Hi. This is Paul Zoellizer, and welcome to the Awarepreneurs podcast. On this show, we dive deep into wisdom from some of the world's leading social entrepreneurs. Our goal is to help you increase your positive impact, your profitability, and your quality of life. Before we get into today's topic, I have one request. If you could hit subscribe and do a review on your favorite podcast app, it helps more people learn how to have positive impact through a values based business. Thank you. Today, I'm really thrilled to introduce you to Daniel Smith, and our topic today is homeownership sustainability and closing the racial wealth gap.

Daniel Smith is the founder of Keepingly, a platform that helps homeowners maintain, manage, and grow their property value. With over 20 years of experience in digital marketing and consulting, Daniel has transformed how organizations in the Caribbean and the US position their products online. At keepingly, Daniel uses his personal experience as a homeowner to create innovative solutions for the housing industry. His work earned him recognition as a RIS Media real estate newsmaker in 2023. As a futurist, Daniel is dedicated to leveraging technology to address key issues in the housing market, focusing on homeowner sustainability, equity and fairness. His recent Fast Company article, which I will put a link in the show notes. His recent Fast Company article outlines policy changes needed to make homeownership more equitable from addressing appraisal biases to enhancing credit programs. Daniel, welcome to the show.

Well, thank you for having me, and thank you for for the introduction. You I'm listening to it, and I'm thinking, wow. I I sound more better in in in Paul's introduction than I feel sometimes as an entrepreneur in real life.

Who who is this awesome human? I wanna meet him. Exactly. Exactly. Well, I'm really impressed at what you're doing. And before we hit record, I was telling you a story. This is a very this is really up in my mind. I am working on an initiative with the black chamber in New Mexico here, and the CEO, Carla Calsi, who was I think it was episode 334. We recently did an interview.

I'll put that link in the show note as well. But Carla has been raising this issue. And recently I was at a Black Chamber event and Carla said, okay, how many of you own your own home? Raise your hand. And it was pretty striking. You know, who, you know, what what people look like, who owned homes and didn't own homes. And this is something Carla has been raising if we could bake into initiative where we're working to get capital in the hands of black entrepreneurs. But can we also increase the number of people who are sitting in a room like that and raise their hands saying, I own my own home a few years down the road. This is literally something in our ecosystem we've been talking about.

So I am so thrilled to have you here, Daniel. Before we get into keeping Lee, just what would somebody wanna know about who Daniel is and a little bit about your background before we get into the specifics of hon ownership and closing the racial wealth gap.

Yeah. Thank you, Yvonne. So excited to be here in the world is a drop topic we're gonna address. And for me, I would say, you know, my background has been in technology, like the, introduction said, you know, and I've spent 20 years really helping 20 years plus, really helping organizations to be able to position their products and face the consumers who have done everything in digital marketing from web development, application development, and consulting side. Really cut my teeth in business to my bachelor's in business and then went on to do my MBA. And, you know, part of that really coming up in a family with, like, everybody was an accountant. We had, like, have, like, what, 10 cousins on on one side. And so in my family, there were, like, 7 accountants.

So I come from a family of accountants, but I really didn't really like accounts. I liked more the marketing side of things, and so that has been, you know, built into me and beaten to me, you know, how I have been raised. And, you know, I'm the first of 3 kids. I'm a parent, a husband. You know, try to be a good person. So I would say, you know, those are some of the things, you know, about me and and really, I have a passion for seeing equity. I was doing a podcast earlier this week and, you know, person the the podcast is already talking about, you know, why I even pull some of the things on LinkedIn that I do, and I know that's where you and I met. And, you know, one of those things I would say, you know, for me, as a parent, you know, something switches in your brain.

And it's about how do you want to lead the world better than you found it, and how do you go out of your way to ensure that you're doing the best that you can? And so for me, I would say, you know, one of those things about me is that I'm a advocate. I'm really about, you know, creating solutions that would help society be more fair and equitable for everybody across the board no matter the color of your skin or, you know, all of those other factors, but it's really important that we deal with issues as a society. So I would say, you know, I'm a real advocate on those things really that are the things that I'm passionate about, ensuring that we are able to create more fairness within society, and we don't pretend that things don't exist. So we don't try to sweep things under the carpet or, you know, say things, you know, well, it happened how many years ago because, you know, some of those same implications are, you know, still built into society today. They're systemic, and we have to deal with them. So that's, you know, a bit of both.

Awesome. That question you asked, Daniel, how do you wanna leave the world better than you found it? I think our listeners, you know, we're one of the longest running social entrepreneur shows on the planet. Right? I think our listeners are pretty passionate about that question. And I guess hearing your intro, you've done a lot of things, marketing skills, you know, web development skills, consulting skills, and you landed on homeownership and homeownership sustainability. Why there?

So in one of my previous roles, my responsibilities I was working in the telecom industry, and so one of my roles was to be the build out of business keys around Internet of Things tied into security product. And, you know, this is, say, late 2015, 16, and I think we were just starting to talk about, you know, where the Internet of Things were and, you know, how those smart devices, whether it's smart fridges or smart stoves. We had a lot of expectations. And so my role was really to, you know, build out business keys and and really figure out how that tied in to, you know, telecom angle of it. So I spent a lot of time, you know, looking at use cases, building out, you know, a road map of how product should come to be, then, you know, how we should use. But that was a consulting time for me, so I would, you know, be on a roof or traveling, etcetera. And so, you know, something in my house may need to be done, and my wife would say, hey. Where's this document? Or where's that document? And my typical response would be like, well, it's in the house somewhere.

I don't know exactly where it is, but I can tell you it's, you know, in this file or in in this place. And, you know, it started to be one of those things we'd go back and forth trying to figure out where things would. And, you know, in in my moments, I started thinking, okay. I have 20 years digital experience and multiple years of digital experience at that time. I was like, there must be an easier way to solve these issues, you know, sharing fast, knowing where stuff is, you know, knowing, you know, what balances are, you know, vendors are, etcetera. And, you know, it really started to kind of chip at me. And I was like, okay. There has to be an easier way.

And I would say after that one role in in in telecom consultancy was was finished, I moved over to the other side of the business where I was heading up digital strategy. And it kind of thrust me back into a consumer facing role where I had to go out and deal with consumers and, you know, understand their need. And so in that road, I moved in business from, like, 1,000,000 to $20,000,000 in online payments in the space of, like, 18 months. But that was a lot of that was a grind and a lot of hard work, and it required, you know, a lot of interaction with consumers and making sure the product was right, etcetera. And I would say, you know, what I realized was that putting it on its head, I realized that from a consumer standpoint, consumers have certain expectations. But when you're from a legacy business lens, as telecom is and, you know, you have consumers who walk through your door, they need your service. Sometimes you're not necessarily that proactive in terms of your consumer approach. And I started thinking, okay.

But how can we create that kind of framework? And during the pandemic, I think, was when I pushed full short lawnage and realized, hey. You know, being able to have my documents all in a centralized place, being able to understand what is going on, being share documents with multiple people. So God forbid I die today. How would my spouse or my kid know exactly what has been done in the house? Or, you know, who are some of the vendors because, you know, we are all living very busy lives. And so that was the impetus for me. And as we started to build our platform, the version 1 we had a few users, we built another version and, you know, you know, started really having those conversations, realizing that there was so much I didn't know about homeownership that I realized that was, like, it's the gulf because we're so conditioned to become homeowners that we're not necessarily conditioned to, Okay. How do you sustain the home? And right now, we're living in very interesting times. So I would say, you know, those for me were the foundational steps, and so being able to blend digital and also understanding my experience as a homeowner has been the catalyst that has pushed me to towards, you know, this experience and and trying to help figure out this conversation really about sustainability and making sure that the notions of generational wealth aren't just PSA or nice, scary stories that we come up with, but really in actual tangibles that we can see with key.

Well, because we've tracked all the expenses of what is going into the house and when we're ready to sell, we can ensure that we are allocating the right amount for capital gains tax. So we are we are actually taking out the right amount for, you know, that sales note, you know, you you need to do sales declaration when you're ready sell? All of those kinds of scenarios, and I think that sometimes what I've realized is that and even in this journey as a homeowner, those are things that necessarily always gets talked about. And sometimes, especially for new homeowners, first time homeowners, etcetera, those are things that are the weeds that they don't delve into until an emergency hits them. So I

love that story. Like, so many businesses start like that. Right? You and your wife, you're traveling and, like, hey. We need to fix the fridge or the heater, and where's the documents? And you're like, I don't know. They're somewhere. And before you know it, you go down the rabbit hole, and now a start up is coming. Right? Like, it's such a such a beautiful story there. And the question I have, Daniel, is, okay, that makes sense how you started going down the rabbit hole.

But somewhere along the line, you started to connect the dots between homeownership and some of the challenges there and the racial wealth gap and equity and inequality as it relates to homeownership. Tell us a little bit about that, and what is some of your research find when it came to inequality as homeownership exists right now?

Yeah. Of course. So after we built vision 1 and 2, having a few users and realizing, you know well, you know, as a business, you know, one of the things you have to figure out is, like, who's gonna pay for this? How do you how do you make sure it's profitable? Because it sounds really great on the surface, and so we had to start doing it. So in doing a lot of the research, you know, realized, okay. I think was the the tipping point was when George Floyd died, and there was a lot of conversations about, you know, the inequities and stuff like that. Because before that, I didn't really see it in those lenses. And so started really build version 1, and I started looking at usage. And then there was a bunch of data that started coming out.

And I started, you know, really on analyzing the data and really trying to figure out, okay, what is what is going on? Because to me, I didn't realize, you know, the gulf in terms of the homeownership numbers. So, you know, those are things that you would see in passing, but you don't necessarily always dive dive into them because they're not your world. And I was one of those persons. I was like, well, you know, that's not my world, and so I didn't necessarily pay attention to it. But as we started doing the research and started understanding what was going on and, you know, all these different data points were coming out. I started really paying close attention, and I think that the George Floyd debts and, like, everything else that was coming out after her. That, you know, started making me look at things. Okay.

Some of these things can't be real. Because, again, you know, I would say that we have been all, you know, toward the notions of, you know, the societal values of, you know, well, you go to school, you get an education, you come out, you get married, you buy the house, you get the car, you have kids, etcetera. You know? The whole American dream as as we call it. And I started thinking about it, I'm like, well, something is wrong in the data. So I really started doing a bunch of research and just reading voraciously reading what was going on. I started realizing the homeownership gap was like it's a point gap between black homeownership and white homeownership. And then started really and it's not that I didn't know before, but I would just say, you know, really starting to pay notice. So whether or not it was, you know, well, redlining and what word.

But a lot of those things started hitting me, and I'm like, you know, how does this happen? Because this is the largest asset class. And if this is the what we are training people towards or channeling people towards and getting them to think that this is the experience. But then when they get into the experience, they don't have the tools to be able to manage this. How do we expect to create a fair and equitable society? So I really started doing the research and we and and what I started uncovering was, you know, I think the highest point of homeownership gap was the smallest was, like, in 2,005 or 6 where black homeownership was, like, 49.5%. And in doing the article for Fast Company, one of the things again that struck me was that black home ownership in this country has never crossed 50%. White home ownership in this country has always been past 70% plus and so you always have this like 30 point gap and I'm like this can be real. And and so even now where homeownership black homeownership numbers have have receded and and they're, like, 44%, And, you know, black, white homeownership still over 0 73, 74%. They're still listening at 20, 30 point gap.

And, you know, I'm like, you know, this is really interesting. And still, you know, when I started doing the research and realizing mortgage and, you know, credit score and all the things that go into it, you know, and how, you know, society has been structured, you realize that a lot of this is systemic. And we have to be really intentional in terms of creating pathways for homeownership for those who want it because not everybody would want homeownership. But then if we are saying that these are the dreams and these are the values that we are positioning, how can we ensure that we give potential homeowners that opportunity to not only buy but also understand what happens post purchase and how to make sure that instead of becoming generational liabilities, your home becomes generational wealth. So those are some of the things that really kinda struck me as I started really building while we were building and keeping me and seeing, you know, okay, how as a black minority founder, we can address some of those issues and and give people context and and create, you know, that framework to be able to

That largest asset class. I just wanna unpack that a little bit, Daniel. So I think what you're saying is it's most people if you own a home, it's likely the most valuable asset you have. Is is that fair to say?

Yep. Agreed.

And what I also heard you say is that right now, there's about a 30% difference between black homeownership in the US and white homeownership, about 44%, somewhere around 73, 74%. So just think about that, listeners. The single largest asset, if you own a home, that most people have, if you are black family, it's almost a third the difference between who owns and who doesn't own. And and if this is the largest asset and a lot of black families aren't getting access to this wealth building tool, That's what you're saying, and that's why Daniel's here, and I'm so glad you're doing what you're doing, Daniel. So help us understand a little bit. I think people are wrapping their brains around the big picture, but keeping Lee does more. And as we're recording this in June of 2024, it does more than just put your documents online. Right? That's cool and that's helpful, but you've done more than that.

So give us a little bit more of the nuance of what is keeping me actually do that's gonna help us some of these issues.

So I I tell people, you know, at keeping me, our objective is really post purchase because they think that, you know, it's there there are challenges on both sides of the equation, and I think that, you know, what has happened in the housing world is that a lot of people are starting to catch up with the post closing conversations that we really need to have because I I see, you know, in in in my circles, you know, it's I love all that we've done in terms of creating access because now I think that there are a lot more programs. So there are things for, like, special purpose credit programs, which, you know, through, like, Department of Housing and multiple entities, our financial entities, which, you know, help with things like down payment assistance and really help, you know, create more solutions. And, again, I would say that we need to do a better job as a society of helping people to understand because there are people who have different sources of income that aren't, you know, traditional sources of income that would help to that would require some assistance in being figure out, you know, how to get into home. So once that aspect of the conversation is done, keeping it comes after and, you know, you're you're able to get a home, and so we help you now. You have the home, and you wanna be able to keep everything in a centralized space. So everything from your closing documents, your mortgage statements, your insurance documents, you know, warranties, guarantees, all those kinds of, you know, documents that can be easily misplaced. You know, we help you keep it, you know, in a in a centralized place. But not only that.

Now what we have built is about, you know, also helping you to be able to understand your maintenance. So everything from, like, we have in our platform, we've built our own maintenance checklist, and we have actually built our own scoring methodology for your house. That is similar, like, to your credit score, which again allows you to take advantage. So the more stuff that you've done in your house and the more that you're able to document this, the higher the score you have. And this the implications of this is when you are ready to sell or, you know, you're ready to transfer the asset. You know, those who come after you and this is for me, what's really under the virus of generational work part of this conversation, it's being able to track. Because, again, what most people don't understand about the process of of selling your house is that you have to do things like a seller's exposure form depending on which part of the country you live. And because we all live busy lives, you know, people are liable to forget.

So you did a AC change or, you know, you you placed that. What what year was that done? How much and how much it does does that come out to, you know, capital gain in stocks? Because, again, if it's due to the certain amount of time, you get to claim for that. Or or when you're filing your taxes for your home, you know, being able to have all the receipts and documentation about what was done when. So for for me, you know, what we're building and keeping these really around providing you with tools and knowledge to be able to help you make better decisions. And we've also created our own to help you make better decisions. We've also created our own appraisal tool, functionality within our platform, categorize that those documents and send it over to a appraisal for, you know, appraisal so that he can actually look at it and understand what has been done. And this, you know, again, from the lens of what happens in your home, I am a firm believer that, again, it it really shouldn't matter what the color of my skin is when it comes to my my largest asset. But you have a lot of stories where people have a lack of risk of bias.

You have, you know, lawsuits being filed. You you see all of these different stories. And, again, what we're seeing is that, hey. Here's what. Our tool helps you to be able to have all the documents and send it over to an appraiser to reduce instances of appraisal bias or, you know, again, doing something called a reconsideration of value. Because if you do suspect that you have experienced appraisal bias, you know, you can request a reconsideration of value. A lot of people don't know these some of these things. And so, you know, what we are trying to do is create a lot of transparency in this asset class.

So, ultimately, for asset keeping, we believe our role is really about feeding back the layers of this funding of homeownership and creating a lot of a lot more transparency. So when you have transparency, then we know that the asset class is way more clear and be more equitable for all persons who actually want to to own homes.

Love what you're saying there, Daniel, and there's more to unpack. I wanna unpack that piece around appraisal bias. Before we do that, I wanna take a quick break, hear a word from our sponsor, and then come back and get into some of the granularities you're talking about right now. Are you facing 1 or more important important decisions in your impact business? And you'd like an experienced thought partner to develop a plan about how to proceed in the complex times we're living, but you don't feel the need for an extended coaching or consulting contract that's gonna cost you many 1,000 of dollars. You're looking for an affordable, targeted, and time efficient type of support. Through paulzelloser.com, I offer a strategy session package. These packages are ideal for entrepreneurs who are facing 1 to 3 immediate decisions, like how to increase your positive impact, fine tune your marketing strategies to get more results for less effort, launch a new product or service successfully, or refine your pricing structure so it's both inclusive and provides you with a great quality of life. You can find out more by clicking below, and thank you so much for listening to this podcast.

So welcome back, everybody. I'm here with Daniel Smith, and we are talking about homeownership sustainability and closing the racial wealth gap. Right before the break, Daniel, we were talking about appraisal bias, and I've seen quite a bit of research. You know, there's a lot of active cases in the impact world that you're seeing, thinking of a case in Detroit. You'll see a lot, and I'll put some links to that research and what's happening in that space. And I I just wanna tell a story. So I own my own condo. And when I bought it, you know, one of the things that I was under the impression and it had been, there was a new central heating system installed.

I bought it three and a half years ago. I was like, okay. Cool. I don't have to worry about that. Right? But it turns out that they the previous owner didn't use a licensed person to install it, and they used the wrong fittings, which dripped and rusted out my pretty expensive central heating system. So that thing that I was thought was, alright. I don't have to worry about this for a while. It turns out I had to replace the whole thing.

Right? Ouch. It was not a cheap, you know, ouch. Right? So, obviously, when I replaced it, I I I have those documents. I know exactly where they are because if I ever have to prove again. Oh, yeah. By the way, it voided the warranty because it was dripping and it rusted out, and it was the fault of the person who installed it, but I don't know who installed it because there was no documentation. Right? So that's a little story of, you know, what can happen if you don't have good documentation. That was an expensive lesson.

I don't know how I anyway, this isn't about me, but I'm just saying you get a sense of, like, what could happen when you don't have the documentation and what it can mean. It was it was a big chunk of change to take care of that. And I kinda like living in a house that has heat. Right? I'm weird that way. Right? And and,

Paul, you you wanna hear a funny thing about it is that your experience isn't singular. I have experienced stuff like that. I I would say my own was the the refrigerator that had to be bought. Like, I'm on my 3rd refrigerator now. You know, 6 months after moving in on a year into moving in, the 1st refrigerator goes. And so that was from previous owners. I was like, okay. Cool.

The second one clearly was a problem. And within 2 two and a half years, we were just out of warranty by, like, 2 months.

Ouch.

And we there was there's nothing we can do. And so I was just like, you you got to be kidding me. And it was like, nope. There's nothing. And so we're on refrigerator number 3. And and the funny thing about it is I I still have 1 and 2 in my in my garage because it it pains me to pass with them. You know? I'm I'm just kinda sentimental like that.

Your new refrigerator collection.

Yeah. Yeah. Clearly. Clearly. But, you know, we did try to get a second, you know, refrigerator number 2, you know, try to figure out, okay, what's how people come out and look at it. You know? It's saying this part, and like, you know what? It was just way too much stress to figure it out. And, you know, for me, instances like that and what you're referring to, it's really about how do so I should have had a notification telling me, hey. This is your warranty on your refrigerator, and then I would have known.

Okay. But, again, understand that we are all living with very busy lives, and it's not that you willfully, intentionally forget these things, but that's not your your area of expertise and your realm. And so, you know, being able to have tools to be able to help you on this journey. So I would say you're gonna keep in reports so we'll get you hooked up. But, you know, that is one of those things that I've realized that in the home ownership journey, you don't know what you don't know. A lot of this is by trial and error in terms of our just our processes in terms of managing our home. And, ultimately, I have always believed, you know, as as we've been building this is that, you know, we have tools and systems now that can make a lot of these things easier. So

Yeah. And I was thinking about how that our our lived experience. Right? So I grew up I was born in a home that my parents owned, and they kept it and actually, we moved there when I was 9 months old. The only home I ever remember. And when I went to college, the the that home was still the home that my parents owned, and my dad was an accountant. Right? So so the lived experience of documentation and maintenance was something I saw growing up. Right? So imagine listeners, somebody who had that lived experience and then somebody whose parents didn't grow up in a home where they owned and didn't see some of the things that happen in terms of regular maintenance. And then you combine that, right, the synergistic problematic effect with the bias that you're talking about.

Right? Appraisal bias or just sometimes in certain neighborhoods, it can be harder to get somebody to come do maintenance even if you want them to. Right? I've certainly heard that issue being raised. So you start combining some of these factors, and you can see where, you know, 10 years or 20 years of homeownership and in one pathway, somebody goes to sell, and they get one valuation. And maybe somebody else with a very similar home in a very similar city could get a very different valuation. And that's I I I hear you doing things, Daniel, on multiple levels, and my brain likes to connect dots. And I'm, like, seeing the multiplication factor of you helping people with the maintenance part of the equation, helping people track things that would go into the valuation equation if they do wanna sell. But is that synergistic effect part of what you're trying to do with keepingly?

Yes. Ultimately, that is what we are aiming for and which I would say, you know, ultimately is how we started really thinking about the homeownership sustainability portion of it and the wealth generation impact of of what homeownership. Because when you start doing the connections and the deep dives into, you know, what sustainability represents. And for me, I have defined sustainability as not only getting into the home or the notions that you would get, you know, generational wealth by owning the room, but it it it's on that. You know? You have stories of, you know, well, you get a home and you think that the implications of of getting a home is automatic work generation. And, no, it's it's it's much more than that. And so when we look at it, you know, being able to the sustainability portion of being able to keep the home, maintain the home, making sure that you do what needs to be done. So you own a home, you know, part of that is you have to change your roof.

You know, it's recommended every 20 years. You bought a house as 15 years old. In 5 years, you need to be thinking about changing that roof. If it isn't changed at that point in time, then you start seeing leaks, then you start seeing, you know, pause, stuff like that. You know, insurance may not think about covering you. And part of, you know, one of the things about the current time that we live in is that there's things like climate change that is happening. You know, insurance companies are pulling out to certain states, you know, in in mass numbers. People are waking up to hear or to see notifications that they've been dropped from the insurance company sometimes.

And so when we start thinking of generational wealth, okay, what is the implications of this? Because also the cost is going on. The cost of ensuring your home is going the cost of property taxes going And a lot of people when they buy their house, I saw there's a stat that recently came out that shows, you know, a lot of millennials who have bought homes in the last 3 to 5 years. I think something like 92% 3% of buyers' remorse. And that is because they haven't been properly trained. So we were in pandemic season. You know, people are buying homes, sight unseen. People were making a lot of large investments. They were doing really wild crazy things.

They were paying a lot more to some of these houses and therefore, you know, you put or you pay a lot more. You put a lot more down into these houses. That means that you have, you know, your investment into these assets are we hire. And therefore, what you want on that is some type of return on that investment because now it's an asset or you believe it's an asset. You know, you have to make you have to do the work. But because we've, you know, we've sold home ownership as a nice package deal, but not necessarily giving people tools about how to manage or what needs to be done. And I would say now we are on the flip side of this conversation where we are at historic high rates in terms of, you know, what the mortgage rates are and what interest rates are. And so, you know, where people were paying 3, 2a half, 3%, you know, 3, 4 years ago, now people are paying 7%, 6 point something percent, 7%.

And so, you know, again, there's a level of remorse, and, also, the prices are also at their highest. So in in what we look at our keeping leads, how do we ensure that this asset that will be your most expensive purchase because, you know, we if we listen to some of our parents, you know, depending on when they were born or when we were born, you know, they'll tell you, well, I pay $20,000 to my house. Well, the average house price in this country right now is near $400,000. 400,000 versus $30,000 is is, you know, a far cry. And so people are spending a lot more. And so being an you know, I I think that, you know, as we go along, prices would also increase and also the value of those houses when you're ready to sell will will be a lot more. So we're looking at a lot of houses that would be 1,000,000,000 of dollars in years to come. But how does Paul know when Paul is ready to buy or when Paul reads it to his kids? You know? What is the value of this order? How does Paul's kids know what Paul has done? And so we we think, you know, we try to think about this solution as a long term need for persons both on the buying side and the selling side and on the inheritance side about what needs to happen to connect all of this together.

Thanks for explaining that so well, Daniel. So for a moment, just put on your, like, entrepreneur glasses and help us understand how keepingly works. It seems like it's a software as a service platform. Is that fair to say?

Yes. It is. Yes. It is. Uh-huh. And it's

for the individual homeowner that's the targeted customer?

Well, the way that we have we have, you know, positioned it, you know, more more to be, I would say, more engaging is either you get it from your broker. But, you know, the software is the is a freemium version, so you can come to keeping me. But we're in the stages of paid service. So, yes, it's a software. It's a service. But I would say, you know, similar to, you know, Gmail that has a free account that you can use, but you have storage on it. So being able to do things like store videos, store images, etcetera, there will be a point in time when you hit a port on your upper threshold. And so if you need to get more services or, you know, be able to see more to be able to store more video, etcetera.

You'd have to get one of the paid tiers that we're offering on the platform, but we're still, you know, tweaking that, you know, navigation and is that at this stage, a lot of homeowners really understand why they should be doing this. And so, you know, we have realized that a lot of this comes down to education. And so we've been really focusing on how we're creating those educational tools to be able to have a more robust conversation with a homeowner who may not necessarily or a homeowner owning market who may not necessarily always believe that some of these things are unnecessary until you you get into a tough solutions that we are focused.

Beautiful. So if anyone's not familiar with the freemium model, I thought of Canva when you described it, the design program. Right? You can go and do quite a lot of things with Canva in terms of, like, make graphics and cards and resumes. You know? And then if you want certain features or they have images right there in Canva, they're really good and they're quite affordable. Right? So some people choose to pay, but the really basic version of Canva is really amazing. It's a great design program, but some people choose to buy their images or use certain templates that are part of the more sophisticated templates are a paid version. So that's Canva. That's an example of a freemium model.

And my understanding is that the free version of what keepingly does is pretty robust. Is that fair to say?

Yes. It is. Yes. It is.

That's awesome. So go check it out, listeners, and go sign up and tell your friends who either are homeowners or thinking about it so you can get a sense of what it takes to be skillful in your homeownership and build wealth as opposed to, like, you were saying, Daniel. Oh, the roof's been leaking for 10 years, and I didn't fix it. And now there's structural damage, and that thing that could have been the greatest asset in my really a problem in terms of the finances because I gotta fix structural damage. Right? That don't you don't wanna be there as a homeowner. So look ahead a little bit, Daniel. Tell us, like, look ahead, like, a year, 3 years. Where where do you see keeping me going?

So in in a year, I would say that our objective is to really build a lot of partnerships within the in the coming year and, you know, be a bit more ubiquitous. We just came up with, like, version 2 of our software. So if users go to our website keepingly.c, you would able see our wait list feed. So we have been, you know, signing up wait list and then moving some of those off. We have been, you know, partnering with some of our broker partners to, you know, help them help their clients really, structure on what is going on behind the scenes in the house. So in the next year, we do envision doing a lot more of those partnerships, having a lot more users in terms of our platform and also as we go grew up, you know, adding a lot of functionalities into the platform so that, again, creating a ease of use experience and to be able to ensure that, the homeownership journey and pathway that you experience is really seamless, and and we give you the tools to be able to make the right decisions. In 3 to 5 years, you know, I would say that our objective is to have, like, our own scoring methodology become more a part of the lexicon of what happens in the home ownership experience. And so what we've said, you know, is that you shouldn't be buying or selling a house without actually knowing exactly what is the score of this house because you do not want to walk into problems.

So you don't want to be walking into buying some kind of new appliance 6 months later or, you know, a year later, spending 1,000 of dollars. And that is one of the, you know, very real scenarios. Again, we don't speak enough about, you know, there have been stories where you see these homeowners who, again, buying in the last 3 to 5 years. And so, you know, their experience of having to do replacements or, you know, the cost of insurance. And and, you know, if if it wasn't explained to you properly when you first bought your house, depending on when you bought your house, you would see a property tax bill. That is one amount. And I was recently reading a story where, you know, this new homeowner, he bought a house, and so he he got his 1st year's property tax. And he's like, yeah, man.

I'm I'm good with this. You know? 2nd year comes and he has to pay for the full year. And he's like, man, I did not expect this amount. And he's like, well, I think I need to sell now. And I'm like, I'm hearing people really adequately for this journey and experience because that feels wild when you have people after year 2 are now understanding what their cost of homeownership is. And so they're now making very different decisions because, you know, they they didn't have the data before. And so we're keeping the what we hope to be in in next year to 5 years is really that place of when you're ready to sell your house. You know? You have a score, so your buyer should be asking you, okay.

So, Paul, what's your key track score on your house? You know? And and you are able to actually have your bills and everything, you know, coordinated. So once, you know, they you can actually show them beforehand or when, you know, you see a transaction goes through, you can transfer the documents. Those are the the new species and the patterns that we're really aiming to build towards because we do believe that at the end of the day, when you're moving into somewhere, you should have the should have proper documentation about what has happened historically so you can make better decisions and vice versa. You know, when you're ready to sell, you know, it should be become standard in terms of the whole process whereby you give these documents, you know, maybe minus your, like, personalized details, but really give the documents of, you know, okay. What is your your your light bill or your energy bill then, you know, historically month on month so that person coming in to know. Or who cut your grass before? So that that person can know. Okay. Well, these are the details of, you know, the person who cut my grass or whatever.

And so those are the the instances and powerful as we do a lot of homeownership duty. And, hopefully, we can turn, you know, tide in terms of a lot of this, you know, from, you know, the not not only the homeownership numbers because I do believe that we do have some level of, I would say, foreclosures coming, and I think that, again, minority communities are going to be impacted. A lot of people who have mortgage rates at 2 3% and need to find some liquidity because, you know, they have some kind of renovation or they have some kind of thing going on, are going to need options. And we do believe that, you know, our our solution would have to be able to provide people with the tools to be able to make better decisions.

Love that. It was like a light bulb went off in my head. I was like, oh, credit score and and what kind of credit you bring to the table is an intimate part of the home buying experience and how much you would qualify for and what rates, all of that. And I was like, oh, I get it. This is a similar there's the same kind of value. I could I you just took me on a journey, Daniel. Like, I was excited about it before, but it was like another level of Oh, I get it. That just makes so much sense because I know a lot of folks who've been in that situation or are in that situation now.

Like, I thought it was gonna be this incredible experience, and it's really become a stressful experience because I didn't understand the holistic financial commitment I was making when I bought this home, and I would have made different choices, a smaller home, or I would have rented for a while, whatever. Right? When you put it all together and having a way to quantify the full spectrum expenses, including if there was any deferred maintenance, which I think is something that so often catches people by surprise, then I I could just see how you could prevent so much pain and suffering as well as contribute to so much equity in a space that has a lot of inequity. I I don't know. A light bulb went off. So, anyway, thanks for sharing that.

But but I suppose not to cut you, but I will also say that the in doing the research and and looking at this issue so much, I think that one of the opportunities here is for new financial products because people who are locked into lower mortgage rates need solutions, need mortgage solutions that if I wanna do a re renovation, I wanna do some kind of upgrade. I need some kind of liquidity. I wanna send my kids to college. What are their options? And I think that, you know, with with understanding what has happened in your homes better, It helps to there's an opportunity to create better financial products for people who are, you know, cash crunch because they so but we we are also in an age of what we've called or defined in the the industry as golden handcuffs because you have such lower mortgage rates that nobody wants to sell because rates are so good. I mean, if you sell now and and you're at 3% mortgage, who who's gonna sell a treat to get a 7? You know? So so I do think that, you know, the way that we make it is that, you know, there's so much opportunity to create new solutions, to create, you know, education around this stuff. We can possibly create better solutions for the ecosystem and for homeowners and and buyers who want better options.

That's, again, another layer. Thank you so much for bringing that in. Daniel, I can hang out with you all day, and I know you're busy and our listeners are busy. Listeners, there will be, in the show notes, links to the keeping lease light, the Fast Company article, and many other of the resources we mentioned. So go check out those links. And as we start to wind down, Daniel, if you were gonna leave our listeners with one thought that either we haven't yet covered and it feels really important or something just to send them off with on this really important topic? What would that be?

So for me, that would be really understanding what you sign up for in your homeownership journey and experience. You know, as a as a country, we spend somewhere between $60 and $72,000,000,000 in emergency repairs per year. It's not something that we should take for granted. We even in our part our own podcast, you know, I interviewed my co host who's talking about the fire that she had. And, you know, she was saying, you know, it it the experience was traumatic, but one of the things that it taught her to do is to ask better questions. And so I would say to all of us, you know, in our in our journeys, you know, ask better questions, and don't be afraid of where the answers may lead you. It may be it may lead to some groundbreaking solutions. So I would say, you know, I would, you know, piggyback on that, you know, ask better questions, you know, really think things through because nobody knows, you know, when, you know, disaster or something may happen to you.

And we should be prepared, and we should be preparing our families for, you know, scenarios. You know? It may never happen, but, you know, being prepared as entrepreneurs, you know, it's it's always something that we need to be, you know, be thinking of and, you know, really have our guard up around so that, you know, it may turn out to be better than we expected. But if it doesn't, then we always have you know, we're prepared for, you know, some eventualities and circumstances.

Beautiful. Daniel, somebody wants to get ahold of you, find out more about how keepingly works, where should they go?

So they can sign up on our keepingly platform, keepingly.c0. They can add me on LinkedIn, Daniel Smith, MBA, and, you know, they can shoot me an email, daniel@keepingme.c0.

Great. Daniel, thank you so much for being on the show today.

Thank you for having me, and I appreciate it, and it's been a a pleasure being here.

So, listeners, go check it out. Tell your friends that's what we do here. Amplify good work, and this is really important work. And big shout out to Karla Gazzi from the black chamber in New Mexico for helping me learn about this more than it was on my radar. Thank you, Karla, and thank you, Daniel. I wanna say, please remember, we love listeners suggested topics and guests. If you have an idea for a show or a business you'd like to see us feature, please go to the Awarepreneur's website, and on our contact page, we have 3 simple guidelines. We try to be really transparent.

We can't have everybody. Unfortunately, I get pitched by so many great impact businesses, but I try to be really transparent about how we say yes and how we say no. So go check it out. If you feels like there's a story that you'd like to see featured, go pitch us an episode on the Awarepreneur's website. For now, I just wanna say thank you so much for listening. Please take really good care in these intense times, and thank you for all the positive impact that you're working for in our world.