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Pairadime is an online resource to educate and assist homebuyers and real estate agents on the concept of co-owning a home.

Platforms: Browser
Ideal for: Agents, homebuyers and mortgage pros

Top selling points:

• Co-ownership agreement builder
• Division of costs calculator
• Detailed explainers
• Agent training modules
• Marketing resources

Top concern:

Getting agents on board with fractional ownership concepts. It’s different, but in many ways could be an ideal specialization and a terrific lead source. The company is going to have to sell hard because the real estate industry doesn’t adopt new ideas easily. Also, while the play on words is always appreciated, “Pairadime” may have trouble getting found amongst the mix of countless other companies named similarly, despite the spelling choice.

What you should know

Pairadime is an extensive educational resource on fractional homebuying or co-ownership. It’s not a reseller of homes or a Power Buyer or anything of the sort. The company has worked with legal professionals, agents and done the research to become a valuable partner to the industry on what could very well become the best new way to own property. Do not brush off this concept.

Thanks to Pacaso and the Real Estate Standards Organization, “co-ownership” is actively being embedded into industry lexicon. Yes, fractional ownership has been a thing for a long time, but it’s been exclusive to the luxury market. Pairadime is aiming to formalize the idea of unrelated (non-married) parties buying a home together. Namely, friends. But of course, siblings, boyfriends, girlfriends, however you want to define it.

Pairadime won’t be psyched on my mentioning Pacaso at the top of this piece because they’re concerned with being lumped in with the idea of institutional purchasing of residential property. (Although Pacaso focuses well above a market’s median price.)

Instead, Pairadime, much to their own credit and my admiration, wants to increase accessibility to first homeownership, not second.

It’s a marketing hurdle they’ll have to overcome, and I think they owe the fast-growing luxury home partitioning business some credit for easing the on-ramp.

If you’ve spent any time becoming Knock-certified, then you should add Pairadime’s program to your list of new ways to help people buy a home, especially given how well they’ve designed their program.

Agents can pay a small subscription price for access to a host of tools they can deliver to buyers on the idea of co-ownership. There’s a six-module training course to get Pairadime-certified, after which users are able to leverage logos, social media marketing content and an array of outreach tactics to attract leads.

I see a great deal of value in being the first or most vocal local agent in a market to post about the benefits of co-ownership. Savvy agents can create videos, host a seminar or launch an email campaign or any other form of lead generation effort on the benefits of co-ownership.

Pairadime categorizes its detailed buyer education tools into Living Expenses, One-off Expenses, Sale, Non-payment, Rentals and Pets, Property and Financial and the Wrap-up. Each module illustrates scenarios and provides an explanation for each buyer to digest before the software’s Agreement Builder assembles a formal document for them each to sign.

The company strongly encourages the buyer group to spend a little bit of money, maybe an hour’s worth of time, to have the agreement ratified by an attorney. Seems like a good idea.

Pairadime also includes a spreadsheet of sorts breaking down each person’s economic commitment, which will be displayed according to ownership percentage, as not every co-ownership deal has to be fifty-fifty. It includes down payment amounts, closing costs and a summary of the total contribution.

The company will be enhancing its calculator tool to be released in the future as a stand-alone tool, likely for agents to embed into their websites as a call-to-action under listings and on landing pages.

In 2020, 9 percent of home buyers were unmarried couples, according to CNBC, quoting NAR. The story also stated that “younger millennials, ages 22 to 30 years old, represent 20 percent of unmarried purchasers.”

It’s very common for family members, parents typically, to provide money for a home purchase, so agents and mortgage lenders are already used to the idea of funds coming from multiple parties. The only real difference with formal co-ownership are the names on the title.

I see very little reason for the real estate industry to not leverage the idea of co-ownership to combat buyers’ ability to compete for a home. Be innovative.

Pairadime has done the work for you. They’ve done the legwork, organized the process and even given you ways to advertise what they’ll teach you.

Pay them for it.

Have a technology product you would like to discuss? Email Craig Rowe

Craig C. Rowe started in commercial real estate at the dawn of the dot-com boom, helping an array of commercial real estate companies fortify their online presence and analyze internal software decisions. He now helps agents with technology decisions and marketing through reviewing software and tech for Inman.