#202: Making Holiday Home Ownership Accessible With Unicorn Startup Pacaso

Imagine owning only one-eighth of a house. You get many of the benefits of a regular holiday home, except you share the ownership with seven other parties. Would that interest you? This week I catch up with Austin Allison. Austin co-founded a platform called Pacaso which enables second-home ownership through a fractional ownership model. Through this model of home ownership, Pacaso is able to increase the utilisation of a second home from 10-15% to roughly 90%. Within six months of launching, the business scored a $1 billion valuation which skyrocketed the startup to unicorn status. In this episode, Austin and I discuss the fractional home ownership model, how Pacaso acquires properties, the spectrum of buyers, and the purchasing process. We also dig deeper into his entrepreneurial journey and how he's built such an impressive company in just two years.   Discussion points 03:10 What is Pacaso 06:45 Timeshare vs Fractional Ownership 08:20 How scheduling works 14:00 Adoption of the fractional ownership model 17:51 Ways of acquiring properties 19:40 The spectrum of buyers 21:16 Austin’s entrepreneurial journey 25:17 Challenges Austin’s faced 29:00 Raising money for a startup 32:00 Working with investors 34:25 Austin’s expectations 36:00 Family support 38:20 The mechanics of a company like Pacaso 40:00 Benefits of co-ownership 43:07 How Pacaso makes money 45:00 How the homes are sold 46:37 How real estate brokers react to Pacaso   Show Sponsors: Smartkas: Providing food security as a service [https://www.instagram.com/smartkastech/?hl=en]   Najahi Events: The UAE’s leading event promotor [https://www.instagram.com/najahievents/?hl=en]   Socials: Spencer Lodge https://www.instagram.com/spencer.lodge/?hl=en https://www.linkedin.com/in/spencerlodge/ https://www.youtube.com/c/SpencerLodgeTV   Austin Allison https://www.instagram.com/gaustinallison/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/austinallison https://mobile.twitter.com/gaustinallison