About two years ago, Josh DeShong and his team set out to build the first marketplace for wholesalers and investors to safely and easily conduct trade deals. Today, he’s ready to unveil that project to the public: Trelly, a real estate investing platform that allows users to buy and sell off-market residential investment properties.
According to DeShong, Trelly was built for investors, by investors. Trelly built the marketplace to make real estate investing accessible to everyone. Trelly says it’s a place single-family real estate investors can “buy and sell distressed, investable real estate.”
A “B2B version of the MLS”
Trelly wants to offer investors a way to scale their businesses fast and effectively via investment properties. The platform, which can be used directly via phone, tablet, or computer, acts as an online marketplace for sellers to list off-market properties for investors to buy.
The team compares it to a “B2B version of the MLS,” a private database where participating real estate brokers can provide data about their properties for sale.
The properties on Trelly, according to the company, are exclusive. They can’t be discovered on the MLS or any other site.
What fits your “buy box”?
The startup is solely focused on investors—saving them time, money, and energy. Users can find their next investment property by entering buying criteria, and Trelly will send a notification when something that fits their “buy box” becomes is listed. The tech will then automatically find data from official property records.
To DeShong, this is a less costly process for both acquisition and disposition. The platform’s base is exclusively active investors interested in buying and selling; that means no realtors are involved in a deal.
For investors, by investors
DeShong, who is also Trelly’s CEO, sees increased investor activity as increasing the value of real estate—but also, growing competition in the space.
“Investments flow to the greatest growth opportunities,” he said in a statement. “And because of both volatility in the financial markets and climbing inflation, real estate has become a much more attractive investment than ever.”
“Investments flow to the greatest growth opportunities.”
Josh DeShong
Previously, for his own property investments, DeShong was finding and conducting hundreds of transactions through traditional channels like direct mail, cold calling, Facebook groups, local meetups, and yard signs.
He noticed a flaw in the system.
“It’s not that these channels were bad or didn’t work. It was just that they weren’t scalable without pouring in tons of manpower and capital,” he said in the …….