245 Connecting With International Home Buyers - Christian Calusa Nov 27 2024

Greg Bray: [00:00:00] Hello everybody and welcome to today's episode of The Home Builder Digital Marketing Podcast. I'm Greg Bray with Blue Tangerine.

Kevin Weitzel: And I'm Kevin Weitzel with OutHouse.

Greg Bray: And we're excited today to have joining us Christian Calusa. Christian is the CEO and founder of NEO, New Estate Only. Welcome, Christian. Thanks for being with us.

Christian Calusa: Hi. Thank you for having me here.

Greg Bray: Well Christian, let's start off with just getting to know a little bit about you and your background. Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Christian Calusa: Yeah, as you say, I'm Christian. I'm an entrepreneur. I've been selling [00:01:00] U.S. property overseas for more than 20 years. I'm originally from Italy, and after 30 years of flying back and forth between Italy and the U.S., I moved a year and a half ago with all my family to lovely Florida in the U.S. And I'm the founder and CEO of NEO, New Estate Ownly that is a platform designed to solve most of the challenges, I would say all the challenges, that the builder, agent, and buyer face every day when they search, promote, and sell new construction.

I've spent a lot of time on working both real estate and tech industry, and I became frustrated by how scattered was the new construction market for agent and buyers. Was not a one single place as there is in many other industry. You know, I'm a passionate about creating tools that make life easier for both professional and clients in this industry. That it's my big love.

Kevin Weitzel: Well, before we jump into [00:02:00] NEO and the platform and a little bit more about you, could you tell us something about yourself that has nothing to do with the home building industry, nothing to do with work and it can't include moving here from Italy because we obviously already know that one.

Christian Calusa: No, maybe most people don't know that my real estate career started like a joke. I was just running my scuba diving center, that's my big passion. I'm a sharkeologist or sharks is my other big passion. And I was looking to buy a home. Then a friend of mine was building eight amazing buildings but he was struggling with sales. So, I said, okay, let me see if I can help you.

And in a few months, I sold all the eight buildings and then I get passionate and then I started to build by my own, always selling to overseas client as investor. But as I say, my big passion is still shark, the underwater world. And I've been always being fascinated by the ocean and whatever. Whenever I get the chance, I [00:03:00] dive to explore underwater life and take underwater photos.

Kevin Weitzel: That's crazy because that is literally my exact opposite passion in life. I stay as far away from sharks as humanly possible. Like, I like barely dip a toe in the ocean. I'm like, I'm good. There could be a shark in there. All right. So, what's your favorite shark? Like the most interesting shark to you? Obviously, you know, there's the big great white and there's the hammerhead with it's crazy look.

Christian Calusa: Yeah, I'm a big fan of the Mackerel and the great white. Yeah.

Kevin Weitzel: The big predators. All right.

Greg Bray: Yeah. People who swim with sharks for fun. I'm not sure I totally get it. But hey, somebody's got to do it, right?

Christian Calusa: I went from the shark underwater to the shark of the real estate and I still prefer the shark underwater.

Greg Bray: The shark of the real estate. Okay. There we go. Wow. Well Christian you mentioned that you got into international buying and everything, when did you decide gosh, I want to start a company that helps solve this problem? What was kind of the time that you went, you know what? I think there's a better way.

Christian Calusa: I had a quite big [00:04:00] booth at a Columbia exhibition is, I believe, one of the largest exhibition in Latin America on real estate. And I was promoting a new construction project. And I have to say, I invest, my booth was very big. We have 12 people. In front of me, there was a guy just giving flyer, you know, handing flyer away with the same project, with totally different price list, totally different availability.

Then I called the builder and, you know, the builder started telling me, we are struggling to have a control on the information that agent and buyer find online. Uh, it's very hard. And then I look as a realtor, it takes a lot of time to be updated on what the market is offering. And there's, you know, new construction change every day, availability, price, model, new marketing material and so on.

I believe there is a problem as a brand integrity on that. As agent when they promote to and buyer to find all the information in one place. If I go anywhere on vacation, [00:05:00] I always make an example and I'm looking for a hotel. One of the industry where you have a lot of platform that put you all the information in one single place in a user friendly and I can access the information that I really want with one click.

And that's what I believe any client is looking today. I mean, the way we look for information, the way we search, is different than what was 10 years ago, and I believe the industry, especially the new constructions didn't develop, didn't mature much. And that's how NEO came to my mind.

Greg Bray: So, then, take us a little bit deeper into exactly what NEO is providing. You are working with builders and realtors to bring them together, is that the heart of it?

Christian Calusa: Yeah, NEO is a B2B and a B2C platform. It offers builders a unique visibility and customer experience to national and international agents and buyers. We provide a tool that helps agents to [00:06:00] promote new construction homes to their clients by embedding the full listing on their own website. This way they can easily share any project by email, social network, whatsApp, national and international.

I'm saying international because NEO is multi language. We believe that overseas buyer, it's an important business. I mean, analytics show that just in Texas and Florida, we're talking about a 44 billion dollar market every year. So, for sure there is an opportunity there. Plus U.S. I believe is a melting pot. You know, I'm Italian. If I could read the information in my own language, I would prefer. It would be easier to share with my family. So, more languages doesn't mean only overseas means even be more effective with the local market, that maybe English is not the mother tongue or maybe it's family.

I mean, buying a home is a big step. You know, it's not like buying $10 things on Amazon. So, it's something that I want [00:07:00] to share maybe with my family, whatever. I believe on the same way agent are sending email full of links and attachment that are very confusing. Every project is different. Agent should pull data from Dropbox as website. It's a lot of time consuming and doesn't guarantee the builder to make sure that agent and buyer access the right information always update. Even the way that the project is displayed.

I'm sorry. I'm just make an example. On a typical MLS listing. Okay. A buyer spends slightly less than 1 minute. On Neo, they spend 3 minutes 40 seconds because we try to work on customer experience, drive action, engaging the client and give him a full picture. Especially new home buyer don't have much imagination, so they want more information about the neighborhood, the project by itself, the mass plan, the amenities where they are located, and so on. It's, you know, imagination is one of the biggest [00:08:00] challenge when you start a new construction.

Greg Bray: So, you already hinted at this, with a really big number just a second ago in what you said, but I can imagine there's some of our builders that might be listening, saying, I don't sell to international buyers, that they don't even consider the potential market opportunity there. For a builder who hasn't really considered that, what would you say to them is to, you know, some of the opportunities that exist in an international marketplace?

Christian Calusa: You know, I'm aware of some builder they don't want a foreign national other people. They don't know how to approach the foreign national. It's not just about translating a website. It's about understanding the culture. I mean, you need to change the process of the marketing material. You need to adapt to the local culture. That's what we are trying to do.

I believe that there is a huge opportunity on the overseas. I mean, U.S. is still the safest country for anyone to invest in. Okay, [00:09:00] for the currency U.S. Dollar for many, many reasons. Okay. Uh, that's what I'm doing from 20 years, you know, selling U.S. property mainly overseas, European, Latin America and Asia. I mean, U.S. is the most safe for most of the investor or most of the people dream to move to the U.S. for the opportunity they can provide to the kids, for the opportunity of job for the opportunity to grow, for the stability of the government and everything. So, I believe there is something there that many builders are missing, and I believe they should look more on it.

And that's what I believe we are an amazing tool to support them on approaching this market because it's not easy. Just to make an example, we have an agreement with CILA. CILA represents the 19 real estate association in Central and South America, and they are sponsoring our tool. They purchased 20,000 of our tool to embed the full U.S. new construction listing to the agent that [00:10:00] actively promote or would like to promote in the U.S. Only four agents out of 100 are either promoting U.S. or willing to promote U.S. That means that if I'm a builder and tomorrow I go to attend an exhibition in Brazil and I will meet 100 agents, most probably only four could be the right agent for me.

And on top of that, that means that acquisition cost will be huge. And then, you have all the problem of the follow up language barrier culture barrier, maybe time zone and so on. The ones who are installing NEO, or using NEO, adopting NEO as an agent are the one actively promoting. So, when a builder booth is project on NEO automatically is on 20,000 agent website. Most of them are nationally. But as I say, we signed an agreement with more than 30 real estate associations overseas that are giving NEO as a member benefit to all their members that actively sell in the U.S.

Kevin Weitzel: So, in essence, when you have a listing [00:11:00] in the U.S., you've got a buyer coming from Brazil, and they speak Portuguese, it's not just the stopping point of having the language on the platform be converted to Portuguese, it's also pairing them with an agent that also speaks Portuguese.

Christian Calusa: Yes, absolutely.

Kevin Weitzel: That's fantastic.

Christian Calusa: As a transparency, if I'm a client and I live in Sao Paolo, you say Brazil, the things that I have an agent in Sao Paolo that I can drive through, you know, I can go to his office and sit, it give me confidence. Obviously, at the same time, this could be scary for the builder. They say, how do I control the information that these people are sharing? I mean, we deal with the top real estate association in Florida and Texas, Miami, Orlando and so on that are giving our tool to all the members. This create more referral and networking between a local agent and overseas because at the end an agent in Brazil, we need someone locally to handle the client.

But, you know, the culture, you know, how to handle that, you know, maybe, you know, there is many things [00:12:00] involved. Like for a foreigner buyer, the currency. How do I buy? Do I buy for a company, not a company? All these things is what we are, you know, investing on training overseas agent how to actively sell U.S. But as I say, language is not meaning only overseas. You were saying Brazilian.

I was talking a few weeks ago with a builder in Florida and he told me, no, we don't care about overseas. I say, yeah, but your project in Portuguese, by the way, the top viewer are coming from the Boston area. Massachusetts there is the largest community of Brazilian. And as I say, when I look to do an investment that it will impact my family for a long time, I prefer to access that on my mother tongue. So, more language, different way to display doesn't mean only overseas means even be more effective on the local market of foreign nationals who move to the U.S.

Greg Bray: That's a fascinating statistic that you're seeing that you can tell them from your analytics that the people [00:13:00] accessing a particular language. They've got more of them actually in the U.S. using that other language than located internationally. That should be eye opening for a builder to say, wait a minute, there's something going on here that I might be missing out on if I'm not serving this market. I don't know, Kevin, would that get your attention if you were a builder? It would get mine, I think.

Kevin Weitzel: I look at those maps, even when people are just accessing it within U.S., you know, where are they coming from. Why do they have so many people from Toledo, Ohio looking at homes in Tulsa, Oklahoma? I don't know. I do think that's interesting. And that does happen because people do move in clusters. They live in clusters.

Greg Bray: Christian, if the builder is, all right, I'm interested in using this, how hard is it for them to get their information like into NEO and to be able to share it? Do they have to do all the translation work?

Christian Calusa: Everything is done by us. We just need to share them. Let's say Dropbox, let's call it like this. That's how we call it in the industry. I believe even builder is investing so [00:14:00] much in the past year to give a better customer experience, to have more interactive marketing material, and most of the existing platform don't support that technology. So, again, this is resulting in a less customer experience. When you take a big decision, and I believe all of us right now, and COVID speed up the process.

Any search start online. That's how you do. The things is you don't want to click 20 links or open 20 website to get the information of what we are. There is no one go to place for new construction. And, you know, we have this advanced search criteria that is not only searching by bed, bath, price, home feature, community amenities, short term allowed, 55 plus, so I can really get what I'm looking for with one click. All our marketing is for final buyer. Promoting why buy new construction? Why buy in a certain area? What's going on in that area? So, this is our effort.

Greg Bray: Why did you decide to focus only on [00:15:00] new construction as opposed to all real estate opportunities and listings that might be there?

Christian Calusa: I believe the already built homes has many platform. Okay. Some of them, I have to say, the technology is not so advanced, but new construction really was missing a one go to place. What drives me crazy is that top national builder, their website is not viewable out of the U.S. That means that if I'm a builder and I send a link to a property to any person, any of us that maybe that time is on vacation in Europe, it will not be able to open the link.

So, for me, something like, you know, like in 2024 with the Internet there is so much geographical limitation. MLS is not accessible out of the U.S. Most of the platform in the U.S. are just in English. And as I say, it's not just about translation. It's understanding the culture, how to adapt for the benefit of the builder. The technology of new construction, there was no, first of all, at one go to place and didn't grow, didn't [00:16:00] mature like in many other industry.

Greg Bray: So, it sounds like not only are you helping the builders kind of communicate and connect with those buyers, but it sounds like you're also trying to educate those international realtors as well as to why they should consider new construction in the U.S. Is that correct?

Christian Calusa: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

We do this, we do a lot of training session, educational with the local association. That's why we have this very strong partnership with more and more overseas association and national too on educating. Even new realtor in the U.S., you know, when they get their license, selling new construction is different than selling already built homes. So, part of our mission by becoming trying to become, then they go to place for new construction is even train the people why they should sell and promote new construction and buyer why they should buy a new construction.

Kevin Weitzel: So, from the builder proposition, does the builder need to do anything [00:17:00] different than what they do now to partner up with NEO because you guys do all the lifting?

Christian Calusa: Yeah, we do everything. And what I believe is important. We share the user behavior data, you know. Like I say before, from Brazil, Boston, you know, and I believe that what the people are looking today is the data, the fresh data builder wants to drive the next steps. That could be the next project or the next phase. As we saw during COVID, for example, in Florida, we have a booming people coming from the Northeast of U.S. buying in Florida.

But, you know, it's a big place, so knowing for me as a builder, my community got more interested in, I don't know, Ohio, all right, or Philadelphia, maybe can help me to drive some marketing campaign, can drive me many different, maybe reconsider some floor plan because all the analytics today is on what is under construction. Okay.

But there is no analytics on what the people are looking for. Yes, there is many data's together. [00:18:00] There are. Let's say more on the construction side than on the marketing and sales side. And I believe at the end builder, the target is to sell any industry. So, having fresh data, what the people are looking for, where they are coming from and everything, it's a big value. It's a huge value.

Greg Bray: Are there things that are dramatically different for international or foreign buyers that builders don't always think about, like the way they approach their decision processes or what's more important to them in a new home? Is there any global things that we should be thinking about differently from our marketing if we're really trying to target these international foreign buyers?

Christian Calusa: Each culture has a different approach. So, I believe there is no one way to go. So, first of all, it's about a big labor mindset. Okay. Of the salespeople when approach a different market, a different client to understand what's your culture, how we want to be more aggressive, less aggressive, you know, everything is different. But then I would say [00:19:00] that one of the things is understand the problem that foreign national buyer has is different from a local buyer.

Just to make a quick example. Local buyer is more interested to get a mortgage. Okay. Most of overseas buyer are cash buyer, so that's not an issue. Okay. Finance is not an issue. The issue maybe is more, who will manage my property? What are the cost related? What I need to do every year? How do I pay the property tax?, you know, other things, other services.

That's what I was doing for more than 20 years, so I'm quite common on what. So, a client from Latin America is totally different from Europe that is totally different from Asia. And then if I go inside the country, China's different than Vietnamese or Japanese, like Italian are different from German or British.

Greg Bray: Are most of these buyers, then looking to make it an investment property that they will not be personally visiting or using, but more, you know, maybe a rental or some other type of [00:20:00] investment? Or is it really all over in a wide variety of uses?

Christian Calusa: Yeah, it's all over. It's all over. You know, many people are considering to move to the U.S. or maybe they don't want to move to the U.S., but they want to send the kids to study in the U.S. There is so much variety of it. And even I say geopolitically, you know, many countries, the people that has some reserve money, they want to invest that money in a safe country in a safe currency, and U.S. dollar and U.S. is the best.

Greg Bray: Sometimes, Christian, I've seen realtors that struggle with new construction versus existing homes, because of just the time it takes for new construction to be completed. And the fact that sometimes realtors are looking for a little faster process because if I can just sell the home that's done, it's going to take me 30, 60, I don't know, maybe foreign buyers might be a little longer days.

But with a new home, it might take several months just to get through [00:21:00] construction and all of the things there. And the realtor kind of has to stay in the loop on the whole piece. What are some of your thoughts there on how realtors can better understand the value of working with builders, and recognize the longer term benefits?

Christian Calusa: I personally believe that selling a new construction make agent life much easier because builder is doing most of the work. Okay. I believe at the end is even a different target. Okay. Depends by where we are in the market. You know, there is a kind of competition between existing homes iand new homes.

You know, right now, the finance for new homes, the builder are capable to give a better condition. But I would say that is a totally different target. For sure, I believe and I see every day with the adoption of NEO from the big franchising, from the big realtor, the association, even accessing the information, you know what I mean?

Most of the platform, if I'm an agent, I invest, let's say on Google, I invest on social network. Okay. I can feed with the MLS to [00:22:00] my website and I invest. On new construction, I'm not able to do that. Okay. I mean, I was not able to do that before NEO. Okay. I want the traffic going to my website. Okay, I won't not having one or two resources in my office just to pull data and be updated on the project.

And then I'm not able to keep the information updated. So, there is even a problem, how do I market those properly? Okay. I should have an IT guy just uploading every project every day pulling data. And the crazy thing is even when I was talking to association and I say, how many new construction project you think there are in your county?

And trust me, no one was able to give me the right number. Everyone missed at least 20, 30, 40%, because it's so fragmented that you don't know about them. I mean, right now we are the largest database in Florida and Texas. We have what, more than a thousand [00:23:00] 400 communities just in Florida, more than 1, 600 communities in Texas. It's a lot of work. It's a lot of work to pull all these data together for an agent. And that's for sure something that is slowing down agent by promoting new construction. They don't have the tools.

Another thing is most of builder, it's hard to talk to the sales office. That's why, you know, if you're an agent and you're logging in NEO, you have access to agent only information like commission, bonuses, contact details, working hour of the office. On the new version that we're releasing a few months, agent will be able to create a totally branded brochure out of any community in any language. So one click, boom, I have a nice brochure, very detailed, totally branded, where it's not a copy and paste my logo on an unbranded brochure. My logo is blue. The background of the brochure is blue. You know, it looks ugly. There is a brand integrity for builder, for agent, [00:24:00] for everyone.

And even in front of the buyer, it looks like, wow, come on, you know, PDF with this copy and paste in this way, you know, it's funny. So yeah, I believe, uh, not having a tool to promote it actively in a proper way from their own website so they are capable to invest money on marketing was a limitation for many agents to promote actively U.S. new construction.

Greg Bray: Kevin, can you feel Christian's enthusiasm? I mean, this guy is ready to help people.

Kevin Weitzel: I can't stop thinking about the fact that he has such a large quantity of foreign investors that are coming over with cash and not needing financing. So, that leads me to believe this is just a creative weird Kevin coming into play here. What's the possibility of let's say, there's a 53 year old guy in Arizona that is totally open to, a cash buyer, female moving here from, let's say, Italy, that I'd want to meet this person. Granted if Tina wasn't in my life, Tina negates this issue. This is a fictitious scenario, but you can [00:25:00] almost parlay this into a dating service, Christian.

Christian Calusa: No, no. I leave that to someone else.

Kevin Weitzel: It's a simple check box. Are you interested in this kind of person? Boom.

Christian Calusa: We're not involved on that.

Someone else that is more good on that.

Kevin Weitzel: Crazy ideas pop into my brain all the time. Some of them are good. Some of them are crazy. Like that one.

Christian Calusa: That's how come the great idea.

Kevin Weitzel: That's how they get there. Yep.

Greg Bray: Well, Christian, you mentioned the word Dropbox for data, but isn't it true that you guys can also accept some of the common data feed formats that the builders might already be using to push to some of the other sites like Zillow or New Home Source or things like that?

Christian Calusa: I mean, we have a good number of builders that autofeed NEO. Even we can, you know, as I say, they get directly. We can link that to their CRM, Salesforce, whatever it is, so we can even keep track of what NEO is generating to that. We're not involved on sales. We're not involved on commission. The data, the user [00:26:00] behavior data that we share is Google analytics. We don't put as other platform do merge that as on the same zip code on the same. No, I'm giving the data is exactly on that specific home design and that specific home community because I believe like this, you have datas that you can use. If not, those data is no value.

Greg Bray: Yeah. And I think this is a good reminder to our listeners as well that services like NEO and others that use this data that the builders have, it's really important to have that website on the builder side structured so it's easy to send that information to you. Because otherwise they step back and you go, you have one more place I have to send information and we need to make that automated and easy and send that data out. And it all gets into how that website is built on the backside to be able to make that easy to do.

Christian Calusa: It's not taking any time for the builder. Right now the market change in the past months as we all know about, but I remember a year [00:27:00] ago, you know, people tell me, I don't care too much. I said, look, the same agent that was selling your brand in the past 10, 20 years, right now is using NEO as a marketing tool to his client. As a builder, if I update information, inventory price on certain platforms, sometimes there is a delay up to one week and one week, it's a lot. NEO doesn't have any delay. So, if I change an availability today, automatically that number or that information change on 20,000 more agents globally instantaneously. So, it really gives builder a full control on the information agent and buyer are seeing.

Greg Bray: Well, Christian, this has been a great conversation. It's fascinating to think about the opportunities with the international and even the foreign buyers, but they're already in the U.S. that I think a lot of builders probably aren't focusing on as well as they could. Do you have any last thoughts or words of advice you'd like to leave with our audience before we finish up?

Christian Calusa: No, the only advice I [00:28:00] say, you have to try NEO and even contact me. No, just kidding. No, we have a great team. As you see, you know, you say I'm passionate. For me, I have three kids and the fourth kid is NEO, you know, it's like my baby, I'm very passionate on it. I'm really trying hard. I don't want to change the industry. I want to make the industry more efficient for all the people involved on it. I want to make a better customer experience for the clients.

Technology and everything is part of our daily life and more and more and more, it's important to be on the right tool with the right proposition to showcase in a better way. Technologies, it's moving very, very fast. You know, just to give an idea. A year and a half ago, I was struggling because I have a lot of datas. And everyone said, Whoa, nice. You have a lot of datas. No. When you have too many datas is not good if it's not really organized.

So, what we did is we bought a share of a company based in Switzerland that they develop [00:29:00] their own AI for the bank and insurance industry, even security system and everything. And we are launching a total new platform in a few months by the end of the year that I believe will have other features that will be a game changer for all the industry builders, agent and buyers.

AI is moving very fast. We shouldn't be scared, but we should consider it like it's happened with the WWW many years ago. And then the social was like, ah, no, it's just something going through. No, this will impact the future. And this AI is moving very fast and will change the behavior of the buyer, of the clients in most of the industry.

Kevin Weitzel: It's interesting you say that you had to streamline the data because there was so many variants, uh, that you had to mix that into basically one amalgamated. You do that so you can streamline the process from builder to you or also vary that information back out to the various platforms that you serve? [00:30:00]

Christian Calusa: No, we don't feed other platform. No, we share these data with the builder or locally with the real estate association. We always want to do a market analysis of what's going on and they don't have data on new construction. That's how we use the data. And we use the data to, you know, develop new technology or create a better customer experience on the platform.

Greg Bray: Well, Christian, if somebody wants to learn more about NEO or connect with you, what's the best way for them to get in touch?

Christian Calusa: Either go to www.newestateonly.com and I will be very happy you know to book really a 10 minutes presentation. That's what I need. No more than 10 minutes and really show a builder how effectively NEO can be an important tool for their marketing and sales.

Greg Bray: Well, thank you so much, Christian, for being with us today. And thank you everybody for listening to The Home Builder Digital Marketing Podcast. I'm Greg Bray with Blue Tangerine.

Kevin Weitzel: And I'm Kevin Weitzel with OutHouse. Thank [00:31:00] you.