If you’ve been following us you know that we’re on a mission to allow every human to become a homeowner and today we are announcing the appointment of five leading real estate, technology, and legal experts to our Board of Directors and Advisory Board to join us on this journey. Steve Evans, Co-founder and CEO of Sunstone Realty Advisors, Pure Multi-Family REIT LP, and Pure Industrial Real Estate Trust; Pascal Spothelfer, CEO of Genome BC and past President & CEO of the BC Tech Association; and Keith Spencer, technology lawyer and retired partner at a leading Canadian law firm, join as Directors. Co-founder and former CEO of BuildDirect, Jeff Booth, has been appointed Chairman of the Board. Thuan Pham, former Chief Technology Officer of Uber, joins the Advisory Board.
“Quality real estate opportunities are usually out of reach for everyday people and it is getting worse. As governments continue to print money in response to the global pandemic, they are pushing asset prices higher, which ironically makes it harder for anyone without vast sums of cash to participate in real estate,” said Michael Stephenson, Co-founder and CEO of addy. “We believe everyone should have the opportunity to own property with access to real estate investing at any amount, regardless of income, age, or other conflicts.”
Property purchase decisions are made collectively by addy’s executive team, investment committee, and Board of Directors. Once identified, the property is broken out into investment increments valued at $1. For example, a $1M property is divided up into 1M shares; and shares in the property will be available to qualified members on addy’s platform. Investors can decide how much they want to invest.
“The team has been quietly building the technology platform for the past two years in order to streamline the entire investment process and to minimize transaction costs,” said Thuan Pham, former Chief Technology Officer at Uber and addy Advisory Board member. “I’ve seen countless proptech startups in Silicon Valley and addy is the first one I’ve seen with a real chance at completely reinventing the industry.”
Upcoming Investment Property: Launches August 11
Our proof of concept property located on Vancouver, BC’s Trout Lake sold out to 305 investors in addy’s network. Investments ranged from $1 to $95,000, and the average investment was $4,551. Investors were spread across the country. It was the first of its kind in Canada.
Our next investment property located at 45604 Airport Road will launch on August 11. It is a commercial property leased 100% to Starbucks. addy members with funded wallets will be first in line to invest.
Why we love this property:
- Commercial property with a drive-thru and 12 owned parking stalls
- Freestanding building comprised of 2,146 SF new build retail
- 100% occupied by Starbucks with built-in rental escalations over the lease term
- It is located on the southwest corner of Airport Road & Yale Road, in the central region of Chilliwack, one of BC’s fastest-growing communities
- Experiences high exposure to vehicular traffic with counts of over 38,000 vehicles per day
About Our New Appointments
addy has made the following appointments to its leadership team:
- Jeff Booth, Co-Founder & Chairman – Entrepreneur, technology leader, author, and co-founder of BuildDirect. Jeff was named technology ‘Person of the Year’ in 2015 and in 2016 was listed as one of Goldman Sachs ‘100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs’.
- Steve Evans, Board Member – President of Sunstone Realty Advisors and Co-Founder and former CEO of Pure Industrial Real Estate Trust (formerly Canada’s dominant “pure-play” industrial property REIT, founded in 2007 and traded on the TSX; sold to Blackstone in 2018 for $3.8B) and Pure Multi-Family REIT LP (a Canadian based vehicle offering exposure to institutional quality US multi-family real estate assets, founded in 2012 and traded on the TSX; sold to Cortland in 2019 for US$1.2B).
- Pascal Spothelfer, Board Member – Pascal has held senior executive roles, in both Europe and Canada, across industry sectors ranging from technology, not for profit organizations and academia, President & CEO of Genome BC since 2016.
- Keith Spencer, Board Member – Technology lawyer at a leading Canadian law firm, retired Co-Leader of the firm’s Start-Up & Emerging Company Services Group, recipient of The BC Tech Association’s “Bill Thompson Lifetime Achievement Award”, Board member of numerous emerging Canadian technology companies.
- Thuan Pham, Advisor – Former Chief Technology Officer at Uber. Prior to that, he was VP of Engineering at VMware, Westbridge, and DoubleClick. He holds a BS in computer science and engineering and an MS in EE/CS from MIT.