Kylie Davis:

Welcome to the PropTech podcast. It's Kylie Davis here. And I'm delighted to be your host as we explore the brave new world where technology and real estate collide. It's so great to have you here and to share stories of innovation and opportunity across real estate property and building services.

Kylie Davis:

And the aim of each episode is to introduce listeners to a PropTech innovator who is pushing the boundaries of what's possible across how we design, build, buy, sell, rent, and invest in property and all of the associated behaviour and activities around that.

Kylie Davis:

Now, none of this would be possible without our sponsors. So a big shout out to the direct connect team, making, moving easy dynamic methods, the innovators behind the forms live and real works forms and the Proptech Association of Australia. Thank you for your support of the podcast.

Kylie Davis:

My guest this week is the founder of a powerful agency, PropTech, Shaun Moriarty, co-founder and CEO of CampaignAgent. Shaun has more than 15 years experience in financial services, strategic risk management and new markets and technology before a conversation on a ski lift with an old mate who worked in real estate led to the formulation of CampaignAgent, a PropTech that provides payment solutions for real estate agencies in the form of easy-to-access finance, the vendor paid marketing, agent commissions, and even a form of bridging finance for buyers.

Kylie Davis:

And in this interview, we talk about the depth and breadth of the real estate finance base, which is much bigger than I realised. According to Shaun, the average market expenses of a sales campaign is around 4,900 per property. And when you offer financial solutions to sellers, they're likely to invest an extra 10 to 20% more in their marketing campaigns. And his skiing mate, Seth Watts, well, he became his co-founder. So here to tell us all about it, Shaun Moriarty, welcome to the PropTech podcast.

Shaun Moriarty:

Thanks, Kylie. Great to be here.

Kylie Davis:

Yeah. I'm really looking forward to exploring all the things that CampaignAgent does. But we always ask you to kick off with your elevator pitch. So short and sharp. What's the CampaignAgent elevator pitch?

Shaun Moriarty:

Yeah. So at CampaignAgent, we're all about delivering financial freedom through property. And so, what that really means is delivering payments and finance solutions to the real estate market and primarily the residential real estate market. So our flagship product is VPAPay which provides a Pay Now Pay Later service for Vendor Paid Advertising. And then, we have a whole bunch of products around that transaction.

Kylie Davis:

Okay. Fantastic. So VPA, very Australian thing, which is Vendor Paid Advertising because you are in Australia, agents are paid a smaller commission for our global audience. So the agent's paid a smaller commission. But the seller pays their own advertising and marketing costs. Tell us about how the VPA, your CampaignAgent VPA product work.

Shaun Moriarty:

Works. Yeah, so that's absolutely right, Kylie. And in Australia, there tend to be two distinct categories. There are agents who require payment upfront. And they simply can't either working capital of allowing vendors to pay for the advertising at the end of the transaction.

Shaun Moriarty:

And then, there are those who do allow vendors to pay from the sale proceeds. And we deliver two points of value for those two distinct audiences. But in either way, what we're really about is delivering a choice. So, at CampaignAgent, when a vendor chooses pay now, we deliver a very secure payment platform that has all the payment choices. Someone would want from Alipay to Apple Pay, Google Pay, MasterCard, Visa, and so on.

Shaun Moriarty:

But if someone wants to choose pay later and better align the cost of the advertising with the proceeds of their sale, they can do that too. And so, that's the way that CampaignAgent works. It gets distilled into a very simple conversation between a real estate agent and their client, the vendor. Mr. and Mrs. Vendor, would you like to pay now? Would like to pay later? And when the vendor chooses pay later, that's CampaignAgent funding it on their behalf and getting repaid from the sale process.

Kylie Davis:

Okay. So many questions around this. The first question I've got is you guys more than anyone would know what the typical cost of a marketing campaign is in Australia. Yup. How much does it cost a sell a home in terms of advertising and marketing?

Shaun Moriarty:

Yeah. It's sort of COVID affected the amount that people invested in their campaign in a lot of ways because the print publications withdrew from the market. So, that trend is returning. So if we remove the sort of COVID experience [crosstalk 00:05:02] from it... Exactly. Then, it's about $4,900.\

Shaun Moriarty:

Now that depends obviously on which part of Australia you're in because the biggest drivers of that marketing schedule are the internet portals. And that cost depends on which part of Australia you're in. So it varies anywhere from about sort of $1500 up to a lot more than $5,000. But an average, it's about four and half to 4900.

Kylie Davis:

Okay. Fantastic. But that amount, that amount for marketing, that's not the only upfront cost vendors are often looking at. Is it? Tell us about some of the other products that you've got in your suite?

Shaun Moriarty:

Yeah. So, when we think about Vendor Paid Advertising, we think about all the things that you need to do to bring your property to market and put it in its best light and get the best outcome for you. So we think about that encapsulating preparation works, whether that's a quick bit of painting to freshen the house or whether it's furniture styling or a little bit of maintenance in the back deck backyard landscaping and so on.

Shaun Moriarty:

So we think about all of that as the cost. And although we have sort of two styles of products that we talk about StagePay, which is funding those ancillary services and VPAPay being the actual advertising. When I quote the sort of 4,900, I'm thinking about those things in aggregate. Yeah. So that's the cost that people will typically invest in terms of, as I say, getting the best outcome in terms of their sale.

Kylie Davis:

Okay. I just thought it would be more than that.

Shaun Moriarty:

Well, that's when I say on average. So, if we strip out those ancillary costs, then on average, it's probably around three to 4,000. When you add in those additional investments, they themselves are around sort of four to 5,000. But obviously, not everyone needs that investment in their property. And so the two of them together on average around Australia are about 4,900.

Kylie Davis:

And so how big a barrier has traditionally been having to find that money up front as part of the sale? How big a barrier has that been to selling?

Shaun Moriarty:

Yeah. It's been a really significant barrier. And the thing about it is the cost keeps going up and up and up. So as more professionalism comes into the way that properties are presented and marketed, then, you get additional things like property styling becomes more mainstream and more of a sort of default proposition in lots of parts of Australia. The internet portal's increasing their share of the wallet as they find additional products and ways to exchange value.

Shaun Moriarty:

And then, you get things like drone, photography, and videos, and all of that, not to mention sort of social media boosts and the like that sort of both increase the wallet size and sort of change the mix as traditional print media sort of becomes a smaller part of that mix.

Kylie Davis:

So how hard has it been for agents to ask for this money front or to fund it? How big has that problem been?

Shaun Moriarty:

Well, so it really, and it is a significant cashflow problem for agencies. And so, we found that before sort of this category was defined in terms of providing pay later options, that often agencies would be carrying as much working capital in their vendors advertising. So therefore, paying for all the supplier fronts up cost and allowing for their vendors to pay later, that working capital burden was often as high as the gross income that they would earn for their entire year.

Shaun Moriarty:

And, of course, what becomes really sort of where it becomes a really pernicious problem is that when the market slows, when it takes longer for properties to sell properties on market for longer, that cashflow working capital problem becomes really, really hard. And an actual fact is a common point of causing agencies to fall over in those tough times because they've got to keep funding the working capital. But it's taking longer to get it back.

Shaun Moriarty:

And fewer of those properties are actually transacting in which case they have to collect the money from the vendors. And that's a really difficult thing for agencies because they sort of have to say "Mr. and Mrs. Vendor, I'm really sorry." We couldn't get the outcome that we all wanted from this sale. And I'm really sorry your house didn't sell. But we need that $5000."

Kylie Davis:

[crosstalk 00:10:14] five grand.

Shaun Moriarty:

Yeah. Right, which is really hard. We therefore sort of fill that gap and use our balance sheet. And we're an independent third party that can say we've delivered the funding to allow you to better align your cost with the sale proceeds. And then, we become the party that will take on that obligation of collecting from vendors when a property doesn't sell.

Kylie Davis:

Okay. So how much does it cost? What's the cost to the vendor, or let's just be really clear that you've got two products. One is targeted at home owners, and one is targeted at agents. Is that correct?

Shaun Moriarty:

Well, we've got four products that we can get to that. But if we think about where we provide funding for vendors to help them invest in their property sale, it costs a flat 5.9%. So if we talk about that average of $5,000, it costs someone $295 to pay later. And from the outset, our philosophy was to say, "Let's make it a fixed cost." So let's not have this traditional finance concept of an interest cost because we want to align ourselves with agents and vendors such that it's a fixed cost.

Shaun Moriarty:

So if a property sells quickly, then everyone's had a great outcome. The agents got their commission. The vendors got a great result. And we've turned our capital for which we earn a fixed fee faster. But conversely, if a property doesn't sell or it takes a really long time to sell. We're aligned with the vendor and the agent, because our economics are eroding. We're not charging ongoing fees. It's a fixed proposition. So the very outcome that's where the agent hasn't been able to deliver for their vendor, we're aligned with those parties. So that was sort of key to us.

Kylie Davis:

Okay. Yup. Okay. Understood. And so how popular is it? I'm trying to think when you're selling, I guess, no one's got sort of five grand lying around the house really, otherwise. So how many vendors take it up?

Shaun Moriarty:

Yeah. So it's between 50 and 60%.

Kylie Davis:

Wow. Okay.

Shaun Moriarty:

Yeah. And so, what surprised us very early on and it was sort of one of the key insights of our business was that it's all about creating choice and creating a great user experience.

Shaun Moriarty:

So if we think of InnerCity agencies in Sydney, and Melbourne where they were getting sort of 90% of their vendors paying up front. But in that process, they were actually creating a lot of friction in the living room. So they were effectively saying, "Kylie, in order to get your property launched, I really do need your payment. I need your credit card details."

Shaun Moriarty:

We offer choice here at InnerCity agency. It's EFT or credit card. And so, what you find there [crosstalk 00:13:30] Exactly. But what you'd find there is that vendors would say, "Oh, gee, well this $7,000 schedule you've recommended, I simply don't have that. So let's start sort of bringing the schedule into what I can afford to put on my card today."

Shaun Moriarty:

And so what we found is those agencies who then took on our product, they went from 90% of people paying upfront when they sort of really demanded it to getting 50 to 60% of people choosing pay later because the choice was now, would you like to pay now or pay later?

Shaun Moriarty:

And people invested 10 to 20% more in the campaign because they didn't have to shape it to what they could afford right there and then [inaudible 00:14:11] living room.

Kylie Davis:

Yeah. I mean, look, you just need a car [inaudible 00:14:14] something due, don't you? And then insurance or something like that, a big expense coming else through their pipe.

Shaun Moriarty:

Yeah. Or school fees or something that you hadn't factored on. Yeah. And so, the way our product works is we provide that payment platform for the agency that's completely branded in their brand that provides no matter what choice the vendor makes. So if they choose pay now, then the real estate agency gets at absolutely no cost to them, a completely secure and really professional payment platform with all of those choices, I said, from Alipay to Visa.

Shaun Moriarty:

And if they choose pay later, we then provide the funding. And so we completely de-risk the agency from that transaction, and they'll get funded either way. And then, we provide a whole lot of reconciliation tools back into their trust account to help with that process.

Kylie Davis:

Got it. Okay. Let's just take a short break and hear a quick word from our sponsors. Imagine a real estate forms and contract solution that's always accessible up to date with legal changes and cuts admin time by 40%. That's the beauty of the Forms Live platform from Dynamic Methods. With Forms Live, Dynamic Methods have created a form system that is easy, online and, best of all, compliant.

Kylie Davis:

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Kylie Davis:

Can you just clarify for me, Shaun, because I think I'm not sure if this is the case in all states. But agents can't profit from the VPA sale upfront from the vendor adding... They're not able to add anything of their own. They have to simply pass the costs on, don't they?

Shaun Moriarty:

Exactly. So I'm just trying to think if that might not be true in some state that I'm not as familiar with. But certainly-

Kylie Davis:

Certainly Victoria.

Shaun Moriarty:

[crosstalk 00:16:30]. Yes. The state-based real estate legislation is very clear that that it's simply a pass through cost.

Kylie Davis:

Yup. Yup. So, basically the point I'm trying to make though, is that agents aren't trying to upsell you into stuff that they're getting a kickback on. This is literally... They're simply the costs of these services across to a vendor.

Shaun Moriarty:

Yup.

Kylie Davis:

Okay. So, you're a co-founder and you're a CEO. Where did the idea come from? What's your background?

Shaun Moriarty:

Yeah. It's a story that my co-founder, Seth, and I fondly think of because my background's in corporate finance. And my co-founder, Seth's background is in real estate and PropTech. And he was describing to me a problem that he had with his real estate agency customers in one of those downturns.

Shaun Moriarty:

So in 2015, he was telling me about the property market was slowing. And he, as a supplier, to the real estate market wasn't getting paid, frankly. And so, as we sort of dug into that working capital problem, we realised, "Well that's because the agencies are allowing their vendors to pay later." And so, they're kind of now delaying paying their supplies.

Shaun Moriarty:

And so with my sort of background in corporate finance and in niche consumer finance, I sort of said, "I think we could bring something to this problem and develop a really nice solution." And from that, because we knew that Vendor Paid Advertising was really the pain point for real estate principles because they're the ones carrying that working capital often secured by their own mortgage and real property, but we knew that if we could solve that problem, there'd be other ways... There'd be other problems that we could help with.

Shaun Moriarty:

So we have a really nice technology-led smart commission business that allows real estate agents to get access to their commissions and everything that's sort of is driven through our, what we describe as being stitched into the ecosystem of property. So, the key to our solution is to integrate into the real estate agents, CMR system.

Shaun Moriarty:

And for those not familiar with Australian real estate, CRM is sort of the one piece of software you need to run your business. And so by being integrated into it, we know everything about a property transaction which helps us with both understanding when we've got 60,000 plus loans on foot, if you think of all those people that we said, we provide a pay later funding to.

Shaun Moriarty:

We know what state that property transaction's in. And because that's important to us, obviously, when it sells and settles, we need to get repaid. But it also means that we can deliver other points of value to the participants. So when a property sells, we can make an offer to the listing agent or the principal to say, "If you'd like to access your permission today, click here. And we can provide a really nice at-scale solution for that," which means that we can deliver at a much lower cost to the way that product's been delivered in the past.

Shaun Moriarty:

And then, it also helps us with being able to solve other problems for property vendors. So when a property sells, we can allow a vendor to access the equity in their home to help them put their deposit down on the next property. And because we're, as I say, integrated into the transaction through that way, it means that we can add value at all different points along the way.

Kylie Davis:

Okay, awesome. So we're just going to unpack some of this because there's a lot in that. So you mentioned before that you've got four key products. First one is the vendor paid upfront payment stuff, advertising. And then, I'm hearing too that there's a commission product for agents as part of it.

Shaun Moriarty:

Yes. We have product smart commission. Yup.

Kylie Davis:

Yup. And so, if I'm a principal paying my people, basically, this is something that sits in between that lets that payment happen in advance so the agent can access it. Is that correct?

Shaun Moriarty:

Yes. Exactly. So the way we think about smart commission is we really want to solve the cash flow paying for a listing agent, more than a real estate principal because when a real estate principal has partnered with CampaignAgent, we've taken away the biggest cashflow pain point for them, which was the Vendor Paid Advertising.

Shaun Moriarty:

But the listing agent is still completely at whim with when they actually receive their commission because right up until the property sells, they don't know what settlement terms a vendor may agree to. And so they may have sort of thought, "Okay, I'm going to get paid in 60 days. And then, the vendor agrees to 90, 120-day settlement terms."

Shaun Moriarty:

And all of a sudden, they need to do some fast re-calculations of when they're actually going to receive their commission. So in that way, we can just be there as a cashflow solution for them.

Kylie Davis:

Right. And so, they get it as soon as they've listed the property or they get it when [crosstalk 00:21:56] that.

Shaun Moriarty:

Yeah. No. So it's actually, once the property sells, so once the property sells, it's gone unconditional. Then, they can access their commission.

Kylie Davis:

Right. Okay. Awesome. And the second product in there was-

Shaun Moriarty:

So the other product I mentioned in there was deposit now which is really helping vendors with the same problem, which is I've solved my property. I know that proceeds are coming to me, but only when the property sells. But how can I use those impending or, sorry, that cashflow that's coming to me to help me with my next purchase, which-

Kylie Davis:

How do I find the gazillions of dollars I now require to upsize my home, right?

Shaun Moriarty:

Exactly. Right. Particularly in this [crosstalk 00:22:49].

Kylie Davis:

Without selling a child.

Shaun Moriarty:

In the mix. And again, because we're integrated into the property transaction, we know when a property sells and we're able to make that timely offer to a vendor to say, "Hey, if you need to access, we like to access the equity in your house to make your next purchase, or just to help out with this time, because there's just so many costs that are involved in that really stressful time of transacting between properties that we can allow someone to access up to 80% of the equity in the house." And again, with a really seamless experience.

Kylie Davis:

Okay. Fantastic. So because bridging finance is both very expensive and deeply terrifying and quite complicated to obtain, am I correct?

Shaun Moriarty:

It is. Yeah.

Kylie Davis:

Yup. I think that's the summary of it, is it? No one wants you to actually bridge finance, anything. You should try to do anything you can to avoid it. And so the banks make it really awful for you to go through that experience because you've not got enough stress going on in your life having just sold your place. And we tried to find something in a market with not much for sale to buy. Okay. So how do you address some of those issues around bridging finance? What's the cost of CampaignAgent for that product?

Shaun Moriarty:

Yes. So for our product, we charge a 3.49% establishment fee. And then. And that covers a period up to 60 days. And then, if you need funds for more than 60 days, then we charge 1% per month. But what we find is typically a 60-day period should be enough between aligning when you need to draw down your equity to make the next purchase. And then, when you've got funds coming in from the sale. So we find in that product average advanced period is about sort of 40 days that people need access to.

Kylie Davis:

Yeah. I mean, often with bridging financing can take you longer than 40 days just to set the bloody thing up, right?

Shaun Moriarty:

Exactly. And so, we can approve a transaction in the same day. And we typically do. And again, we know a lot about the transaction. And we've built out technology platform from scratch purpose built for real estate. So that just allows us to be able to be really responsive.

Kylie Davis:

Awesome. So Shaun, what objections do you get from agencies who don't want to do this?

Shaun Moriarty:

So, deep down, it's about changing process. If I think about-

Kylie Davis:

From a process that doesn't work to one that does.

Shaun Moriarty:

Well, just listing agents love habits and love just a process that they know and understand. And the industry is throwing so many changes at listing agents right now, whether it's adopting digital workflows, like sign on glass and so on, to all the state-based regulation changes and so on.

Shaun Moriarty:

So a point of resistance is often just we've got so much going on right now. Yeah. I don't know that I want to adopt something that's about change. So we think deeply about how we sort of fit into existing workflows. And that's why we're not only integrated into CRMs. But we're integrated into marketing platforms into sign on glass solutions, into a trust accounting packages and general ledger accounts and so on.

Shaun Moriarty:

So that tends to be the sort of deep down point of resistance. But I think our sales team's pretty good at overcoming that and demonstrating that it's definitely worth making the change. Some principals get concerned about, "Well, I like my vendor paying up front because then they've got skin in the game." And so they're now invested in the sale. And so, we've sort of it's part of conditioning our vendors to know that they're really committed to selling.

Shaun Moriarty:

But again, we've been able to clearly demonstrate that whether or not someone chooses to pay now or pay later is just delivering them choice. And it's what vendors want when 50 to 60% of them choose it. This isn't a no sell no pay sort of product web. You're giving people a free option. That sort of ends up being a sort of a red herring in terms of the issue.

Kylie Davis:

Yeah. No. I just couldn't imagine why you wouldn't jump at it. It just makes so much sense to me and sounds so much better than... I mean, the last time we sold a property which was probably 20 years ago. But it's fantastic to think that so many of those pain points are now being addressed.

Shaun Moriarty:

Yeah, absolutely. And I should say most of the time when our team engages with principals, they're like, "This is a no brainer. Where's the catch?"

Kylie Davis:

Yes. And also from a real estate agent's point of view, why would you want to work for a principal who doesn't have this sort of structure in place because you want to make your people's job to win that listing as easy as possible. So get help them have the tech in place to help them get rid of any objections that a vendor might have to signing on with the agent. But also that security around.

Kylie Davis:

And when am I going to personally get paid, because this is a commission-based job. So I think those two elements are really fantastic. So how big are you guys now? How long have you been around for?

Shaun Moriarty:

So, that first conversation that my co-founder, Seth, and I had was 2015 sitting on a cheer lift on a [crosstalk 00:29:14].

Kylie Davis:

Yup. I was going to say did it involve wine? Most of these things involve wine.

Shaun Moriarty:

No. Not with Seth and I.

Kylie Davis:

I love the chair lift.

Shaun Moriarty:

Yeah. But our kids are all the same age. And so every year, we go skiing together. And it was just a few sort of up and downs on the chair lift where we sort of dug into the problem. So, we launched in 2017 in Melbourne. And so, we've been going for sort of about five years or so now, and sort of depends on month by month. But again, we can measure data incredibly deeply and accurately just because when I talked about those integration points and somewhere between in one and four and one and three properties in Australia uses our platform. And we are national from Perth to Darwin down to Tassie and then up the eastern seaboard.

Kylie Davis:

I'd love to get my hands on your data because you know when things are settling and you know how much money is coming through. You would have a fascinating insight into all sorts of things, real estate commissions, like marketing spend, where it's going.

Shaun Moriarty:

Yeah. And coming back to that question you had, Kylie, around, what points of resistance do principals have, one thing I always ask about understandably is why do you need to integrate into my CRM system? What are you going to do with my data and so on? And we made a choice right from the start.

Shaun Moriarty:

We sort of divided the world in terms of data into two very simple dichotomies. There's sort of the Apple privacy approach, or there's the Google sort of hoover up data and try to monetize it. We're very much on the privacy front. So really, our use of data is just about fundamentally about risk management, but also then delivering value back.

Shaun Moriarty:

So our key to being integrated into CRMs is so we know when what's happening with property so we know when we are supposed to be repaid because, otherwise, things would get out of control pretty quickly. And then, it's about how can we use that privileged data that we have access to, to add value in terms of providing products.

Shaun Moriarty:

But very much, we're very conscious of how privileged we are to have the data we have. But we are able to draw some really great anonymized insights and have conversations with principals around this is how your agency looks relative to your peer group. And we can sort of define that different ways and have some great conversations.

Kylie Davis:

And that would be so extraordinarily valuable. When I said I'd love to get my hands on your data, it meant more in that anonymized way to kind of get the insights into what's going on. I don't want to buy it.

Shaun Moriarty:

It just made me think of that question you had around resistance. And so we constantly understandably reassuring people around the reason we have those integration points. And we can quickly turn that conversation into let's talk about what this data means and-

Kylie Davis:

And what it can tell you and how it can help you run your business better, right.

Shaun Moriarty:

Absolutely.

Kylie Davis:

Yeah. And derisk your business. What CRMs do you work with mainly? Do you have some preferred?

Shaun Moriarty:

Well, we're integrated into, I'm pretty sure almost every... I mean, I'm always amazed at-

Kylie Davis:

How many there are at there.

Shaun Moriarty:

... a new CRM because the industry of real estate was new to me back in 2015. But everyone from Agentbox, Box and Dice, Renet, Zenu. And I'm sure I'm going to leave some off. But every CRM, you can think of really will be integrated into. And then every sort of sign on glass solutions from realtime agent to realtor, the likes of Campaigntrack in terms of marketing platforms, Realhub, we really try to be, as I say, stitched in, and then... Sorry. The last product that didn't talk about and there's a whole another set of CRMs is around property management.

Shaun Moriarty:

So we have just before Christmas, we launched the same Pay Now Pay Later solution for landlords to be able to defer payment of their incidental costs, whether it's into tenancy costs, like quick lick of paint and then advertising for a new tenant, or whether it's those unexpected costs, like you need a new hot water system or something.

Kylie Davis:

Yeah. New government legislation mandating some sort of safety feature.

Shaun Moriarty:

Exactly.

Kylie Davis:

I can't remember what I got hit with recently.

Shaun Moriarty:

It's up in Queensland, whatever it is. We provide that same payment platform and with a pay later solution embedded in it. Yeah.

Kylie Davis:

Awesome.

Shaun Moriarty:

Yeah. So, all the property management product suites as well.

Kylie Davis:

Awesome. Fantastic. Let's just take a short break and hear a quick word from our sponsors. Do you run a PropTech business or are you the founder of a PropTech? Make sure you join the Proptech Association of Australia. It's Australia's new non-for-profit association made up of tech people who are passionate about the property industry and committed to improving experiences in how we buy, sell, rent, manage, build, and finance property.

Kylie Davis:

Joining will give you access to events and networks across Australia and globally to help you promote and grow your business. Go to proptechassociation.com.au, and follow the prompts to join.

Kylie Davis:

So what's your vision for your future? Are you looking at staying in Australia? VPA is not so much a thing in other countries around the world. What's your growth plans?

Shaun Moriarty:

Yeah. So, we are 100% real estate and we are 100% Australian. So that's really kind of how we define ourselves to begin with. And so, we just look at how can we continue to add value in Australian real estate. And so, that's where our technology investment is focused.

Shaun Moriarty:

And so one of the things that we sort of I touched on, but it was a real point of value that we deliver is around trust reconciliations and so on. So the fact that we handle all the payments for a real estate agency to do with their sales trust, but also their property management trust means that we can then deliver really nice reconciliation tools back into whether it's their CRM or their trust accounting package or their general accounting package. So that's a big point of focus for us. And so, that's very much where we are focused, is Australian real estate.

Kylie Davis:

Okay. Awesome. And so with your crystal ball out, Shaun, what do you think the next five years? It's been a big five years since 2015 or 2017, especially for you guys. What do you see coming down the pipe in the real estate PropTechs space?

Shaun Moriarty:

Yeah. So what's been really pleasing for us if we think about our very small universe of funding Vendor Paid Advertising is we spent the first couple of years really around what we call kind of category definition. So the fact that everyone said, "What is this thing you're talking about," that's not a real thing. That's not a problem. I don't have a problem. I don't need you to now really around the category's quite mature now ,and there's lots of people that have come into it.

Shaun Moriarty:

And so now, it's about differentiation and really around technology. So that's something that's just massive for us. And we just see whether it's the digital signing solutions are getting more and more embedded into the workflow. [crosstalk 00:37:34] Yup. So you go from being able to sign a sales authority and agency agreement digitally to then sign a contract of sale to then all the points of conveying that should be digitised. And so you can see the real convergence of that. And it's really about freeing up listing agents and real estate agents, including property managers to really do the things where they add value which is having the conversations with homeowners around that really stressful transaction.

Shaun Moriarty:

And so, we are very much around how do we empower? We are big believers in the real estate industry. So we are not in any way trying to disrupt, or dis-intermediate real estate agents. We're about how can we add value so that they can be more productive and have more productive conversations. So that's sort of where we sort of see the technology going.

Shaun Moriarty:

And then more broadly, what we are sort of big believers in is around how can we play a very small part in solving what is a really fundamental crisis in Australia around affordable housing? And so, I say we're just a very small player in this. But we sort of think, "Well, we've actually got some really valuable touch points in terms of we're talking to people about investing in their homes so that they can sort of work their way up wealth or create wealth through property."

Shaun Moriarty:

And so we then partnered with Homes for Homes, which is an initiative of the big issue and are really working with them around how can we create awareness and create opportunities for Australians to be more inclusive and help all Australians sort of share in the wealth that Australian property delivers.

Shaun Moriarty:

So we are sort of pretty excited by that partnership and thinking how we find other ways to help solve that crisis because it doesn't feel like it's getting any better. And it needs a solution. And so we are not suggesting that we have a solution. But we're just super keen to partner with the likes of Home for Homes and others that are really specialists in it and see what we can do to create awareness.

Kylie Davis:

Awesome. I hadn't heard of Home for Homes. But I'm going to go and look them up immediately. And we'll pop a link to them in the show notes, if that's okay.

Shaun Moriarty:

Yeah, absolutely. It's a really great initiative. And I mean, I don't need to speak on their behalf. But they've identified a real problem, and they've got just a long term sustainable solution to it. So we're just super excited to be involved with them.

Kylie Davis:

Awesome. Awesome. And what does your future look like at CampaignAgent, Shaun? What are your plans in the very short term?

Shaun Moriarty:

Well, so we are a team and now of about 55 people. And so I spent a lot of my time with our people, which is great, because as much as we are a technology business, we're really and I sort of easy to say it. But we're truly a people business. And so, I think I'm keen, particularly as we come out of COVID, to be able to spend real time with our people because we just know we do such great collaboration when we're all together and working together. So that's the first thing that comes to my mind, is I'm really keen to get together and be able to shake people's hands again, and draw on whiteboards together. And yeah.

Kylie Davis:

Yeah, it would be so nice, won't it? It's lovely having a little bit of quiet time to get stuff done. But I tell you what. You really do. I think there's some research out that shows that parts of our brains are actually stimulated by us being together. And that when that doesn't happen, basically, this is one of the reasons why a lot of us feel like we're languishing a bit that we're missing that human contact is really important for us.

Kylie Davis:

Shaun, it's been absolutely wonderful talking to you on the PropTech Podcast. Thank you so much for your time.

Shaun Moriarty:

Thanks, Kylie. Thanks for having me. It's been great.

Kylie Davis:

So, that was Shaun Moriarty from CampaignAgent, a PropTech design to solve financial problems for real estate agencies and their stakeholders. I found it fascinating that Shaun said 60% of vendors take up the option of finance for their marketing campaigns when it's offered to them. And I think their deposit solution for sellers buying their next property is really clever. It's a great demonstration of the power of data to illuminate and de-risk elements of a transaction.

Kylie Davis:

I mean, if you know that the property has been sold and you know the settlement date, then there's security about when the money is coming in, that is visible to you in a real estate transaction and financing way that traditional banks would never see and would therefore increase their interest rate because of. And equally the ability to offer certainty about out when your agents will be paid their commission or with these options in market, it's hard to understand why any agent would work for a principal that didn't offer this option and security.

Kylie Davis:

Now, after the interview, I extrapolated the value of the real estate marketing spend in Australia. And if you take CampaignAgents number of 4,900 in marketing spend per property, and you multiply that across the number of property sales across Australia in the past 12 months, it means we have a $3.3 billion market roughly.

Kylie Davis:

Now, CampaignAgent's not the only solution in this space. I'm learning about a few others and will meet them in future episodes because this finance space may be niche. But it is growing really quickly.

Kylie Davis:

Now, if you have enjoyed this episode of the PropTech Podcast, I would love you to tell your friends or drop me a line either via email, LinkedIn or on our Facebook page. You can follow this podcast on Spotify, Google podcast, Anchor, and Apple iTunes. I'd like to thank my podcast producer, the fabulous Charlie Hollands and our sponsors, Direct Connect, making moving easy, Dynamic Methods, the name behind Forms Live, REI Forms Live and Realworks, and the Proptech Association of Australia, Australia's industry body supporting the flourishing PropTech community. Now, if you're an Australian or a New Zealand PropTech who would like to be on the show, drop me a line by LinkedIn or kylie@proptechassociation.com.au. Thanks, everyone. Until next time. Keep on PropTeching.