in terms of returns.
The firm then responded with a well-written blog post explaining why this accusation is off the mark. Their response was simply that you can’t measure returns on “unrealized gains.” Until there is a liquidity event – that is, the company gets sold or goes public – it’s just paper returns. And what matters is cash.
As the post clearly states: “I can’t spend unrealized gains.”
But beyond just a rebuttal, the blog post is a great primer on how the venture capital industry works. We talk a lot about the tech space on this blog, so I thought some of you might find it interesting.
One of the reasons I like to follow the VC space is that there are many similarities to real estate development. Not only in the way that the funds are structured, but also in the way that the gestation periods are incredibly long.
The post talks about this as a “J curve.” In the early years of a fund, the returns are negative. Money is going out the door to invest in immature and risky startups. And it’s not until the harvesting period (7+ years later) that the realized gains start getting paid out to investors (LPs).
It’s also interesting to note that the exit timing for companies – at least according to Andreessen Horowitz – seems to be increasing (10+ years). This is yet another similarity to real estate development where it seems to be getting harder and harder to build and deliver new supply.
Point is an alternative to traditional home equity loans and HELOCs. The way it works is that you actually sell a portion of your property. Here’s an example:
In this scenario, the home is worth $1M. Point makes an offer to buy 10% of today’s value in exchange for 20% of the home’s future appreciation on a 5 year term. You pay a 3% fee when the $100,000 (10%) is paid out, but you don’t make any monthly payments. You just give up potential future appreciation. (If the home doesn’t appreciate, Point doesn’t make money.)
What’s interesting about this model is that traditionally “housing” has meant one of two things. Either you own 0% of the home (i.e. you rent) or you own 100% of the home (usually with the help of a mortgage).
Point is making it easier for you to potentially own 95% or 90% of your home. They are taking an equity stake, which is why there are no monthly payments associated with it.
The investment angle is that homeowners get to diversify their wealth out, and (Point) investors get to diversify in, without having to worry about actually managing the property.
Would you use this as a tool to unlock your home equity wealth?
Real estate is a highly levered asset class, which means that pricing is sensitive to interest rate changes.
Larry Summers recently published a post on his blog where he argued that the Fed (US) is being far too complacent about their ability to respond effectively to a future recession. He sees this as their biggest monetary policy challenge going forward.
Given the potential impact to real estate and city building as a whole, I thought I would summarize some of his key points:
Private sector GDP growth in the US averaged 1.3% over the last year
Since the 1960s, this level of tepid growth has typically foreshadowed a recession
Larry sees > 50% chance that the US economy will enter a recession in the next 3 years
400-500 basis points of monetary easing is usually needed to counter recessionary pressures
The Feds will likely not have this much room to play with when the next recession comes along
I don’t think anyone could have predicted that rates would remain so low for so long. (10-year Treasury = ~1.6% at the moment.) Still, my view has been that rates in Canada and the US won’t be posting meaningful increases anytime soon. And Larry’s post reinforces that for me.
What’s your view?
Earlier this week the Wall Street Journal published an article claiming that the celebrated venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz was lagging behind its elite peers in terms of returns.
The firm then responded with a well-written blog post explaining why this accusation is off the mark. Their response was simply that you can’t measure returns on “unrealized gains.” Until there is a liquidity event – that is, the company gets sold or goes public – it’s just paper returns. And what matters is cash.
As the post clearly states: “I can’t spend unrealized gains.”
But beyond just a rebuttal, the blog post is a great primer on how the venture capital industry works. We talk a lot about the tech space on this blog, so I thought some of you might find it interesting.
One of the reasons I like to follow the VC space is that there are many similarities to real estate development. Not only in the way that the funds are structured, but also in the way that the gestation periods are incredibly long.
The post talks about this as a “J curve.” In the early years of a fund, the returns are negative. Money is going out the door to invest in immature and risky startups. And it’s not until the harvesting period (7+ years later) that the realized gains start getting paid out to investors (LPs).
It’s also interesting to note that the exit timing for companies – at least according to Andreessen Horowitz – seems to be increasing (10+ years). This is yet another similarity to real estate development where it seems to be getting harder and harder to build and deliver new supply.
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