Welcome to the latest episode of At the Forefront: Fintech Conversations!
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In this episode, Forefront VP and Head of Content Sam Belden sits down with Kirill Bensonoff, Co-Founder and CEO of New Silver, a fintech lender for real estate investing. Sam and Kirill discuss the real estate investing landscape and some of the technological innovations that are transforming it, including AI.
Sam opens the conversation by asking Kirill for an overview of the real estate market today and how investors are thinking about this market compared to the other assets in their portfolio. Kirill describes the various asset classes that exist within the larger category of real estate, noting a particularly high demand and a corresponding lack of supply in the residential market. Meanwhile, other sub-markets are struggling due to price depreciation and decreased pressure.
Next, Sam asks Kirill to explain how New Silver helps real estate investors transition away from purely active investing and adopt passive investing as part of their strategy. Kirill explains how New Silver acts as a tech-enabled originator for short-term construction, residential and transition loans by maintaining a private credit fund composed of accredited investors. These accredited investors can earn income from the fund, with the past year showing increasing momentum and yielding positive returns.
Sam then asks about a few technological innovations that have transformative potential for the real estate landscape. On blockchain, Kirill notes the technology’s vast potential while acknowledging that adoption has been relatively slow overall. He explains the basic use case: exchanging real estate documents and/or funds via the blockchain can remove middlemen and in-person interaction, significantly increasing efficiency while preserving security and immutability. It could also facilitate new means of capital formation. Ultimately, the prospect is exciting, but it will take time to fully integrate blockchain with the most complex real estate processes.
The conversation then shifts to the topic of AI, with Sam asking Kirill to discuss its emerging applications in real estate investing and potential long-term impacts. Kirill highlights AI’s potential to help with real estate valuation, as well as to read and summarize complex documents like appraisals. While Kirill emphasizes that these are still early days for AI in real estate, he believes the technology could make a major impact in the next few years.
To close out the discussion, Sam invites Kirill to offer a prediction about the future of real estate investing. Kirill predicts that real estate will beat the rate of inflation, emphasizing that smart investment decisions can unlock many opportunities in the market and enable investors to outperform their baseline.
See below for a breakdown of what was discussed. Happy listening!
Timestamps:
1:30 – Overview of the real estate investing landscape
5:28 – New Silver’s business model and private credit fund
9:07 – Blockchain’s potential in the real estate space
14:51 – Applications of AI for real estate investing
17:47 – Predictions for the future of real estate investing
