A newly launched real estate and home services startup focused on keeping seniors living in their homes longer is using St. Louis as its pilot market.
Through a sale-leaseback model, New York-based TrueHold purchases a senior’s home and then rents it back to them. The startup says it sells its homes after the tenants move out.
“We saw this opportunity to take this opportunity of a sale leaseback that’s been used in the commercial real estate space and use it in the residential space to benefit seniors,” Nick Machesney, TrueHold’s vice president of product and experience.
TrueHold says its sale-leaseback approach gives seniors the opportunity to cash in on the equity of their home without having to relocate elsewhere or move into a senior living facility. By becoming owner of the home, TrueHold also takes over maintenance of the property. The startup has positioned its sale-leaseback model as an alternative to a reverse mortgage, a financing options available to those 62 or older that allows homeowners to receive part of their home equity as cash.
TrueHold is led by founder and CEO Brian Hardecker, who said he decided to launch the company after seeing the health of family members suffer after moving out of their homes and into senior living communities. Prior to launching TrueHold, Hardecker was a principal at prominent New York investment firm Blackstone, according to his LinkedIn profile. TrueHold has about 10 full-time employees and raised a seed-funding round earlier this year of just under $4 million, Machesney said.
Machesney said TrueHold decided to begin operations in the Midwest because of its home values, which make sense financially for the company and provide affordable rents for seniors who sell their homes to the company. The startup says the price point of the homes it purchases can vary, but that its sweet-spot are properties priced between $150,000 and $300,000.
Since its soft-launch in July in St. Louis, TrueHold has closed on or is in the final stages of closing with about 20 customers locally. Officials said the company hopes to double its rate of home sales in the next year and have 20-plus new customers per month. Eventually, the company wants to expand its footprint beyond St. Louis.
“We hope to be in a handful of cities by the end of next year, but our current focus and priority is growing our operations here so we can continually improve how we serve the people of St. Louis,” Machesney said.
With operations underway in St. Louis, Machesney said TrueHold has formed partnerships with real estate agents to drive new business. It also wants to add financial advisers, retirement planners and elder law attorneys to its roster of partners.
The company also said it is interested in pursuing partnership with senior living facilities, understanding that some seniors who reach out to the company may be safer living in that type of facility than remaining in their homes.
“Those are the other types of partnerships we want as well so that we can really be not only a solution for those seniors that need us, but a resource for those we’re not right for," Machesney said.
With its business growing in St. Louis, TrueHold says it could expand with roles locally focused on managing sales and partnerships.
“As we scale, we’ll probably get to a point where we have a general manager in each market, managing those teams and managing the partnerships,” Machesney said.
