Dalton Skach is CEO of Gold Gate. Previously, Dalton started a commercial real estate consulting business where he sourced $250M+ worth of off-market opportunities for REITs, private equity groups, and institutional investors.
Dalton recently became a private equity real estate investor and built a financial technology platform, Gold Gate, capable of converting ultra-luxury residential real estate into digital assets. High net worth individuals, family offices, and foreign investors can acquire fractional ownerships and trade freely.
What was your inspiration around creating the Gold Gate Platform?
My original inspiration in creating the Gold Gate platform was to provide liquidity to investors in commercial real estate. I wanted to provide investors with the opportunity to enter and exit real estate investments at will. As the business plan developed and I learned about all of the use cases for this technology, I learned there was a much bigger opportunity within residential real estate. This platform is going to change the way that people live, invest, and travel forever.
What opportunities and benefits does the platform offer to users?
The Gold Gate platform increases a client’s wealth in life’s most valuable resource; time. Not only do user’s have more time to focus on the important things in life, but this platform also increases the client’s capital on hand, reduces wasteful spending, provides flexibility and freedom and addresses multiple global issues, such as property sustainability.
How can users trade their shares? What’s the liquidity of these shares?
Our platform works exactly like your Fidelity or Robinhood brokerage account. If you want to buy shares/months, you find a property you like, decide which months you want, and click “invest.”
Once you have contributed the funds necessary to acquire those shares, you are issued your digital shares and are free to use the property and trade shares when you want. When you want to sell your shares/months in a specific property, you choose the shares, decide how much you want to sell each share for, and click “sell.” A sell order is then placed and shared with tens of thousands of people throughout the world. When a buyer is found, you are sent the agreed-upon price and are now able to use those funds for future acquisitions.
The liquidity provided on our platform is incalculable compared to the traditional way of selling real estate. However, it is important to mention that just because you click “sell,” it doesn’t mean you will get that price. Again, it works exactly like your Fidelity or Robinhood brokerage account. If Apple is trading at $1,000/share and you put a sell order in for $1,500/share, it is not Fidelity’s fault if your shares take more time to sell than usual. Users will have to price according to the market.
Your platform is working to solve the housing and sustainability crisis, can you explain why this is an appealing aspect for users and investors?
If more time, wealth and freedom aren’t enough for our clients and investors, we also offer a credible solution to the housing and property sustainability crisis. When you invest with Gold Gate, you are changing the world for the better.
How? There are 30 million homes in the United States and Europe that are only lived in for four to six weeks out of the year. Eighty-eight percent of the time, these homes sit vacant, burning energy and money.
The example that I like to use is this: There are five multi-millionaires that each own four homes. That is a total of 20 homes that are now off the market because of five people that only use these homes for four to six weeks out of the year. Now, if these five multi-millionaires each owned fractional ownerships in four of the best homes out of those 20, that is a total of four homes. Because of the Gold Gate platform, there are now 16 less homes that need to be built. Adding more supply to the existing real estate market makes prices affordable and reduces the need to build more homes that will never be lived in!
What physical location benefits does Gold Gate offer for users and properties?
To best answer this question, let me make a comparison. An investor has two options.
Option 1: Buy a second home in Miami for $10 million that will only be lived in for one to two months a year. The total cost equals $10 million.
Option 2: Using the Gold Gate platform, an investor decides to buy four $10 million homes throughout the world. Three months in a London townhouse, three months in a Miami beach house, three months in a New York City penthouse and three months in a luxury Beverly Hills estate. The total cost equals $10 million.
Additionally, when you take into account the financial aspect, time and management expenses involved in selling that one Miami home compared to selling shares in homes on our platform, the value is incalculable.
What is one of the biggest challenges you’ve faced while developing the Gold Gate platform?
When building something that has never been built before, it takes time to understand the true potential and use cases. Once we discovered the impact that this business will create, it was difficult to convince people that what we are building is even possible, especially when it is still in development and you are younger than most company founders and CEOs. Selling the vision is easy, especially if it is something that you truly believe in. Selling that you are going to be the one to create this new world and execute on this vision, that is the difficult part.
What are the long-term plans for the platform?
We want to be the first website you open in the morning and the last one you close before going to bed. We want users to be able to see their entire life from one page on their iPad. We want to be a platform where users can see what homes they own, what investments they have in real estate, stocks, bonds, art, cars, crypto, what charities they support, and how much money they have on hand. In essence, we want users to be able to see their net worth, every minute of every day. If at any time, you want to change your life, you have the ability to do so from the comfort of your iPad screen.
When someone wants to know who you are or if you want to know who you are, you open your Gold Gate account. We want you to live your life to the fullest; we will take care of the rest.
