By Riley Kaminer
While most kids her age were reading cartoons, Allie Nichols was scanning a different section of the newspaper: real estate listings.
“I used to open houses in the neighborhood where I grew up and force my parents to take me to every house,” she said. Renovate Miami. Once there, he talks about the relative merits of investing in one property.
Fast forward a decade or so, and Nichols finds herself in the consulting world right out of college. But when the Portland native moved to San Francisco, she was hit by the startup bug — and hasn’t looked back since, especially since it brought her back to her real estate roots.
In the year In early 2022, Nichols landed in Miami as a member Eastward expansion of Protech startup Bungalow.She most recently served as the company’s VP of growth and real estate strategy.
But in June, Nichols left his bungalow to co-found a real estate investment platform. get away With Amr Shafiq, who was the production director of Bungalow.
For as little as $100, users can invest in short-term rental real estate. These investors receive a portion of the rental income each quarter, as well as benefit from appreciation when the property is eventually sold. All this happens with minimal hassle: no fees, paperwork, down payments or landlord obligations.
A key differentiator for Getaway is that investors can enjoy these properties themselves. Depending on how much the user has invested into the platform, they will be offered up to 30% off for renting out all homes on the Getaway platform – not just partial rentals. Considering the property costs around $400-$500 per night, this can be a huge savings.
“One thing we’re really excited about is that your investment isn’t just in an app or a website,” says Nichols. But you can actually go have fun and experience what you invested in. We really hope this instills a sense of pride of ownership.
So far, Getaway has found two homes—one in Little Havana and another in Scottsdale. This is just the beginning, but Nichols and his team plan to expand to top tourist destinations in South Florida, Arizona, Southern California and around the Rockies.
This fall, Getaway raised $4.4 million in seed funding from venture capital firms and angels, and an additional $1.5 million in debt. Nichols explained that these funds will go towards building the platform and infrastructure to reach their first 50 homes on the platform.
When it comes to finding new homes, Getaway uses a hybrid computer-human process. First, the team enters the various criteria they are looking for, such as homes in the $500k-$1M range with relatively many bedrooms. Once their digital system generates a list of potential assets, the Gateway staff begins to closely examine these opportunities.
In addition to Nichols, Gateway currently has five full-time employees spread around the world. But Nichols expressed interest in expanding in Miami, noting that the company will soon be hiring locally for marketing, operations and accounting/finance roles.
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