Real Estate Pros · August 11, 2025 · 17 min listen

Why Co-Ownership Is the Future of Real Estate | Doug Rich, PlumCo CEO Interview

With Vacation Homes

Show summary

In this episode of the Real Estate Pro Show, host Erika interviews Doug Rich, CEO of PlumCo Ownership, who discusses his journey in the real estate tech world and the innovative approach Plum takes in the vacation home market. Doug explains how Plum helps individuals buy, sell, and manage co-owned vacation homes, emphasizing the importance of technology in simplifying the co-ownership process. He shares insights on market opportunities, investor strategies, and the challenges faced in co-ownership. Doug also highlights the role of AI in automating processes and his vision for the future of PlumCo Ownership as a leading platform in real estate transactions.

Key takeaways

Owning a fractional share of a high-end, high-demand vacation property can outperform owning 100% of a cheaper, less desirable one, because premium properties rent nearly every available week.
Plum helps existing short-term rental owners fractionalize their property to pull out equity when the asset isn't performing as expected on its own.
Plum also matches strangers together into investor groups to jointly purchase a vacation property, after vetting them through credit and background checks and confirming they have the assets on hand.
Plum uses a standard operating agreement template covering pets, short-term rental rules, and maintenance fee defaults, so co-owners know the terms before committing to a deal.
A past deal fell apart when a property owner altered the standard operating agreement's hold-period terms, which pushed Plum to enforce a standardized agreement across its marketplace to prevent surprises late in the buying process.
Plum currently uses AI for property description marketing and workflow guidance, and is working toward a fully automated online transaction process, including stable coin for fund transfers, with minimal human involvement.
Doug Rich's long-term vision is for Plum's platform to eventually support buying real estate in general, not just fractional vacation homes.

In this episode

About Vacation Homes

Doug Rich is CEO of PlumCo Ownership. Before Plum, he and his wife started a real estate marketing company that used Matterport, drones, and video walkthroughs to help agents market properties, and later launched a virtual brokerage allowing people to buy homes online without visiting an attorney or real estate office. After COVID, Plum's investors approached him to take over and grow the company, combining his real estate and software/technology sales background.

Listen to the audio

“It’s better for me to take a share of the $3 million place than own the entire $300,000 place that doesn’t rent as frequently as the other one.”
Doug Rich

“We at Plum, we figured that out. The first step in the process is to get Plum certified. So everyone in our community is already vetted, at least through a credit check and a background check.”
Doug Rich

“I want that entire process from beginning to end to be fully automated where it requires no human interaction.”
Doug Rich

co-ownershipvacation rentalsfractional real estateshort-term rentalsreal estate techAI in real estateoperating agreementsproperty diversification

Questions answered in this episode

What does PlumCo Ownership actually do?

Plum helps people buy, sell, and manage co-owned vacation homes. They work with real estate investors who want to fractionalize a property they already own, and they also help bring groups of buyers together who don't know each other to jointly purchase an investment property.

Is it better to own a whole cheap rental or a share of an expensive one?

Doug Rich argues it's better to own a fractional share of a high-end property, like a $3.5 million beachfront home that sleeps 21, than to own 100% of a $300,000 off-beach property, because the premium property rents every available week while the lower-tier one may sit vacant more often.

How does Plum vet co-owners to avoid problems between strangers investing together?

Buyers must get 'Plum certified,' which includes a credit check and background check. Plum also verifies that buyers have the assets on hand before they can invest, so groups aren't exposed to co-owners who can't follow through financially.

What happens if co-owners disagree on rules like pets or short-term rentals?

Plum provides a standard operating agreement template (what Doug calls a blueprint) that spells out rules in advance, such as whether pets are allowed, whether short-term rentals are permitted, and what happens if someone doesn't pay maintenance fees, so disputes are addressed before they occur rather than after.

What went wrong in one of Plum's deals, and what did they change because of it?

A buyer was caught off guard when a property owner altered the standard operating agreement terms, specifically how long co-owners would be required to hold the property, which made the deal unappealing to that buyer. This led Plum to enforce a standard operating agreement template across its marketplace so buyers know the terms upfront before going far into a transaction.

How is Plum using AI and what's the long-term vision?

Plum currently uses AI for marketing, such as helping generate property descriptions, and for workflow automation to guide users through the buying process. Doug's goal is a fully automated, soup-to-nuts online transaction with no human interaction required, including fund transfers via mechanisms like stable coin, and eventually using the platform for buying real estate in general, not just fractional vacation homes.

Full transcript

Doug Rich (00:00)

As a real estate investor, especially in the vacation short-term rental market, it’s better to be invested in a $3.5 million home on

It’s better for me to take a share of the $3 million place than own the entire $300,000 place that doesn’t rent as frequently as the other one.

Erika Proctor (02:13)

Hey everyone, welcome to the Real Estate Pro Show. I’m your host, Erika, and today I’m thrilled to be joined by Doug Rich, the CEO of PlumCo Ownership. Doug is shaking things up in the vacation market with a tech-driven approach. Doug, it’s so good to have you on the show today.

Doug Rich (02:32)

Thanks, Erika Thanks for having me.

Erika Proctor (02:33)

So for those who aren’t familiar with your world, Doug, give us the rundown. How did you get started in the real estate tech world and what led you to focus on this company?

Doug Rich (02:43)

yeah. So what got me started is I basically way back when was hand in hand with my wife, starting a real estate marketing company. And what we did is we leverage the latest technology in order to help real estate agents market their properties. And that leveraged things like Matterport.

drones, video walkthrough, basically a whole package to just make people understand what the home looked like and what the home was so that they can make better buying decisions before they either went to look at the property or even if they didn’t even, they wanted to buy it without looking at the property.

And we had a couple of situations where people did that. And so we decided to venture out into a virtual brokerage, which was basically a real estate company that allowed people to act.

but look at and buy homes online without having to go to a lawyer’s office or a real estate office and things like that. So fast forward to after COVID and I was approached by the investors of Plum to see if I wanted to take over the company to help move it to the next level. And I looked at Plum and I said, this is amazing because it kind of brings together two

parts of my background. The other part of my background was software, technology, sales. So the combination of the real estate background and the software sales background really made this a perfect fit for me in moving it forward.

Erika Proctor (04:20)

Yeah, yeah, that’s that’s so awesome. Doug, with Plum, what do you see? What kind of opportunities do you see in the market? Do you guys work in other areas that other people might not notice?

Doug Rich (04:33)

Yeah, I mean, I guess it would be helpful to really describe exactly what Plum does so that it’s clear as we move forward. So at Plum, we help people buy, sell, and manage co-owned vacation homes.

Now when you think of the vacation home market and all aspects of it, there’s a lot of people who are investing in that market. So we see a lot of people who are on the short term rental investment train, so to speak. And we run into a lot of people who…

either are not making the money they thought they were going to make in the short-term market or they want to take equity out of their short-term rental home. And so they come to us saying, can you help us fractionalize our property so that we can take advantage of, you know, several people owning the property instead of just one.

So yes, we run into investors of all types, real estate investors, and we help them leverage different deals that are out there. But one thing that’s unique about us that we do is we also bring investors together. I’ve had a couple of our customers or people from dispersed backgrounds who’ve come together and bought an investment property together. So we check them out. We make sure that they are all

and then we help them go out and actually buy an investment property as a group. And that has worked out fabulous for our various clients that have opted for that approach.

Erika Proctor (06:52)

Doug, being in the front driver’s seat of this company, what has been the most rewarding part about building the platform?

Doug Rich (07:00)

is just really, well, building the platform is great because it’s innovative, it’s on the cutting edge as far as technology and real estate. I feel in the future we will be the platform.

for buying and selling any fractional properties. And we make it so easy using technology that you’ll be able to conduct the entire transaction right from either your phone or a website. Doesn’t matter because it doesn’t necessarily have to involve lawyers. It doesn’t have to involve, you know, recording any documents, things like that. The whole transaction can happen online, automatically.

with very few steps in the process.

Erika Proctor (07:43)

You know, Doug, co-ownership doesn’t sound like something that’s easy, but I know you guys have the process to make it work. Can you kind of break down how you simplify and streamline that?

Doug Rich (07:54)

Yeah, that’s probably, you know, you hear co-ownership and everybody starts going, ⁓ you know, there’s five other people involved in this, doing this and doing this. And if you did it on your own, it would be a nightmare. So the whole process is you got it. So let’s say I’m a seller.

And I own a vacation home and I want to sell shares of it. So if I was doing it without Plum, I’d have to go and talk to an attorney and figure out what’s the best way to actually do this. Plum has already figured that out. Once I kind of go through those first steps, then what do I do? Plum has ⁓ the ability to manage it because, you know, communication, scheduling, finances, all create, can create challenges among co-owned individuals.

things like that. And then when it goes to finding people, that’s the other thing. How do you find people that you want to invest in your property? And so that’s where Plum comes in as far as getting other buyers to invest in a fractional property. If you think about finding a group of people to buy a place, an investor group for lack of a better term.

How do you know you’re getting involved with people that are on the up and up and are credit worthy and everything like that? We at Plum, we figured that out.

The first step in the process is to get Plum certified. So everyone in our community is already vetted, at least through a credit check and a background check. And then when they come to buy a property, we make sure that they have the assets on hand. So you’re not getting into any situations that could cause problems. And then we also provide our out of

bots.

operating agreement. It’s actually a blueprint, but it’s been a well thought out operating agreement for how to function as a group owning a vacation property. You know, things like, do you allow pets? Are you allowing short term rentals? What happens when somebody doesn’t pay their maintenance fees? All those things are well thought out and in the operating agreement. So you have, you know exactly what to do every step of the way, if there’s any issues.

Erika Proctor (10:28)

Yeah, I love that. Doug, have you seen investors say those flipping or holding rental portfolios use your platform to diversify into vacation homes or manage group investments?

Doug Rich (10:42)

Usually, yeah, it’s usually real estate investors who are, you know, looking for different ways to diversify as one way. But I think a lot of them realize that the short-term rental market is getting more tricky from an investment perspective, but it’s still very lucrative. And what you find is that the higher priced homes, the more desirable places are maintaining their short-term rental

value. And so more and more people are looking for those bigger, more expensive rentals for their vacations. And so

as a real estate investor, especially in the vacation short-term rental market, it’s better to be invested in a $3.5 million home on

beach that sleeps 21 people than it is to be invested in a four, three bedroom shanty off the beach in the back row that you own 100 % because that front row beach front property is going to rent every available week, whereas the back one may not. So they’re finding that these more expensive properties are better. So if I’m an investor, I have 300 grand to invest.

It’s better for me to take a share of the $3 million place than own the entire $300,000 place that doesn’t rent as frequently as the other one.

Well, it is a good diversification strategy for investors.

Erika Proctor (12:09)

that makes.

Yeah, that makes so much sense, Doug. you know, every operator has a moment where things get real. Maybe a deal went sideways or you had to pivot fast. Doug, can you share one of those moments from your journey?

with Plum or in the past and how you navigated that.

Doug Rich (12:32)

Yeah, yeah. mean, I can definitely share it from Plum. So what happens is in our whole process, one of the things that’s critical piece is that the operating agreement has to be locked down and solid. So basically you have an LLC, the company, we create an operating agreement for that LLC. I ran into a situation where a buyer was going to buy a share.

of an LLC basically by a share of the property and they were caught off guard by the operating agreement. Now the property that we were representing…

changed our standard operating agreement and basically it was how long the co-owners would hold it. And so it was not appealing to that couple. And then I realized that it’s very important for Plum to have a standard operating agreement template that all of our clients use. And if they decide not to use them, that there’s no guarantees here. But at least when buyers come to our marketplace with our standard

operating agreement, they know what they’re getting. They know they’re going to get the standard plum term. If there is a term, they know they’re going to get their standard T’s and C’s in the operating agreement. And they can look at it early in the process to see if it’s valuable for them. So you don’t go down all the way down the road and then find out, ⁓ I can’t, I can’t live with these terms and conditions. So that’s kind of, that was kind of the bell that went off where now we offer a standard operating agreement.

that’s the bell that went off where we have a standard process, standard buying process. And we’re in the process of automating soup to nuts from first look at a property to purchase of a property step by step on our website.

Erika Proctor (14:19)

That’s exciting. Are you using certain technology like AI to do that?

Doug Rich (14:25)

We are taking advantage of a lot of AI, but more along the lines of kind of from a marketing perspective. So when you describe your property, we have the AI, when you do this and that, we’re really taking advantage of another aspect of AI on the workflow. So how to know where to go through the whole process.

So yeah, mean, AI is critical. As I said, we’re not a giant company and without AI, I don’t know if we could meet all the things we have to do.

Erika Proctor (14:55)

Yeah. Well, I know that you’re excited about the future of this company. Doug, what do you see next on the horizon? What’s your strategy to scale Plum to a wider audience?

Doug Rich (15:05)

Yeah, so next in the proper, again, it’s all about automation for us. So it’s, as I mentioned, I want that entire process from beginning to end to be fully automated where it requires no human interaction, where the transfer of funds is taking.

⁓ advantage of some of the latest things in the market like stable coin and things like that where these properties become fractional properties become fully fungible. So I will be happy at the end of the year when we have completed a complete sale of a fractional property on our website without

hardly any interaction with Plum itself. And that’s the goal because the way I see it is I see our marketplace as the place where people will not only in the future, not only buy fractional vacation properties, but you may also see it as a mechanism for people to buy real estate in general, just buy a home using our platform. So, but that’s what I see is the future. So.

Erika Proctor (16:09)

Doug, before we wrap up, if someone wants to connect with you, learn more about Plum, what’s the best way for them to do that?

Doug Rich (16:18)

Yeah, it’s real easy. www.plumco-ownership.com. It’s all one word, plumco-ownership. You can reach out to me. I’m on LinkedIn, Doug Rich with Plumco-ownership on LinkedIn or any of the social platforms.

Or you can just on our website, we have our number 843-284-6161. But I’d love to hear from anyone and discuss what we’re doing here at Plum.

Erika Proctor (16:44)

Awesome, Doug. Thanks so much for being on the show. I love what your company is doing and how it’s making co-ownership something that is seamless and stress free. It’s pretty amazing.

Doug Rich (16:55)

Yeah, and if you want to hear, you know, all the different trends and things within our marketplace today, feel free to go to our website and sign up for my newsletter. I have over 15,000 subscribers. I’m coming out with new content every week, just updating the market in different areas as well.

Erika Proctor (17:13)

Awesome. And for those of you tuning in, if you got value from this episode, make sure that you’re subscribed to the Real Estate Pro Show. We’ve got more conversations coming up with operators like Doug, who are out there building fantastic real estate tech empires. We’ll see you on the next episode.