Fractional second home ownership company Pacaso has formally launched operations in a number of sought-after Colorado mountain towns famous for their blending of glamour and ski culture.
Aspen, Vail and Breckenridge have long been popular luxury home destinations, and Pacaso’s model of home-share investing will further expand their respective luxury inventories.
The company also operates in the ski resort communities of Lake Tahoe and Park City, UT.
Pacaso will hire a minimum of eight local service providers to serve the properties under their management umbrella, per company practice. The process of vetting and hiring is underway in each.
The company also seeks out local real estate agents to assist in facilitating transactions on both the buyer and listing side.
“Real estate agents representing buyers who purchase a share of a Pacaso home receive a 3 percent commission in addition to 500 RSUs (restricted stock options) of Pacaso stock as a referral equity bonus,” the release stated.
Pacaso is the innovation of industry entrepreneur Austin Allison, who was behind transaction coordination software Dotloop, now owned by Zillow.
The company emerged from a nationwide, pandemic-driven desire to relocate, or at the very least, invest in an alternative living arrangement. Allison birthed the concept after having trouble finding a second home in Lake Tahoe.
Its model entails Pacaso buying a desirable open market luxury home, putting it into an LLC, and selling it off in eight separate shares. It then handles ongoing maintenance and offers software to coordinate who uses the home when.
Pacaso charges a 12-percent fee that covers finding other buyers and arranging the LLC and its respective financing needs.
While existing under a single roof, the eight shares Pacaso creates represent eight individual “home sales;” thus, the deal creates more “theoretical” inventory for local agents working with second home buyers.
The company’s vice president of industry relations, Marnie Blanco, spoke at Luxury Connect Las Vegas on the matter of shifting industry trends in the luxury market.
Blanco told the audience that her company centers buyers who afford a $10 million investment but won’t use regularly and buyers who can’t afford the initial financial hurdle.
“We don’t believe an empty house is a good house,” Blanco said at Connect.
Pacaso announced recently it has started accepting multiple forms of cryptocurrency from its investors.
“Colorado has seen a major influx of buyers this year, and these sought-after mountain towns are no exception,” Allison said in a statement. “People want to be part of these beautiful communities for the long term.”
