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Man, I just can’t win — Joel at Future of Real Estate Marketing beat me to the virtual presses again with a blog post I should have done already. This time, it was his "Running the Numbers with HouseMath" piece (originally introduced to the blogosphere by Matt Goyer).

The company covered was HouseMath 2.0, "the first web site to perform a serious financial analysis of many peoples’ most important financial decision — the purchase of a new home." If you’d like to learn all about the site and the math behind it, you can check the HouseMath Wiki. A couple of weeks ago, I traded e-mails with the developer behind the site, Kirill Sheynkman, since he had a couple questions about the requirements of using the Zillow API. He was trying to to pull in a price from a specific home to enter into HouseMath’s financial analysis and I got a very early look at the site. I was (and still am) very impressed.

In a good-natured effort to one-up Joel and get the inside scoop for this story, I e-mailed Kirill and asked him to answer a couple questions about HouseMath 2.0.

1. What’s your background?

I am a computer programmer, sales guy, marketing guy with an MBA in finance from Berkeley (ergo the financial site).  I spent most of my life in Silicon Valley, started 2 companies (Stanford Technology Group sold to Informix and Plumtree Software sold to BEA).  I retired and live in New York City, but enjoy software nonetheless.

2. What interesting ties do you have with the real estate industry?

I don’t really have serious ties to the industry (except as a 2-time home owner in different states).  I just like to approach problems analytically.  Also, I guess, my tie to the industry is that Glenn Kelman, CEO of Redfin, is a good personal friend and a co-founder of my second company.

3. What inspired you to build HouseMath 2.0?

My wife and I were trying to buy a place in Manhattan.  And I had never heard more drivel about prices, values, and investments in my life.  I mean real estate CAN be an AWESOME investment, if you make certain assumptions, really understand the tax benefits, and compare it realistically with alternatives.  I wanted to take a hard look at real estate math.  Berkeley was the #1 Biz School in commercial real estate at the time I attended, so I dusted off the textbooks, did a lot of web research and got to work.  I also love computers and programming, so this gave me a chance to do something pragmatic with all the Ruby/Rails/Ajax things I’ve been into lately. I built the site, well received so far, (even Yahoo editor’s pick).  One thing to remember is that HouseMath is in no way an anti real estate or anti realtor site trying to debunk myths about making money on your property.  On the contrary, by eliminating the guessing, hand-waving, and wishful thinking, turning it into real Finance 101 math.  It helped me, it helped my friends, and I think it helps the customer and the realtor understand just what they are getting into.

4. What will the next iteration of the application include?

Stumble it!

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