To UNISON or not to UNISON?

[Sara A Jackson]

I received a solicitation in the mail today from a proclaimed home investment company called UNISON. I looked them up on the BBB and they are a legitimate company with an interesting business plan and investment opportunity. I am not sure it is a win win situation though. Has anyone else heard of them?

[Jay Hinrichs]

Originally posted by @Taylor L.:

After briefly reading their website, I wouldn't do it.

"We invest equity alongside homeowners and homebuyers in exchange for a share in the change in value when the home is sold. No debt, no monthly payments."

They're missing out on the biggest and best feature of investing in real estate, cash flow.

Appreciation in single families isn't a good way to reliably make a return, as we learned in 2008-9. 

In the multifamily syndication world, we only invest when we can earn cash flow during our hold period. Cash flow is the life blood of holding real estate. If single family values stall or fall, these guys at Unison will get killed.

As passive investments go, you could do much better than these guys, it seems to me. Turnkeys, syndications, and hard money lending are better options.

i see they are San Francisco based.. this model started in the mid to later part of the 80s in the SF Peninsula.. home prices by 89 ish were already up to 500k to over a 1million and this was before all the huge tech dollars..

so for those that wanted to buy a home. investors would put up the down payment then equity share.. at that time it was tough for someone to come up with 20% down which was the minimum needed to purchase a home.. I knew private investors who did a lot of this in Palo Alto area .. and of course with the run up in values they made tons  and the buyers who could never get into to a home made money.  Equity share in the right venue works just fine.. not for everyone of course.