A Brand NEW Way to Own Luxury On Hilton Head For Less...REVEALED!

🏝️ The Most Affordable Way to Own on Hilton Head—Revealed! Ever dreamed of owning a home on Hilton Head Island… but the price tag felt out of reach? In this episode of Real Talk Hilton Head, David & Dale sit down with Plum Co-Ownership, a company that’s changing the game for vacation home ownership on the island.

If you’ve ever thought:
➡️ “I’d love a place here, but I can’t justify the cost.”
➡️ “How could I buy a second home without the second mortgage stress?”
➡️ “Is there a smarter way to invest in Hilton Head real estate?”
…then this episode is for YOU.

What we cover:
✔ How co-ownership works (and why it’s exploding in popularity)
✔ The true costs vs. traditional buying
✔ How many weeks you actually get
✔ How maintenance, management, and scheduling work
✔ Whether this model is good for investment, lifestyle, or both
✔ Real examples from right here on Hilton Head Island
✔ When this model doesn’t make sense (and who should avoid it)

Why this matters:
Hilton Head is one of the most desirable coastal markets in the Southeast — but prices have climbed fast. Plum Co-Ownership offers a way to enjoy the lifestyle, the beach, and the Lowcountry without the full financial burden of buying alone.

💡 Whether you’re a retiree, part-timer, investor, or a family dreaming of a vacation home, this model might be the breakthrough you’ve been waiting for.

Visit our website www.RealTalkHHI.com

📲 Connect with Plum Co-Ownership

Website: www.PlumCoOwnership.com

📞 Contact The David Dale Team | Thinking about a home, condo, investment, or co-ownership opportunity on Hilton Head, Bluffton, or the Lowcountry?
Let’s talk. www.DavidDale.com

Transcript

Welcome to Real Talk Hilton Head with David and Dale Cross, the real estate lifestyle podcast of Coastal Carolina. Join us as we share stories from our community, insight into the local lifestyle, and the real scoop on real estate. From market trends to home design, we dive deep into what it means to live and thrive here. Discover the state of mind and philosophy of the Low Country that enriches life through personal growth, health, and wellness, and human connection. Whether you're a local or thinking of becoming one, we're here to guide you through the ins and outs of living this coastal escape. Tune in, relax, and enjoy the conversation with Real Talk Hilton Head, the podcast of Coastal Carolina. This episode is brought to you by the David Dale team powered by EXP Realy in Hilton Head. Well, welcome back to Real Talk Hilton Head, the real estate lifestyle podcast of Coastal Carolina. I'm your co-host, David Cross. Today, Dale, my wife, my partner, my co-host, she's not going to be with us today because we're going to do this as a Zoom podcast. You may recognize this is not the studio that we're usually in. Uh, so we're doing this virtual. We're doing it um um as a Zoom. Um I'm going to go ahead and do this. All right. So, today, you know, I want to talk about the way people buy and own second homes is changing and Plum co-ownership is leading that change. So, here in Hilton Head, we have a bunch of resort style communities. Um, you know, you have places like Sea Pines, Pomemetto Dunes, Shipyard, things like that. People come and visit, they love it, and they're like, "How do I get a piece of this paradise?" And so, what we see is incredible demand for second homes and rentals, but the price tag usually is out of reach. That's what's happening here in Hilton Head is what you could buy for you know$150,000 $200,000 uh you know 15 years ago is now costing you a half a million a million a million five 2 million but these properties make money they make a lot of money and they turn uh the the rentals machines never stop so today I want to challenge you anybody who's watching this or listening this and and according to a report I just saw eight in 10 Americans want a second home this is for you because what if there's a smarter way to own a part of that dream while still building equity and creating lifestyle memories. And so I'm going to lead right in today to my guest. His name is Doug Rich. He is the uh um founder and CEO of Plum Co. Ownership. And I just want to welcome Doug to the show. So welcome to Real Talk Hilton Head, Doug. Thanks, Dave. It's nice to be here. Yeah, it's great to have you. I can't tell you enough. I the more I dug into this after that first initial conversation we had um about like the how thrilling this is and it's in combination because I I think when we talked I told you that um we just did an episode on tokenization of real estate which allows for fractional ownership and it sort of weaved right into what you're already doing. So I feel like you're at the cutting edge. I know this has been around for a while and I know people are going to have a misconception about it probably. So I want to put some of that to bed. So I'm going to tee this first question up with you. So um Plum is redefining the way people buy and manage second homes. So for someone who's listening who's dreamed of owning hair in Hilton Head and I do want to tie this to my Hilton Head market because that's what I do. I'm a real estate here. But so somebody who's thought about owning here but they thought it was out of reach. How does Plum make that dream possible? Yeah. So that's you know the great question and everybody asks like you know what is what is it that plum does that kind of changes the market and changes the game even for people like who are investing to be able to have a um you know a rental income from their homes uh but they they don't have the money to buy a home in Hilton Head that will rent well. So, what what we do is we allow bring together a group of people and we allow them to buy a property. So, you imagine if it's a million-doll property, uh you get five people. Now, you're getting a million dollar property for $200,000 shared among five different families. You can do whatever you want with that property. You can uh rent, if you want, you can rent it to offset some of that income. Um otherwise you can just use those five five to 10 weeks every year as your you know vacation home. But the idea is you're getting a much better affordable place for less money and it brings into market all these you know people who want to have a second home but they never thought they could and they don't want to time share because time share you're not increasing any of your equity. you're uh you're and you're just buying time. So we're we kind of I always tell the joke that at Plum were like take a com if Airbnb and time shares had a baby, we would be the uh we would be the answer to that. So yeah, I think I think what you just said because that's we I think we need to drill down on that because that is the misconception because in a time share you're there's no ownership at all. Okay. Right. Correct. Yeah. You're just buying time in a building and you're it it's it's there. Now, they have all different kind of programs. So, you can change where you go. But the minute you buy that, it goes to zero. Try to sell your time share for any profit. You can't. There's no value in it at all. Yeah. The only thing some people are able to do is maybe sell their maintenance cost, you know, like but they're the the asset the original purchase goes to zero immediately. Whereas with us, we have a vibrant market of people um selling shares of their properties as well. So you have buyers coming in and you have sellers able to on our marketplace just list their property or and on MLS and sell their share of of their property because because they're actually on title so they have they you know this is the I think a key thing is is you're essentially tenants in common if you will and you own so as the asset appreciates your share would appreciate a accordingly, right? It would go up with it. Uh that's inheritable, right? So you could that becomes an asset. It's an estate asset. So if that's something you want to keep intergenerationally, you can pass that on to your children. Am I correct in that in the way? Yeah. Well, sort of, but we take a little different approach. So what we do at Plum is we the property would be in an LLC. Got it. We move the property to an LLC. And so now the transactions become very simple. the the share becomes much more funible because you're selling is shares of an LLC. It still retains all the value. You can inherit it. You can pass it down to your next generation. Um, so there's it it retains all that value. It protects your liability. That's one thing, right? So, if you're going to rent it or whatever, it being in an LLC is good. It protects your personal assets. Um, yeah. But it also makes it very easy to transact with it because all you need to do is update the operating agreement with the new owner, sign a membership interest purchase agreement and the transaction happens. So I know you spoke to me uh that you recently had talked about tokenization and the ability to sell things. This is that step in that direction because we can transact sell a share on our marketplace on just like you're buying an Airbnb or renting an Airbnb. I see. And that's I I really folks if you're watching this and listening to this, this is this is a key point here because you know when you're buying and selling real estate, right? And I'm I and I want to you know right now I actually have a client. They're tenants in common. They need to he needs to get out of it. And it is a process. This isn't just like, oh, hey, I need actually I have two I literally have two clients who own a property together. One wants out. So, what how do you get out? Well, you either go cash out your money and buy them out and then that's a whole process in itself or you sell the property. This is so simple because this is shares. This is fractional ownership. This is basically, hey, I'm going out on the marketplace, you buy my shares, and there's no whole uh, you know, marketing the property and doing all this other stuff that you would do in a traditional real estate sale. I mean, that's a very distinctive point, don't you think? Yeah. I mean, that's our business. We have tons of people come to us in similar situations. Yeah. um that are, you know, that's one of them where they're in a joint, you know, tenants in common situation and they want to get out of it to make their pro their shares of their property more fungeible. That we that happen all the time. We also have people who are getting burnt or not making as much profit on the um Airbnb short-term rental market as they thought. um and they want to kind of share the costs of that property with other investors. So, a lot of that where people are coming in and with investment groups because if you think about Airbnb market, there's certain markets that rent all the time. They're constant, you know, it's the houses, right? Constant, no problem. They're renting. They're going up every year, everything like that. Those tend to be the more expensive, upkept, like high-end Airbnbs on the water, close to the water, everything like that. Um, those have become extremely expensive to have to own those. So, I want to confirm that. I mean, because and I'm just starting to cut you off there, but but sea pines, right? You're familiar with that's what I love, right? Yeah. Are you thinking about making a move to the low country? Whether you're searching for the perfect home or you're exploring vibrant communities on the coast or dreaming of a new lifestyle, we're here to help. Contact the David Dale team today and let's make your dream a reality. Sea Pines and and in my opinion, Seines is a premier resort community unlike any other place you're going to find on the East Coast or or any anywhere near water. And those properties, you know, they might be a 12 bedroomedroom, you know, yeah, 14 bath house, you know, can sleep, you know, 15 people, um, 20 people. They're two, three, four, $5 million, if not more, but they're up there. But they yield six, seven, $800,000 a year, like year in and year out. So you can no problem like hey I own one of the most luxurious beautiful properties in sea pines but you're in it for $500,000 you know $400,000 right exactly right and that's that is a lot of our clients so they see that trend and they'd rather own a piece of a a property that's going to make bank than uh you know try to you know buy a smaller property and hopefully make some profit. Yeah. Amen. So, so I want I'm sorry. Yeah, that's one of our markets. That's one of the beauties of what we do. That's awesome. So, I want to touch on something because you've brought it up twice. Um, let's talk because for a lot of people it may be, you know, I'm I'm sure there's savvy, sophisticated investors out there, but for your average folks out there who just looking for a second home, fungeible. You keep saying that because we hear things, especially in the tokenization, crypto, blockchain world, nonfgeable tokens, fungeable tokens. Let's talk about fungeible. Break that word down for people who may be like, what does fungeible even mean? Right. So, um, if you buy a share of a house, one of the things that people, one of the kind of concerns people have is what if in five years I want to get out or I want to upgrade, I want to go to a different house or I want to do something a little different with my money. Yeah. Locked in is kind of where everyone goes. And so that that's where we came in with Plum. And it even without us, it's still you can sell shares of your vacation home fairly easily. But with Plum, we've just made it easy. It much much easier. So you can list your um your share of your property on our marketplace, sell it, you know, you list it up there, you advertise it. Usually, you know, it sells in a short amount of time. And then the sale is so easy because as I said, all the information is on the marketplace. You can see everything you need. All you do is you click I want to buy it. Uh fill out a a form and then you own your share of that home. And that's what I mean by funible because it's so much easier uh than what you were just describing about tenants in common. You have to go through the whole process in a tenants in common of re, you know, filing the deed, getting an attorney to change the terms, everything like that just to break that apart. And that's why, you know, our approach has turned out to be uh not only uh easier for the consumer, but it's also leads into the future of what you're talking about is tokenization of just being able to buy and sell these things very easily without much research. So yeah, and also cutting out the expense. I think that's one thing we don't fully realize. I mean, you know, when you're talking about you form a LLC one time, okay, you got your your costs and that, but now you're able to do this without getting all the attorneys, without all the filing fees, without all the transfer costs, you know, things like that. Anytime, especially in a in a in a world like ours where everything has a transfer fee, right? You know, and time anytime something's going on. So you don't realize all those layered costs are are kind of being set aside and the speed of which you're able to do it. Um and especially now let me ask you this. Um you know 1031 exchanges because this just popped in my head. Um you know a lot of most of 1031 exchanges are going to be like kind some sort of investment scenario. Are they able does do these qualify for something like that or how does that even work? Yeah. So that's the only kind of downside on the LLC. So right now, if you're sharing a property in an LLC today, uh the tenant uh I mean the 1031 exchange uh is really difficult to do. Okay, just to be as transparent as possible. What what some people do is they'll they'll switch back to a tenants in common situation and then you know sell the their share but it becomes you know difficult. The nice thing about plum is we can facilitate it in the sense that we can still sell it on our marketplace. It's just you have to jump through to actually do the transfer is a little more difficult. Now, I have been researching this because it's a very hot topic and trying to figure out how we can get to the point at some point where an LLC can still participate in the 1031 exchange kind of racket that's going on because we get a lot of people who ask about that. Well, I have a feeling there's going to need to be a lot of structural changes within the tax code, and I do feel like we're coming to a place where uh leadership at on a national federal level uh is starting to recognize that everything's changing, you know, and and that's really the the blockchain type stuff. And and I just feel like you're at the forefront. you're you're sort of at a perfect place in history really for what you're doing because you it feels like you're a a forerunner kind of heading out and but you're meeting up with where things are naturally going anyways, you know what I mean? And uh so I do feel like yeah, that's probably something that'll be addressed. I want to tax thing. There's some interesting things with the big beautiful bill that just came out. Yeah, there's so many benefits uh with the new tax bill like 100% uh depreciation. Yeah. Uh you know Yeah. Immediately. So you take 100% cost of depreciation. So anything you put into the house, anything you do as a group, a much bigger house, you're to deduct that against your taxes. Yeah. So, if you want to come in and do if you need a roof, if you want to do the mechanicals, if you want to, you know, remodel, all AC remodel, any of that stuff is all uh, you know, really beneficial. And then there's tons of others. You can talk to your accountant, but there's tons of other breaks and benefits that an LLC can take advantage of where an individual would have a little more trouble to do it. So, thousand% because it's a corporation at this point and corporations are treated very differently. Yeah. Are you thinking of selling your home? With our exclusive Elevate package, we combine over 50 years of experience, cuttingedge data analytics, our unique marketing strategies, and our extensive network to help your home rise above the rest while maximizing your sales price and minimizing the time on the market. So, contact the David Dale team today to learn more. and and you as a a fractional owner, if you will. Yeah. No, I that's a great point. This is really good stuff. You got me excited, Doug. I'm just telling you right now. I mean, we're coming out with our marketplace 2.0 and you're literally able to transact, buy and sell a share online. I'm almost to that point. I don't need to get involved. You can go to our marketplace. you can click buy and uh you can move it to your portfolio and you own it. See, I I think that that that is the heart of what DeFi, you know, when I'm I don't want to go off track, but yeah, the DeFi revolution, that's what this whole blockchain because that's that's pretty much the concept is why do we have so many layers of intermediaries, so many people taking money to do something like, "Hey, Doug, I want to buy this from you. You want to sell it to me? I've got the money you got." And we should be able to do that instantaneously uh without layers and layers and layers of of red tape really if you will. Um and I feel like you know and I can't emphasize anybody who's watching this like it's a very exciting time and you have to embrace it because it's not a time to be afraid of it and because that's really what I want to break down too. I want to get into myths and misconceptions and things like that because people are cautious especially the there's going to be older folks who probably you know let's face it 55 years and older they have the money I mean they have the money to do this but they also are so used to the way things are done that you know we're we're talking about these things and it makes them nervous because for your point earlier with the time shares like you know everybody's heard the horrors of time shares but this isn't that. So, with that being said, I do want to kind of compare models, right? So, you know, we all heard of the time shares. Some may know of a company called Picasso because I see them on YouTube. I see ads on them uh in the and that's usually the ultra luxury market. But I want to talk about how Plum is different and why someone uh why should somebody uh you know look at buying in these investment properties uh care about what Plum does. And I want you to really break it down. Tell me all about Plum, head to toe, nuts and bolts. What makes you different? So, we've thought through something that was a very difficult process in the past. So, our focus started with how do how do you help people buy, sell, and manage their fractional vacation homes. So, that's kind of our that's what we do. So, think about all the details that come into play when you when you're sharing a home with eight people. You're literally sharing it with those eight people. Uh, you know, you have personalities to deal with. You have, oh, what are the rules? Hey, I want this week. I want this week. Uh, what do you do if somebody doesn't pay is, you know, out of the 10 people their maintenance? You know, we get that. What if, um, you know, somebody wants to sell their share? Do we have to just let them sell their share or do we have first right or refusal? Maybe we can buy their share. All these things we've thought out from the beginning. So to have a well ststructured operating agreement that goes with the LLC and it it's taken into account all these issues. So because but the key thing there is we provide the flexibility for people that maybe went to Picasso but they have a lock down operating agreement. This is how it's works. It's our way of the byway. So we have a lot of people coming to us that they say oh there's just one thing I can't do with a Picasso. I want to do it with plum. So that operating agreement is key. Some of the flexibility we provide is it's your house. Do you want to bring your pet for the vacation? Yeah. Now, the whole group agrees whether pets are allowed. Uh maybe you let the owners bring a pet, but if you're going to rent it, if you're going to provide a short-term rental, renters bring their pet. So, there's all these different nuances of whether people pay, not pay. So, that's the first thing. So, everybody should feel comfortable that we've thought through the whole thing. Um the operating agreement is available when you're ready to buy the share. So, you see how it's going to function. You can review it with your attorney if you want just to make give you that confidence, but you don't have to because it's already been prepared. It's already thought out. Um, and then we also provide an appraisal so you know you're getting the value in your property. We provide um an inspection report so you're not buy taking on any headaches or at least you know what you're getting into from a structure. So we pro and we so you have a full idea of exactly what you're buying into in this. But then the big key that you know everybody's great. Oh, this is great. We're going to share a house. We're going to all be together. Um we're going to have a great time. And then uh somebody has to manage it. Manage the LLC. So who's paying the bills? Who's having the company meetings? Who's getting everybody together? Who's making sure the schedule's right? who's calling up the uh you know the electrician to fix you know the AC whatever it is right who's doing that so if you just formed a group on your own you just did it without plum somebody has to volunteer to be the managing member of the LLC and it takes a lot of time so what we provide is extra help on the management first we provide an app called plum connect which basically all the challenges in sharing ing a home, scheduling, communication, and finances. So, we've taken care of those three things like uh and it made it easy. So, if the group decides, yeah, we're going to manage it. We still have the Plum Connect app, which just basically takes care of some of the key things that a manager has to do. That's can be a challenge. Then, we also provide what we call Plum Concierge, which is our full LLC management, not to be confused with property management. We don't go in there change the toilet paper or the, you know, or the paper towels or whatever. Um, yeah. But we go in and we pay the bills. We set up the company meetings. We make sure all the expenses are right. We collect the maintenance fees. We do all that, keep it in the bank account, fully transparent to all the owners, but they don't have to go through and have that hassle uh there with the property. So by providing those three things and lastly with the marketplace allowing people to feel comfortable that they can then sell their share in the future if they want and take their equity out. Those three things tend to make people feel a lot more comfortable about the process. So okay that's fascinating by the way. So you really created turnkey. This is you all the thinking that wears us down. You get them focused on, hey, where do you want to buy it and where you going to enjoy it? And then you've taken care of everything else. Just about. Yeah, just about. Some opt to not have us manage it, but Okay. Some opt to do that. There could be an investment group that already knows who's going to manage it, who's going to do that, but then we take care of everything else. Okay. So, like it's it that's kind of the only binary. We're we're seeing more and more people move to us managing the LLC as well. just making it easier. Yeah. All right. Well, I did have a question. Okay. Because, you know, I'm thinking about it from my perspective, right? Like, so I do go on Plum and I I do want to buy, but but in my head, it's like I really need to kind of know who I'm getting in bed with, if you will, right? So, how does that all work with uh matching up the people or and also is there a limit? Like, you know, do you say, "Hey, you know, there's 20 co-owners." I mean because obviously it's fractional so you know there's only 52 weeks a year right so you sort of want to limit that you know you don't want to buy two days a year you want to buy two weeks a year but um how do you match them up and how do you you know how do they meet how do they discuss because I'm assuming you probably start with a framework like hey here's the things you need to be thinking about here's how we got to assemble this but there's a lot of questions like how are you going to do this who's going to do that how does that all take place And how do the how do the people meet? Uh does that even make sense where where I'm going with that? Yeah, it does. Absolutely. So, you know, our one model is where we put a group together and then buy a property. So, got it. We I call it match.com for fractional vacation home ownership. And it's just as hard, you know, to find a spouse on match.com as to get a group put together. Swipe right, swipe left. Yeah. Exactly. Um, so the the the sweet spot there is typically four. Okay. And let me I mean some stories are amazing. So we have one group we put together and they're best friends now. So in their weekly they rent it a lot short-term rental. But one week a year they all get together as families and they bring their kids and their kids play together. They get along great. And we keep hearing this story time and time again like where you know when you own something together there's a certain pride of ownership. You want upkeep everything like that. And because they're leveraging our operating agreement no any kind of potential issues between the parties are mitigated very quickly because he can just go right back. Oh, here in the operating agreement it says it. But um it is fun to see like these families coming together and enjoying the property as well as reaping the rewards of the investment because they then the investment is also key to their future. You know they're the one of the reasons they're doing it is they want you know they want that income coming in every year or at the very least offset all their vacation costs for the year. So if you think about you get five you get 10 weeks. Yeah. That's a lot. rent them for eight, your your two weeks are free. So, it covers all the costs for the year for that uh vacation home. So, it's um it's very rewarding, but it is very difficult. I can't lie. You know, our biggest thing is to get that final group together. And once we do, it's great because then they buy the vacation home that they want. They all agree on it and yeah, they get to enjoy it. What we're seeing a lot more of is people who are want to take equity out of their vacation home. Okay? Really? They want to just basically they own the whole thing and they say, you know, I want to keep it, but I want to take this equity and I want to put it somewhere else. And so we have tons of people come in there and it's turnkey for us. You go to So they equity to these other owners. Yeah. Exactly. So, we find the other owners. We help find the other owners, uh, co-owners, but they're coming on board and just selling their property. Um, see, I love that, too, because now, let me ask you this, though, from and and I know you're not an accountant because one of the things that I do love about um leveraging equity because equity, most people don't realize, equity gets you 0% every year. There's you're getting no return on your equity at all. So, It grows, but it just well the the value of the asset grows, but the equity is sitting there doing nothing. And we both know velocity of money. You know, it does you no good to have a million bucks because that million dollars 15 years from now has really got a purchasing power of h of a half a million. Right. Right. So, you have to have the velocity of money. You have to have money working all the time. And I love it because that's what I love about property is you can strip equity taxfree by taking a loan most of the time. But that how how would that what are the tax implications of uh because that that becomes a like how does that even work? Right? Because you're you're selling shares into a company. Is that correct? I mean that's correct. So how so is that income? You're absolutely right. I'm not an accountant, but I it would definitely if you sold um if you made again, it's all about the again I'm not an accountant. So the research I've done on this a couple of times is so we're telling everybody talk to your professional don't don't right when you sell shares you're going to protect yourself against like any of the kind of capital gains tax things like that they're going now I I talk about this all the time now the other proposal that's out there is they're going to get rid of the capital gains tax on on property so that they're thinking very seriously about that and that would be great but we're a mechanism to avoid that because you're keeping a share. You're not selling your home. You're Yeah. and taking the profit. You're selling parts of it. And again, it's an LLC and how that works. Now, people have tried this. So, in New York, right, people have sold half their home, right, using this mechanism. Yeah. State of New York goes, "No, no, no, no, no. I know what you're doing. You're trying to avoid capital gains." So, you know, there are states that have identified it and have notified it. And the best thing I can say is check with your accounting professional, but it tends to fall on the side of being very uh tax beneficial for anyone who's in a co-own situation because you're getting ones, you're not getting money direct, you know, things like that. It's coming in as a on the top line of the operation, you know, so before it gets distributed. Um, you know, and I want to I wanted to say something earlier, too, because I feel like one thing about Hilton Head that I love, and I I hate to keep pulling this back to Hilton Head, but I am a real estate agent on Hilton Head, South Carolina, is that this island is known for being an intergenerational meeting place. That's what I think makes it special. Like, I love Myrtle Beach. We go there, we play there, my son plays baseball there. We're going to be up there in December, as a matter of fact. And it's great, but it's different because here, this is exactly what you have is you have mom and dad, the three kids, all the grandkids, they come down, they get the big house together, and it is their annual retreat. That's a perfect scenario for a family to come together and say, "Hey, son, hey daughter, hey, uh, you know, nephews, nieces, grandkids, whatever. We should come up together as an ownership group." you know, the kids may only have 100 grand they can put in, but hey, mom and dad have this, everybody has that. We can pull together 1.2, you know, 1.5, you know, and all of a sudden that's yielding and and that's the other thing I want to talk about too is how does the rent so the rental income comes in topline, you have your operational expenses. I'm assuming there's some sort of management, you know, that that you do they have to take distributions every year or how does that work with the cash flow? Because I'm sure there's going to be people who are wondering how does that all work w with, you know, these units? Do they do they turn profit or they pretty much do you try to break them even? You know, and if that's irrelevant or whatever, you know, forgive me if I'm going down. I mean, you you think you want to break even or take a profit. It's really, again, it depends on the the group of owners, but it's all spelled out in the operating agreement how it's distributed. So, usually it's a K1 at the end of the year, and that's so you're just adding it to your your personal taxes, a K1 at the end of the year. Um, you know, there's different tax strategies that come into play with, you know, taking a property, putting in an LLC that you can do. Uh, one we talked about, you know, the 100% depreciation. But again, for just regular everyday people who want to own a slice of a a vacation property that can sleep that all their family, everything like that, and then maybe rent out other weeks that they're not using it. Um, and have that be free every year. That that's what we're, you know, we just make that easy to do it that way. Okay. No, that that makes sense. Um, so I kind of want to move on because this is this is gonna sound like a crazy question and forgive me if I'm a crazy interviewer here, but how do you vet people? Right. Because for me, one of my things that is a great question because like you know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So you one of the things that we instituted very early is basically we don't even we we hardly converse with anyone that's not plumcertified. So we have this whole process where now I would love to do more but we basically every person who wants to you know like explore buying a share of property or even if they want to sell shares of their home they need to get plum certified on and basically what that is is just you know a credit check and a background check. So, we just want to make sure those two things at least we can check the box. And then when it comes time to purchase a piece of property, we do an asset verification. So, we make they have the assets in the bank and we also do a confirmation of income. So, that we know that they can afford the month-to-month so that not only have the cash, but they also have the income. But that's we we really try to encourage people to be involved because you have all different price points on our marketplace. you have as low as 100 grand all the way up to 500 where people are transacting. So we we wait to do the asset verification and income verification until the end of the process uh because we don't want to verify somebody for 100 grand and then they go I'm going to jump in on the you know half a million and they can't afford it. So, those are some of the things we do, but the key thing is the plum certified label being, you know, the credit check and background check. Yeah. I just I sort of want to make sure I don't have a serial killer in my group. Exactly. Same with me. Same with me. And yeah, that's why we implemented is you know uh you are literally going into business with these people. you you are and and I can see that being sort of for some you know maybe a stumbling block but I think that you know the opportunity and and and and I think more importantly this is what you're what you're building and what plum I I see so much value in it because you are there as a true partner mitigating as much as you can some of these problems because the opportunity is there but like you I would, but I'm not going to go do this myself, right? Because you you did it at very beginning. We thought through a lot of this. Not only have you thought through it, but you've learned as you went. Like, how long has Plum been doing this? What is, you know, and how did you even start this? By the way, let's get to your background in this like how how does Doug Rich, you know, forest gump his way into this? No offense, but that's legitimate. Actually, I kind of backed into it because I got called in from the investors to take over from the person who originally thought of this. So, I myself really a refounder because basically we um uh I had done a real estate marketing company. I had with my wife I had done uh the beginnings of a what we call c it was called virtual broker edge and basically it was the ability to basically take all the new marketing tools and buy a piece of property online you know we had a deal room we had everything just right on the internet co hit and took that idea out and then the the investors came to me about plum and I was like this is the answer. This basically it's almost like virtual broker edge but now what it is is we literally can transact these online still take advantage of those marketing tools like Matterport drone technology video walkth through photography being able to take all those tools and then and I just found out and you probably knew this already but Matterport now has outdoor Matterport where you can go around the house. I didn't know that. See, I I I do that like with our list. I'm shocked at actually how few agents are using that technology because unbelievable. It is, especially in a market like ours where so much of the business is relocation and so much of that is research way before they relocate for two, three years. And you're able to give them an immersive experience sitting at their laptop or sitting on their TV right now, you know? Exactly. Unbelievable. That's why I mean so coming out of that market I knew it would be perfect for this and so I know so you know our whole marketplace facilitates Matterport YouTube you know the whole thing so people can get a full idea of the home and maybe even purchase it sight unseen you know some I most of I haven't done one yet where it's sight unseen but I'm hoping to get there at some point where it's fully sight unseen It's funny because I'm actually closing a deal next week and it's a sight unseen. That's awesome. Yeah. I mean again it's it depend you know as the market picks up those things happen you know. Well and it and what's funny is it happened after I did a personal video walkthrough. Right. Exactly. We're going into the closet. We're going here. Here's what the toilet looks like. You know what I mean? And Exactly. You see the whole thing. Well, yeah. We when we were doing all the uh video marketing, that was the key is the video walkthrough how you did it. Good photographers being able to go through and then I've heard of real estate agents who are on FaceTime just walking around the house like showing somebody the house as well. So, you know, it's um the market is coming, you know, the immersive market where people uh are getting the information without having to be there physically. Now, yeah, they I I mean I like I said, they still go, but this helps them get there, if you know what like it qualifies them out. They'll know if they don't like it, you know, the but the, you know, by all the technology that we bring to the table there. But anyway, my background. So coming from seeing this, the investors asked me to take over and bring it to the next level. So, so um I want to talk about that technology because let's dive into Plum Connect. Uh did you build that? Is that it's a proprietary app and how does that Yeah. What is that like for you know break it down for what a uh a potential co-owner would experience with that app? Is that sort of the hub of where everything is ran through? Yeah. When you're owning in your owner's life, that's where it runs through. So we found that you know using tools like everybody communicates differently text phone you mentioned different age groups everything like that right so that's one challenge so communication tends to be the biggest right finances are second maybe not scheduling is second financ third um and we realize that if you some groups use Google calendar some use outlook this and that they're all over. There's no, you know, having a centralized schedule is hard and difficult to maintain. Um, then you have uh communications. Uh, I called you about that. No, you didn't. I did. You know, I sent you an email about that. I didn't see the email, you know, all that. So, we basically built Slack or, you know, messages in Slack. Yep. So, you have a full record of all the communications, everything like that. Um, and it supports direct messaging as well as different topics that may come up. Do we need a new shower curtain in the upstairs bedroom? Uh, you know, and then everybody can comment on it. No, I love that shower curtain. I love mold, you know, whatever. Anyway, so that that you have that communication area. And then um the last is financing. So we partner with Mercury FI Mercury Financial Mercury Bank and everyone of our part uh properties they have an account with Mercury Bank free of charge but Mercury Bank has some features that are very good expense management full you know full transparency is really the key but full 100% I could see that yeah and then they offer the like these debit cards for all the owners so that they And um you know, let let's say you're at the house and you notice it needs propane, a new propane tank. Rather than having to fill out an expense report to the corporation, everything like that, you can just take your debit card, buy the propane on the account, and you're good to go. You know, maybe you go to the group, I'm getting new propane, everybody goes, okay. But the the debit cards have limits on them like 250 bucks or whatever so no one can go to Vegas or whatever and you know like gamble away everything. So that's our partnership with uh uh um Mercury Bank. But then also documentation everybody you know you have your operating agreement, you have your membership purchase agreements, you have your warranties, you have your everything. So we have centralized storage for the documentation as well around the house and it's all housed in that app in the plum connect. Yeah. I should and and the reason we were so excited about it too is a lot of people don't realize well you had just mentioned you have two situations where there it's tenants in common joint ownership right there's millions of co-owned homes. I I'm in Paulie's Island and there's hundreds uh co-owned properties right here in Lichfield by the Sea and they don't have a Plum Connect. And the beauty plum connect is they can go on the app store, they can download Plum Connect and they can start using it to manage their co-owned home today whether it's LLC or Tenency Common or whatever. They can use our, you know, our app to help manage their co-owned property. So that's awesome. Yeah. So how scheduling work because that was another topic I was I wanted to touch on was who who because so much of this is making sure that that thing is occupied, right? So somebody's got to market it. Are you doing Airbnb, VBO, all these all the above um and and how does an owner like because you know there are co-ownership here. Okay. And the way it works is you are every season if you will. So you know you got fall, winter, you know, spring, summer, you are guaranteed a certain time in every season. So that way like every third year you're getting a Thanksgiving. Every, you know, third year you're guaranteed a Christmas. Every third year you're guaranteed a Fourth of July or whatever it is. How does that work within your system for somebody who says, you know, I really want to be on Hilton Head for Fourth of July or I really want to be down there for RBC Heritage Week. H how do you decide all that? Well, again, it we work closely with whoever's selling the property, selling the shares. The shares usually come with a fiveyear So, in our model, the shares come with a fiveyear schedule. Got it. We have two tools to help them. We have a fair use scheduling calendar that leverages AI. Um, balances out the holidays that you mentioned, balances out high season, low season, you know, rental season if that's your strategy, and then comes up with a schedule for the number of shares that you're offering on your property. So, that's one, that's our fair use calendar. Um other people opt for a roundroin type approach. So it's just let's say there's five owners. Owner one gets week one on J starting January 1st and then you roundroin it for the that way all through the year and then year two the second owner gets it and and there's two weeks of maintenance in there. So everybody can do that. So that's Yeah, that's a good point too because there's really only 50 weeks because you have to come in furniture, dishes, all that stuff has to Okay. So that's the other one. Um, and then we we do allow for people to kind of pick their make their own schedules, especially if it's a seller coming in who wants to sell shares and the seller might just want like the off season. Yeah. So then we can develop a a a you know a specialized calendar for the other shares of the non-owner. We don't like that Dave just to be honest because you have to envision that in the future the original owner who's retaining some shares would have may want to sell those and you don't be dog shares for the rest of the owners. So we we because we're flexible that's one thing but we always encourage everybody to go right now we try to push them towards the round robin scheduling because that is really the fairest there's no you know again it's just a rotating schedule. Um I we have here on the properties that are are you know they're more condo you know down on uh by the west end. That's kind of where everything's at in Follyfield. But that's the same thing. And I find it works out because you just you're going to get every season, you know, certain holidays that you want. You just got to wait your turn for the other ones or are you able to swap with other owners? Yeah. So that's the other thing about our app is we have direct messaging capability and you can go and swap and that's not a problem. That's pretty easy to do. Yeah. Eventually we're going to grow it to cover all plum properties. Yeah. So swap, you know, across the country, but right now we're Yeah. Like a time share. I'm just kidding. That's what we don't want people to get confused. But yeah, I agree with you. I agree. It would be nice to be able to intercommunicate with other Plum co-owners and say, "Hey, do you want I'll trade a week for with you with here." But well, I'll tell you because I'm in a boat club here and one of the things I love is I have my home club and I can do all the things I want, but because we're part of a larger network, I get three weeks a year at any boat club that we have where uh I'm sorry, three visits a year where I can go do it and it's and it's interoperable and it makes it so convenient because if my son's in a tournament and you know in Charlotte, I can go hit four marinas up there and you know and I I love that interoper ability aspect of it. So that would be really cool to bring that to this, you know, something like that. Yeah, we do uh I is it Freedom Boat Club? But I mean I don't know, but yeah, Freedom's here. There's actually now Yeah, that's a that's a whole We actually did a podcast with them. I mean that's a that's a a cool uh cool experience as well. Stay tuned. our our our next venture is I mean in the future we see yachts as uh another co-own situation because rich people own these yachts and they're sit empty you know how often so wouldn't it be great to share the expenses and everything like that with other my wife is addicted to below deck right and I I mean I look at these things and these people are paying a1 100 grand for four days, you know, five days. And it's mindblowing what those yachts can pull in, you know, you know, you got to have a captain, you got to have a crew. But I mean, I'm sure there's plenty of profit in that, you know, when it's all said and done. I Oh, wow. Now, now you're talking my language. Like my wife, she'd be all in on that, you know. Um so um but I do want to go back to though the um marketing aspect of keeping these things occupied. You as plum that's something you would provide as a service because I know for anything here any property management company it's essential that you got a property management company is going to keep that thing occupied because that's you know for all the owners. So tell me about that aspect of your company. Well, we'll we'll handle the interaction with the rental companies. Okay. So, you know, with the actual or Airbnb, but we also charge for that. So, it's either, you know, we charge on per week or per month, but basically that's an additional service to our plum concierge and that they somebody else if they wanted a rental management company. Yeah. Oh, yeah. It can be anybody. Yeah. Um, and that's the beauty of it is we're flexible. Um, and we provide as much services as you as the co-owner group need. So, you know, we'll do anything all the way down to the not the property management yet. I'm working on that actual last piece, but up to that up to that particular, you know, go in, make sure the, you know, everything looks good, change the toilet paper, do all that stuff. Yeah. So, wow, this is really good. All right. So, I want to pivot now and I want to talk about your relationship with real estate agents. So, in case there's any agents out there, I'm assuming it's very important for you and your owners to work with very experienced realtors in the local markets. Talk about, you know, to any agent that might be out there, like how would they connect with you and how would that work? Because I'm I mean, you probably need to you want to work with agents, right? And have that relationship. Yeah. Tell me a little more about how that all works. Yeah. I mean, for anyone who's representing a seller, having options on how to sell that house, especially in a slow market is, you know, this is an option. So, you can now go to the seller and say, "Why don't we just take your home and fractionalize it? You might even make a little extra coin on the sale." Now, it can take longer. So, but who knows? In real estate, it's it's a weird thing. like could take forever to sell the house, but you could sell shares of it in a couple of months. Like I had one in Montana went 30 days, all shares. So, um it all depends on the market and things like that. Um I just had an investor come to me yesterday. He goes, I want to I want to buy vacation homes and I want to sell all the shares and make that profit. So, in other words, he holds it for a little maybe a little longer, doesn't sell the whole thing, but he's he's got a consistent profit he's going to make on selling that that place. That's a brilliant strategy. Yeah. I I think I And then, you know, on the sell side, I mean, you know, I I always wonder like, why wouldn't you add this to your bag of tricks when you're going to, you know, a a presentation of somebody wants to sell their house? We also have this other option where we can fractionalize it. It helps stabilize the price. It happens quicker and by offering this service you you know you should be making a lot more money um on the transaction you know. So, do you do you I say a lot. I mean, you you can get five to 10% more for your house in doing it in this situation than if you just sell it on the open market. Espec if it's in a hot market, obviously, you know, you can sell your house quickly. Um, but it's often fun like a lot of the sellers go, "Wait, you mean I don't have to sell my whole house? I can keep two weeks or I can keep this good to go from there." Because I was going to say too, this this is a very important thing, especially in a place like Hilton Head, okay, where h if you took Hilton Head and cut it in half, the southern part of Hilton Head from say Follyfield down to Seed Pines, they allow short-term rentals, okay? But the north side doesn't. But there's a community like Hilton Head Plantation. It's where I live where not allowed to have um um you're not allowed to have short-term rentals, but there's nothing in the rules that says you can't have fractional ownership. Exactly. That we hit that a lot too. So that's because now somebody like, wait a minute, I really want to be on Hilton Head and I would love to live in Hilton Head Plantation, but now I can fractionalize that and I can own three, four, five weeks a year and one of the most premier, you know, beautiful communities in the in the low country and uh um but I don't need to rent it out because I'm sharing the expenses of BOS. I just want to live there and experience it and you know, I'm from Canada. I want to come down, you know, five, six, eight weeks a year and I I split it with four other people and now I got my 10 weeks and it's only costing me $200,000, you know, and I get the upside, you know, and I get the resort. I mean, you I'm getting mind that's where and that's where the flexible scheduling comes in. Yeah. Because people from Canada or whatever, if they get together with a group of five people, they buy in a non short-term rental area, it's usually beautiful. It's much more residential. It's quiet. You get all that benefit. And then um you know, like we get a lot of I think Buford just limited short-term rentals and everything like that. But um this gives you the option now of going for a month or three weeks or whatever if you wanted to set up that flexible schedule. Yeah. Because I think because what I love about it is it presents multiple avenues, right? Because one, hey, I need to get the short-term rental income. I really want to have an income producing or I just simply want a place that I have where you know Hilton Head Plantation realistically to get a a really nice updated home you got to spend a million million 2 million five right you're going to get a really nice home for that but most people don't have that for a second home but they might have 400,000 they might have 50 and now all of a sudden hey what if I said to you because because these people they buy it and they're only going to be in it 10 weeks a here really or 12 weeks a year. They they want to go back north to New Hampshire because they love the summers up there, right? This to me is like as a tool, you know, as a as something in my tool belt as an agent and this is to any agent out there watching, you need to think about it different. Shift your paradigm and go, "Wait a minute. Now that person says saying, well, you really can't get on the island. You can't get in Hilton Plantation for 450 or 5." Boom. You know what though? Yeah, find let's find three other people got 500 grand and we can get you the most beautiful place. You're going to have it for 12 weeks a year and you know you you got the upside, you got all the resort style amenities, you're an owner versus a renter, there's nothing they can do or say about it. Boom solution. I mean I we have all the tools on our website to kind of just develop that exactly what you want. it as a real estate agent you can do it or you know as a individual can do it. It's so easy to do. I love it. Yeah. All right. So with that being said because I I do feel like so you you know the one thing on this Doug though is I feel like part of your heavy lifting is that educational piece you know because you are really shifting paradigms and you're shifting embedded ways of thinking that people have generationally. Um, and I think what I would love to do is maybe we we kind of think about this going forward of maybe having you on as a on a regular somehow to where we can start breaking down into chunks. You know, what is fractional ownership? What are the steps? How does this work? Because, you know, we don't have all day here on this. I feel like this is a good starting point to at least get the concept out there. But, um, two things I want to say. Hey, would you come back? you know, would you be will I think we need to do this? And secondly, how do people where do they go to connect with you if they have more questions? Where should I point them to say, "Hey, I I really want to know more about Plum." Okay, good. So, first and foremost is plumcoership.com, our website. Okay, we're on all the socials, plumcoership at Plumcoership, you know, LinkedIn, Facebook, the whole deal. Um, I have my newsletter. Sign up for my newsletter. I have uh weekly communications about different topics that relate to this. Um, and I can be reached uh via doug@plumcoership.com and I I I answer every email. So, if people write me, I will answer it. So, and we'll put that as we're going to edit this and we'll put that as an overlay as well and a call to action at the end so that people know how to get a hold of you. And also for anybody out there, if you want to work with Doug and you want to get into a market like Hilton Head, which I encourage you to do, davidale.com, you know, we're here to help and we love Doug and we love what he's doing and I think it's a great mix and we can help you find those properties and and we can help you um get into different communities that that you know, again, especially if you don't need the short-term rental income, but go to davidale.com. Obviously, this is real talk. It's our podcast, but we're also real estate agents. So, uh, Doug, I really, um, I just love you got me excited about what you're doing. I'm thrilled that we were able to connect, and I feel like you are you are you are at times such as this, like this is built for where we are in the whole world with with how things are moving. And I I just applaud you for what you're doing. And I I really hope this message gets out and I I hope people are able to see a new way forward and and to actually come and can get that dream of the second home. Like you said, eight out of 10 people dream of this. You can make this happen. Yes. Thanks, Dave, so much. I appreciate it. My pleasure. And we'll get you back on Zoom. In the meantime, you have a great rest of your day and thanks for coming on Real Talk. Appreciate you. Thanks, Dave. Appreciate it, too. D. Don't forget to follow, like, share, and subscribe to Real Talk Hilton Head, and leave us a review to help others discover the Low Country lifestyle.