Our Story
By: Stephen Morel
FounderWhen the Levees Broke
Back in September 2005, I docked a flat-bottom boat to my front porch so I could wade through the flooded ruin of my home. Like 80% of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, my neighborhood had been underwater for two full weeks.
I watched my law books float by in waist-deep sewer water and wondered how exactly we were going to rebuild. Somehow in that moment, I knew my part in the effort to rebuild was not going to involve those law books....
Years later, empty houses sat rotting as painful reminders of the storm while the city’s tax base took its own direct hit. Since real estate tax is the #1 source of revenue in most jurisdictions, empty houses meant lost funding for schools, roads, parks, and programs. I wasn’t sure if my proud and resilient city would ever recover.
The Opportunity Trapped Within Itself
Distressed assets have become a favorite of real estate investors because of the healthy rates of return, relative insulation from the economic conditions, investment security from its physical state, and support from state and local laws that favor its communal impact.
Cities benefit from collection of vital tax revenue, and neighborhoods from revitalization of blighted or abandoned properties.
What stands in the way for most investors of achieving professional level returns are overwhelming barriers of complexity, access to capital, knowledge, and fears of illiqiudity.
As I discovered in my early days as a real estate attorney in post-Katrina New Orleans, just trying to help investors to navigate or overcome these barriers was an incredibly manual and labor-intensive process.
A Partial Solution.
After earning my law degree from LSU, I was trying to grow my own real estate title company and law practice when a large out-of-state investment company came to me with a big problem - and an offer. They owned a large inventory of properties obtained through the delinquent tax foreclosure process, but were stuck and couldn't recoup their investment - the ultimate fear of real estate investors.
Their attempted sales were falling through before closing from missed deadlines and legal compliance steps earlier in the investment.
So, I created a workflow to fix those mistakes; but the work, which included extensive title research, investigation of property stakeholders, and mailing and tracking loads of legal notices - was extremely manual-labor intensive process, which was both undesirable and couldn't scale.
There had to be a better way. But, it was 2007 - and unfortunately then, there wasn't.
The Journey Evolves
By 2015, the first version of my vision had materialized - a novel title insurance underwriting solution that systematically assessed and marginalized the typical title risks of financially-delinquent or abandoned properties.
With title insurance available to investors - so was financing, thus, investor interest; effectively, unlocking a massive new market to the multi-billion dollar distressed investment real estate industry - but, this was just the beginning.
While the old guard of the 150-year old title insurance industry continued to dwell on doubts and the status quo, I remained focused on what could be...
A Good/Bad Problem...is still a Problem.
I conceptualized the business of JurisDeed in 2020, and by the summer of 2021, with countless customer interviews under my belt, we found ourselves testing our first beta software solution - within almost anyone who agreed to try it out and pay us.
We saw revenue rolling in....from customers across four distinct industries.
We couldn't keep up or solve the same problems we began discovering between each different customer segment.
When you attempt to serve everyone, you end up truly serving none.
Lesson learned.
But, we were making money! So, we were definitely on to someting that meant we should continue on our path. So I thought.
The startup mantra hammered into every early-stage founder's brain - 'Traction is everything...' - is true... IF you're heading in the right direction.
Traction also manifests in many different forms. Revnue is a big one, but not the only one.
Whether you're heading down a path toward the right or wrong destination - if you keep going, you're bound to get there.
Another. Lesson. Learned.
Time to apply the lessons....
Democratizing the Property Debt Wealth Machine
On average, six to eight million property tax bills fall delinquent in the U.S. every year, shorting America’s cities and counties the critical funding needed for its essential public services. Investors who participate in covering the (now growing) $6B uncollectable portion stand to reap the unparalleled returns, while supporting local communities.
Welcome to JurisDeed, the first AI-powered investment management solution that's breaking down the traditional barriers to empower investors at all levels to create wealth in the delinquent property debt market... like the professionals - but without the need to be one.
