Side Real Estate CEO discusses $2.5 billion valuation

Today’s HousingWire Daily features a crossover episode with RealTrending, a podcast that features interviews with the brightest minds in real estate and housing. In this episode, Tracey Velt, managing editor at RealTrends, an HW Media company, interviews Guy Gal, the CEO and co-founder of Side Real Estate. 

During the episode, Gal discusses his company’s recent valuation at $2.5 billion, plans for breaking into new markets, and why a tech-focused backend and white-label brand are vital to Side’s success. 

Here is a small preview of today’s interview with Gal. The transcript below has been lightly edited for length and clarity:

Tracey Velt: For those who don’t understand or know Side Real Estate’s business model — because you have a unique one — why don’t you tell the audience just a little bit about why you founded Side, your business model and how you go about your strategy?

Guy Gal: Side is a different type of brokerage because we’re not a brand, we’re a platform. That means we’re invisible, we’re white label, so consumers, buyers, sellers never actually interact with the Side Real Estate brand itself. We want agents to stand apart as opposed to all resemble each other, because that’s what allows them to actually service clients in the best way and win clients in the most efficient way.

When we started Side Real Estate, which was about four and a half years ago now, we recognized that there was a segment of agents who were underserved by existing brokerages — top producing teams. It was an emerging segment that corresponded with the rise of the internet. The brokerages, of course, are designed to support an agent that’s maybe doing three to seven deals a year, which is like your average agent. That’s a very different set of needs than an agent who’s doing 30, 40, 50 plus transactions a year. That’s why we created Side.

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