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Real estate investor and finance platform Connected Investors has created America’s largest iBuyer.

Destined to become the most significant acquirer of residential real estate in the US, CiBuyers is poised to become the go-to buyer of homes and mortgage notes for banks, lenders and funds.

All while becoming the number one source for discounted real estate assets for those looking to feed their own funds, income portfolios, and house flipping businesses with inventory.

We caught up with Connected Investors’ founder Ross Hamiton for the scoop on their new iBuyer division which is being headed up by Kevin Hearst.

The Evolution Of Big iBuyers

iBuyers have been popping up on the market for the past couple of years. Most of the smaller internet buyer attempts have gone unnoticed or remained very small scale.

Then there have been very big attempts by the likes of Zillow, which seemed to grind to a halt on its staple of real estate data reporting and threw everything it had at buying and flipping houses online.

Startup iBuyer OpenDoor has announced that it plans to go public, with a recent valuation just shy of $5B.

Even despite OpenDoor being the subject of a FTC investigation into its advertising practices, reporting over $100M in losses in early 2020, and partner Redfin being the subject of fair housing lawsuits.

At last count OpenDoor had still only managed to open in 21 markets, out of the 100 US markets it hopes to eventually grow into.

Unfortunately, while the industry is certainly evolving towards a much more technology driven and far faster moving transaction, up until now, iBuyers don’t seem to have brought enough buying power, geographical coverage, and hands on industry expertise and investment knowledge to the table to be able to reach tipping point or achieve any sizable market share.

Connected Investors could be exactly what the world has been waiting for. Ross Hamilton who says he started out in real estate as a wholesaler and made his first million by building his buyers list many years ago, has since built one of the largest and most active real estate investment platforms on the web.

Today, Connected Investors already facilitates $5B a month in real estate financing requests, as well as providing a variety of software solutions, and other mobile first features, plus the booming social network for investors.

In our exclusive interview Ross told us that the CiBuyer program had already blown through its milestone goal of amassing $1B in buying power months ahead of schedule and is still growing fast.

His big vision is not just buying and facilitating the sale of billions of dollars in property and real estate debt, but to effectively decentralize this system, change the playing field for both sides of the equation, and and through swiftly going nationwide, even in small property markets, to create more liquidity in this asset class.

It is creating the ability for sellers to immediately liquidate these assets, or acquire them, just as easy as stocks. All while bring back confidence and security to the real estate industry, with verified qualified buyers.

Massive Opportunity

The opportunity to transform this industry is probably the largest in history. Consider that mortgage loan originations were expected to hit a new record of $4T in 2020. The value of all the homes in America, not including vacant land or commercial buildings is over $33T, more than the entire GDP of both China and the USA.

At the same time, the events of 2020 are likely to put in motion one of the most active periods for selling real estate and related assets in American history. The pandemic added to this, and with most creditor and government aid ending, but the worst financial side effects only now hitting homeowners as they run out of savings, a wave of distressed sales lasting for years is virtually inevitable.

According to mortgage data monitor Black Knight, 13% more home loans were 30 days delinquent at the peak of COVID crisis in 2020 than the peak of the last Great Recession. 83% more loans were 60 days or more delinquent than at the peak of the Great Recession.

As a result, big banks like Wells Fargo have already been selling off and trading pools of distressed mortgages worth billions and tens of billions of dollars.

Ross acknowledges that there is a good chance the government will step in to provide more relief in this area, and some lenders will provide workouts for borrowers.

Yet, many are demonstrating that they still didn’t learn their lessons from 2008, and are preferring to foreclose and sell the debt and assets on rather than to try and help homeowners stay in place.

Become a CiBuyer

What is most unique about this big announcement from Connected Investors is that they are enabling other investors to participate in this opportunity as CiBuyers.

Ross and his team which have the highest level relationships with those holding large pools of properties and notes are able to negotiate deeply discounted deals on properties in bulk, and offer those directly to their qualified CiBuyer members.

They have access to exclusive deals and pools of 1,000 plus properties at a time, which are traditionally only reserved for buyers with strong resumes of managing millions of dollars in property, and with plenty of reserves.

Becoming a CiBuyer provides access to these deals, a few at a time, or several hundred at a time, depending on the investor’s appetite for volume.

As a CiBuyer investors can skip all of the trial and error of marketing directly to distressed homeowners, access CI’s extensive data to evaluate properties, and just buy, based on their own ‘Buy Box’ criteria.

A big part of this development is ensuring participants are qualified and vetted buyers who are ready and able to close on deals, with none of those notorious broker chains or failed closings wholesalers are infamous for.

Those who have already been approved to join as CiBuyers are active investors, with at least three verified deals under their belt in the past few months, and seven figures or more in buying power each.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

If you fit this description and are looking to acquire more deals, grow your business efficiently and be a part of this big transition, Ross invites you to apply to become a part of this at CiBuyers.com.

Real estate agents can also register their qualified clients and get credit for their transactions. Lenders looking to put their capital to work in this space, or who are looking to sell pools of REOs or note assets should also connect with the platform.


Get more details on how CiBuyers works, the assets you can access through the programs and to apply at CiBuyers.com.