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Betting on the House
by Erin Peterson, reprinted by permission of the Grinnell College Magazine.
When Rob Buntz ’74 first got into the real estate business in 1977, he bought a run-down duplex in St. Paul, fixed it up himself, and sold it for profit. Since then, he’s done the same with condos, townhouses and hotels – renovating the spaces and turning a profit by renting or selling them. But now he’s got an even bigger idea: He’d like to fix the real estate business itself.
Buntz has spent most of his career in real estate, but admits that that wasn’t his plan when he graduated from Grinnell. He took a job as an admission counselor at Macalester College, but it wasn’t long before he was itching to be on his own. He’d worked in construction before heading to Grinnell, and he thought he might be able to parlay the skill into his own business. “I had this romantic notion that I was going to design and build furniture,” he says.
It was a successful venture, but as his customers requested ever-larger projects, such as built-in shelving, decks and house additions, he saw a new opportunity in real estate. He bought a duplex in need of repairs just a few blocks from Macalester – a purchase he financed with a credit card – and began renovating spaces. “I did a lot of the work myself, and I was living in the plaster dust,” he says.
His success with the duplex – as well as the red-hot real estate market – led to other projects, and by 1981, he was mulling over the idea of buying a Lake Superior resort that had fallen on hard times.
By that time, however, real estate was crashing. “I was still pretty young, and I hadn’t noticed that the economy had gone in the tank, interest rates were high, and we were in a pretty bad recession,” he recalls. “It took me two and a half years before I finally got a shovel in the ground. I can’t tell you how many bank doors I knocked on, trying to find someone who would provide financing.”
The wait proved to be worth it. Bluefin Bay, the result of the purchase and renovation, has been a remarkably successful resort, attracting couples and families year-round for summer activities, fall color tours, and winter skiing and snowshoeing.
Buntz has other projects in Minnesota and Colorado, but after three decades in real estate, he’s turned his attention to the business itself. This month, he is launching WebDigs.com, a site that’s a mash-up of traditional real estate sites and Microsoft VirtualEarth. It offers a flat rate for buying or selling a home – and, he promises as much information and savvy as most of the best real estate agents.
In addition to locating properties within a specific price range and offering specific features, www.webdigs.com can also find houses that are within a few minutes of your office, church or favorite shops. You can also request a specific school district. “These are the sorts of things that a really great real estate agent would know – but this is something you can do right on the website,” he says, noting that the cost is significantly below the traditional 6 percent commission that an agent would command. “It’s the best of both worlds.”
He says the time is right for such an advance. “When Charles Schwab announced that it was taking everything to the Internet, everyone laughed at him, but we went from paying $250 to a broker for a couple of stocks to $7.95 on eTrade,” he says. “The same is going to happen to the real estate industry for the same reasons. The consumer now has access to the information because of the Internet.”
While the site will only offer information on Twin Cities’ homes for now, he’s hopeful that it will expand significantly over the next two years. You can bet on it: After all, he’s proved adept at finding the perfect opportunity – and improving it.
See more at : www.webdigs.com and www.bluefinbay.com.
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