Meet Nomad Home’s Helen Chen who went from investment banking to building a prop tech startup

Sitting in the swanky family office of Fremont Group, in the Bay Area back in 2018, Helen Chen knew one thing—being an investor wasn’t her cup of tea. Having worked at the likes of Blackstone and China Investment Corp, this wasn’t Helen’s first time in the world of private equity and investments.

But the Wharton Graduate believed in one thing: in order to be great at something, you have to love what you do. And Helen realised for her that was real estate. As a Chinese American, growing up in Washington State, Helen’s parents had rental properties, and her primary job over the summers was to ensure that the homes were maintained up to a certain standard. The idea was to give the tenants a good experience. 

“This included cleaning, fixing sinks, in fact, I am excellent at Ikea Furniture. I studied real estate in undergrad and I interned at Goldman Sachs real estate and investment banking group. I simply love looking at houses, so I knew I had to get back to real estate,” says Helen in a conversation with YourStory Gulf Edition.

Starting Nomad Homes 

It was what led her to start Nomad Homes in Dubai in 2019 along with her friends and colleagues Dan Piehler, who was earlier with Addepar and Damien Drap who was with Uber. In September last year the startup raised $20 million in funding. 

Nomad Homes is a prop tech startup that offers an end-to-end real estate buying experience for consumers in the Middle East, Europe, and Africa. The platform is for buying and renting of homes, and the focus is on empowering the customer with technology and the right information. 

The platform provides the consumer with a range of experiences. Nomad Homes assigns an advisor to customers looking for buying or renting houses. 

When Helen got the idea of working in the field of real estate, her first order of business was to quit her job and join Stanford school of Business. While at Stanford, Helen spoke with several prop tech companies like Open Doors, Zillow etc. 

“Instead of spending time in the classroom I spent most of my time travelling and talking to home buyers and companies across Europe and the Middle East. I realised that home buying was a significantly painful experience and 10x more painful in these regions than in the US,” says Helen. 

She adds, “Buying a home is one of the most important personal and financial decisions someone can make in their lives. And yet, most buyers are left to understand and explore this journey alone. I felt they deserved better.” 

It was then that Helen realised the problem had to be solved using technology. Just like a seller has an agent that represents everything with respect to selling a home, Nomad Home represents everything that a home buyer needs. 

“Our job is to save the buyer time. Most of the home purchasing or renting process is offline. Nomad Homes is building a digital platform to change that, by bringing in trust and transparency. The platform has all the accurate listing information, pictures, and high quality pictures,” says Helen. 

The platform has a search process, the viewing and the transaction process, all under one roof. Helen explains that this helps consumers save money and even negotiate the best mortgage possible. 

“The customer tells the team when they are available and we will schedule four back-to-back viewings, and the Nomad Home is the single point of contact,” she says. Nomad Homes has also kept paperwork digital, which reduces back and forth between various stakeholders.

The company has decided to focus on the buyers. And within those, it focuses on the first time buyers. 

“This works as our value proposition of being able to accompany a buyer from beginning to end really resonates for people who have never done this before,” explains Helen. In the traditional process you don’t even know where to start. 

Also, buying a home is a high consideration decision as it possibly is a once in a lifetime choice. “The most challenging piece of this is we need to catch buyers as they're going through this journey. And we need to deliver enough value to them that they choose to work with Nomad Home. While it is challenging, it also is a highly rewarding experience,” says Helen. 

Building a startup 

Apart from this, Helen believes there were few other challenges as a woman founder. One, there are few women founders in the space, especially in fintech and prop tech. Helen says, 

“So there are just very few people who look like me, in the industry that I'm in. That being said, it starts with your support network. So I'm very grateful to my co-founders, they 100% believe in me and what we're doing and building as a company. So it starts with the people you surround yourself with, this includes your family and husband,” she says.

The second challenge, according to Helen, is dealing with different viewpoints. 

“You know, being a female founder, CEO, and having a different opinion, having a different point of view, is really great when it comes to making decisions and having that fresh point of view. So I think that it is something that I would highly encourage any women who are out there, if you need a support network, you can reach out to me and I will be your support network,” she adds.

While the Nomad Homes started in Dubai, the company also operates in France, Spain, and Portugal. Quoting several research reports, Helen says the real estate market globally is at $3.69 trillion, and in that Dubai itself is over $69 billion. 

Thus starting in Dubai first was a no-brainer, also Helen found the market very startup friendly and tech friendly. Currently Nomad Home is free of cost for the consumer. 

Market and future 

The company shares a percentage of the real estate agent commission that is always paid in each transaction. While the launch of the platform got delayed due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, Helen explains there was resilience of the residential real estate market.

"People, especially coming out of the pandemic found out how important it was to find a home, but also to find a place where they can work and live with their families. So residential real estate volumes rebounded really, really quickly about three months after the pandemic, so people were buying just as they used to. So actually, the pandemic probably paused things for three months, but then rebounded faster than ever,” explains Helen.

According to a report by Emirates NBD Research, the Dubai real estate market has shown a steady and persistent growth in the Q3 of 2022. The report stated that the Dubai Land Department figures show close to 14 % quarter on quarter increase in transitions, valuing from AED 58.99 billion to AED 69.49 billion. 

Dick Costolo, Managing Partner of 01 Advisors said in a note shared by company, “Nomad Homes has built an incredible platform that is shaping the future of real estate across EMEA. The team is building increasing market liquidity and simplifying the consumer experience. We have invested in similarly transformative companies in the US and are excited to partner with these founders and the entire team as they expand,” he was quoted in the report. 

Advising all women leaders, Helen says, “The most important thing is to have confidence in yourself. It also is important to find that  support network to give you that confidence and to give you that support system.” 

(This story has been updated with a correction of the name of a competitive startup)