Host Len chats with Reuven Gorsht from Deeded to discuss the challenges and innovations in the real estate closing process. Reuven shares his personal experience of a disastrous and disorganized closing that inspired his mission to modernize the closing experience for homebuyers. The conversation explores how Deeded’s virtual closing platform tracks and manages documents to ensure smooth transactions, combining human empathy with technology to provide a seamless experience for clients. 

Security is a focus of the discussion, with Reuven highlighting Deeded’s SOC2 certification and various measures to prevent phishing and fraud. The podcast also touches on the concept of Independent Legal Advice (ILS) and its importance in transactions. Reuven shares compelling statistics showing that 87% of homeowners find mortgage products through referrals, emphasizing the critical importance of creating excellent client experiences in the digital age. Len and Reuven conclude by discussing the future of the industry, pointing to the increasing adoption of digital solutions while maintaining the human touch that builds strong relationships with clients. 

About Reuven Gorsht

Reuven Gorsht is an entrepreneur with a passion for solving big, challenging problems. He’s helped transform and evolve multi-billion dollar corporations into new business models, products, and paradigms. He’s built several very successful startups from the ground up and knows what it takes to build products, teams, and cultures that can execute with passion.

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Contact Len Lane | Brokers for Life: 

• BrokersForLife.ca
• Linkedin: Len Lane
• LinkedIn: Brokers for Life
• Facebook: Brokers for Life
• X: @Brokers4Life
  

Contact Reuven Gorsht | Deeded Law Services: 

• Website: deeded.ca 
• Instagram: @deeded.ca
• X: @getdeeded
• Facebook: @getdeeded
• Linkedin: Reuven Gorsht

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Transcript:
Len  0:02  

Welcome. My name is Len Lane, and I am the founder and president of Brokers for Life Inc. and we are Dominion Lending Centers in Western Canada. The topic of our podcast will be about what we consider to be Real Life Mortgage Solutions. 

Len  0:19

Welcome back. This is one of the sessions that we’re doing on the legal system and legal opportunities for clients, realtors, you know, just to make the process simpler. My guest today is Reuven Gorsht, and he is with a company called Deeded. Welcome to the show. 

Reuven 0:39

Hey, Len, great to be here. Thanks for having me. 

Len 0:42

And you’re in Toronto this morning. Are you?

Reuven  0:44  

I am, yeah, just working from home today. Cold, cold, snowy day, so trying to stay warm like yourself. 

Len  0:52  

Yeah, exactly. So, so maybe let’s talk a little bit about how Deeded came about.

Reuven  0:58  

Absolutely. So my background has all been in technology, but for the last decade or so, I’ve been building technology solutions for the real estate space. So built a company called Move Snap, before Deeded, that helped realtors and their clients essentially manage all the aspects of moving, and we ended up selling that company back in 2019 and sitting there scratching my head thinking about what’s next? I happen to buy the house that I’m in now, and I still remember sitting on the driveway with my wife, and we had the moving truck organized for that afternoon. We even had company coming over the weekend, and we’re just sitting there in a car waiting for our lawyer to give us a call and say, hey, you know everything went through. You can get your keys and start moving in. The call did come in, but it was basically the lawyer saying, hey, you know what, I’m missing a document, and unless I can get that document in my office in the next 45 minutes, you’re not going to close. So two lessons learned. One is never close on a Friday, because I did, I made that really, really bad mistake. And number two is I knew exactly what document he was talking about, but I had packed it that morning on the moving truck. So is that on? First thing we packed was that document box on a moving truck. So again, never, never do that. Always keep your documents with you on moving day. But needless to say, that whole experience really turned into a nightmare. Very quickly. We ended up basically living out of a hotel room. All our belongings were hijacked. We had a huge bridge loan, which we then got a big fat bill from our lender for additional interest. And, you know, and I woke up the next week, once we actually, you know, settled in and all that stuff, and looked at, why is closing so disorganized? Why did I have a bad experience? And I went out, talked to mortgage brokers, talked to real estate agents, talked to home buyers like myself, and found there’s a lot of gaps that the experience hasn’t been modernized. The technology that exists in the industry is about 30 years old, and it just didn’t fit with, you know, today’s modern consumer. We’re all, you know, on Amazon and Uber we get instant information and feedback. And that’s where the idea kind of sparked, and we ended up launching in March of 2020. I think everybody knows what March 2020 is known for, and got got into it right as the pandemic started with a concept that was to go virtual. You know, here we are today.

Len  3:32  

Interesting to see that my worst fear for my client is, is ever that that they’re, they’re ready to move in and they end up out on the street, basically. Which is what happened to you, of course, right? It’s like your other house is sold, or you’re buying a house and your rent, you were renting, and the landlord said, No, we’re not extending that. You now need to, you know, you need to find a hotel or something. So, I we’ve had very, very few over the years just on that, knowing what kind of grief that’s going to cause for our clients. I think that’s a key point. So, expand on that. So Deeded came along? What? What kind of service levels did you plan to have when you began?

Reuven  4:14  

Yeah, that’s a great, great question, Len. So we had, you know, got a team, a small team together, with kind of one sole mission, which is, how do we make this entire closing experience, so if you ever you know bought or sold a home or refinance your mortgage, most of your transactions will end up in in some lawyers office somewhere, whether it’s a lawyer of your choosing or not. So we started really thinking about what, what does that experience look like in the 21st century? Because, again, we found it was just antiquated communications. Communications were lagging. There were no systems to really avoid the situation that I’ve been in, which is to predict that a closing will happen, or documents missing, or, you know, there’s something going awry. So, we started with, with that, with that end in mind, of course, you know, the pandemic helped us a lot b…