Regan McGee of Nobul: Five Things You Need To Know To Succeed In The Real Estate Industry

An Interview With Jason Hartman

We are the tip of the spear of disruption. We’re finally giving consumers power in this industry. Real estate transactions have the single largest fees people pay and the average person pays those fees 11 times in their lifetime. For us to be disrupting this market is extremely exciting.

As a part of my series about the ‘Five Things You Need To Know To Succeed In The Real Estate Industry’, I had the pleasure of interviewing Regan McGee.

Regan McGee is the Founder, Chairman and CEO of Nobul. He’s a technology and real estate industry visionary, leading Nobul’s charge to empower consumers and put them in the driver’s seat when it comes to buying and selling residential real estate. He has 20+ years of experience running complex organizations and has built a world-class, award-winning company that is positioned to disrupt the $5 trillion real estate industry. Regan is an Economist and Chartered Investment Manager by training. He is a licensed Real Estate Broker and is a member of both the Canadian Real Estate Association and the Ontario Real Estate Association. Regan earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from Queen’s University.

Can you share with our readers the most interesting story that has occurred in your career as a real estate leader, so far? What was the lesson or takeaway?

About five years ago, I spoke at a high-profile real estate industry event. There was a panel of six, consisting of myself and five other real estate technology entrepreneurs. It was my first time at such an event. The other panelists were regarded as respected leaders in the field. Some fit the mold of youthful, good-looking tech innovators and were attracting significant capital from well-respected VCs and investors. Yet, within 90 seconds of listening to them, I could tell why their businesses would fail.

I also had a technology background but had been working in the real estate industry for 10 years. I found it surprising how little they knew about how the industry worked. They had these business models that made sense on the surface but there was no way they were going to work. It was interesting to see how slick packaging could attract massive VC funding without considering whether that business idea made sense.

During a break, I took one of the PropTech VCs out for lunch. I tried to gauge his understanding and criteria since they were investing serious money in one of these companies. Surprisingly he really didn’t have a good basis for why to invest other than basically saying, “The major VCs are into this certain investment, and that’s why are following them.”

That was shocking and instructive because I’m the only one with a company, five years later. It taught me about how capital raising really works. If you want to take your high-growth tech company from startup to successfully operating at scale, you need a highly credible lead investor. Without that champion, everyone else will shy away. Many VCs follow a peer they think makes good investment moves.

With Nobul, are you working on any exciting new projects? How do you think that will help people?

Always! We’re building the world’s first end-to-end technology platform for real estate transactions. We are always thinking about new ways to help the consumer and we are always adding cool, interesting functionalities to our platform including auxiliary services (insurance, mortgages, etc.). We’re preparing to file three more patents for exciting technology that we will reveal soon. Stay tuned.

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

We’re solving a different problem compared to others in the industry. We are working towards getting consumers the best possible experience at the best possible value for their real estate transaction. The problem that everyone else is solving is getting agents deal flow. The problem we are solving is getting consumers the best possible experience at the best possible price. Simply put, our goal is to serve the consumer, not real estate agents.

Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

I’m most grateful for my wife of 18 years, Rebecca. From the early days when she was handling payroll manually to her current role as Vice Chair of our Board, she has been an extremely important part of our business every step of the way.

Can you share 3 things that most excite you about the Real Estate industry? If you can please share a story or example.

1. We are the tip of the spear of disruption. We’re finally giving consumers power in this industry. Real estate transactions have the single largest fees people pay and the average person pays those fees 11 times in their lifetime. For us to be disrupting this market is extremely exciting.
2. Although we’re not involved in it, it’s exciting to see how AI technology is improving detection for Title Fraud, Mortgage Fraud.
3. Since the start of the pandemic, there has been a huge rise in sight-unseen real estate sales, signaling a huge shift in how people buy and sell property. I’m especially excited about how VR can bring in the visual tour aspect to pre-construction sales.

Can you share 3 things that most concern you about the real estate industry? If you had the ability to implement 3 ways to reform or improve it, what would you suggest? Please share stories or examples if possible.

1. Most companies are focused on getting deal flow for real estate agents. The same goes for most PropTech companies, who focus on extracting as much money from the consumer as possible for the service providers. What we do is advocate for the consumer while bringing more transparency to transactions.
2. Anecdotally, because so much has moved online, there is more opportunity for fraud. The challenge is that much of AI-driven fraud detection technology is still in its infancy and my concern is that when the technology is still not well-developed, it is vulnerable to be exploited.
3. The industry still seems to be the default career. If you can’t make it as a lawyer, there is still real estate. That is concerning. There are great realtors out there, and the platform should help agents obtain more credibility.

What advice would you give to other real estate leaders to help them thrive?

Focus on the consumer, there is plenty of money for everybody. If you focus on the consumer, you could wake up knowing that you are doing good for the world.

You are a “Real Estate Insider”. If you had to advise someone about 5 non intuitive things one should know to succeed in the Real Estate industry, what would you say? Can relate using stories and examples for each?

1. The job of being a real estate agent is customer acquisition, not being good or bad at trading property. If you see somebody with a lot of “for sale” signs covering the neighborhood, they might be terrible at their job. If you are not using Nobul, you are never going to know.
2. Pre-qualification doesn’t mean much. Your mortgage lender doesn’t have to follow through and approve the loan. Many people assume that they are going to get financing because they are pre-qualified. That’s not always the case.
3. Most online real estate technology serves agents and brokers, it’s not there to serve you.
4. The average realtor sells four homes or less a year. Their track record is not available to the public except on Nobul.
5. Antitrust laws have been applied against organized real estate 11 times and have been successful every time.

If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the greatest amount of people, what would that be?

It’s what we try to do at Nobul every day. We’re helping bring more transparency, credibility, and accountability to the single biggest transaction of people’s lives.

Do you have a favorite “life lesson quote”? Can you share a story or example of how that was relevant to you in your life?

I like the quote, “If it was easy, everyone would do it.” Disruption is a lot of work. There are a lot of people who are unhappy about it. The people who are unhappy about it are generally scamming consumers. If they’re not happy, I can live with that. There was a major brokerage owner that sent us a letter two years ago. It was a nasty joke Christmas card that said, “Do you really think people are going to use a technology platform just because they can get better value and better price at something?” I framed that letter and put it on my wall.

Where can people go to learn more?

Visit our website: https://nobul.com/

Thank you so much for sharing your time and your excellent insights! We wish you continued success.