Real estate roots to tech innovation: Preston Guyton’s ez Home Search is changing the game

HousingWire

As the real estate and mortgage sectors consolidate, tech solutions often feel out of reach — especially for individual agents and loan officers. Preston Guyton joins Diego Sanchez for a conversation exploring how ez Home Search is breaking that cycle with simple, scalable tools designed to democratize access and protect consumer trust.   In this conversation, Preston breaks down the myths, the mechanics and the ethics behind building a scalable, agent-first platform and why ez Home Search’s YO growth proves agents are craving a smarter solution. From building a national LO directory to innovating privacy-first lead capture, Preston outlines a roadmap for empowering professionals on both sides of the transaction — and keeping the big portals in check.   https://youtu.be/lEM9NhBMve0

Transcript

00:00Live from Colorado Springs, I'm Diego Sanchez, president of HousingWire, and my guest today is

00:13Preston Guyton, founder of Easy Home Search. Preston, thanks so much for joining me today.

00:18Yeah. Preston, can you share your career journey and what led you to start Easy Home Search?

00:25Yeah, for sure. So, go way back. I got into real estate in 2004. I actually grew up in Myrtle Beach,

00:32and I originally grew up, I worked in restaurants and went to college, ended up moving back and

00:38took computer science in college and was really looking for something, didn't really know what

00:44I wanted to do. So, I got into real estate, really focused on online lead generation as a way to

00:50generate leads. So many people were moving to Myrtle Beach. So, really started there, and the

00:55first company I launched was 2010, was a real estate company. We did home design and custom home

01:01construction. So, managed and owned that company for 10 years, sold out of that in 2020. Always dealt

01:09with lead generation, you know, building businesses. Actually, at one point, I had my real estate license

01:16in two states, my mortgage license in seven states, and I was a NASCLA general contractor

01:22in 22 states. Wearing a lot of hats. Yeah. And had a lot of licenses. But, throughout the process,

01:30a lot of companies struggled with lead generation conversion. And Easy Home Search, originally what

01:35started building it, was a way to generate mortgage leads for a mortgage company I was starting.

01:39And then, helped launch a real estate company in 2021, which I sold out of last year. We grew from

01:47zero agents to 120 in 24 months. Same thing there, use lead generation conversion. And really just see

01:54there's a big need for, a lot of companies struggle with that. You know, so for me, it's, I'm at a point

01:59in my career now, really love this side of the business. And I want to help so many other companies

02:04that struggle with that area, you know, help them in the lead generation side. So,

02:10long answer to a short question. Yeah, no, really good answer. And it's

02:14a really important part of the ecosystem. Yeah, for sure. So, you've had some pretty impressive

02:18growth over the past year. Congratulations. Thank you. What do you think that momentum is

02:26coming from? I think one, you know, I've always been to attract

02:31good people. So, our team is just everybody around us. You know, we have a, our CTO is amazing. He's

02:39actually does code and he's, he's really good. He's like the army of one, but five. Yeah.

02:46But I think also understanding like the areas that people struggle in, especially in, you know, being,

02:51understanding the mortgage side, understanding the real estate side, understanding the team side,

02:56understanding how people struggle with agents, you know, team leaders. So, I think that's a big part

03:02of it is identifying what the problems are and building the solution. So, you know, anything that

03:07we build is based on understanding that the problem is there and we build something to fix that problem. So,

03:14I would say just really being focused and understanding on the issues that people have and teams have.

03:19Where do you think housing professionals are going wrong or where do you think they have misperceptions

03:26about both generating and converting leads? Well, right now it's, I think a lot of agents and a lot of

03:36agents came on in the 2020-21 range. And I think there's this thinking that like TikTok videos and everything

03:45else, there's instant success and that doesn't work right now. You know, it still does. Obviously,

03:49social media helps, but it takes work. You know, I tell people like, especially on the lead generation

03:55side, like good times, you get good phone numbers, bad times, you get bad phone numbers. You know,

04:00so lead generation is, and not all ads that you run generate the same type of leads. Right. You know,

04:07so a lot of what we do, we look at the consumer information that's searching online, but we also,

04:13anytime somebody like on our site comes to register, we verify the email and the phone

04:18number before they could register. So, you know, we try to push as much good leads into the system

04:23as we can, but really the biggest thing is agents don't realize or they don't understand how much

04:28work it takes. Like they think they could call two or three times and that's it. That's not the case.

04:33Like we have, have another company I'm a part of and we hire ISAs and place them in companies

04:39throughout the country. And the average contact is like 27 times before you actually have a

04:44meaningful conversation. That's a big gap between the perception and the reality. Yeah. The perception

04:49is like, Hey, this comes into my lap. I sign up for leads. Yeah. Leads are the easy part. Like to

04:54generate leads is easy. The hard part is once they come in, you take them from that point to actually

05:00closing or, or building a relationship. I mean, that's, that's the biggest misconception is the amount

05:05of work it actually takes. You have this philosophy that really resonated with me when I heard it.

05:11One lead, one agent. What does that mean to you? Yeah. I don't mean like using lead. Like for me,

05:16I just, it puts, I don't know. I just, I like opportunity, right? So I always tell people,

05:21you know, we'll generate as many opportunities as you want, but in the world of privacy and everything

05:27else, like so many companies will take the same lead and sell it over and over again. You know,

05:31I think they talked about on stage today. Um, you sign up for something also and you get 27 phone

05:35calls. Yeah. So, yeah. So we look at it from the standpoint. So I've seen it from both sides,

05:40the consumer side, which, you know, I'm kind of disappointed when they didn't pass the TCPA

05:45guidelines and the changes, because I think it would have helped the consumer a lot, you know,

05:49with the amount of phone calls, the amount of people sharing data and selling data over and over

05:54again. So I look at it from the consumer side, but also the agent side, team side, you know, when you

05:59have to fight, you get one lead to 20 companies and you're trying to call it, it's going to exhaust the

06:05agent. No agents want to make phone calls anymore. You know, so I looked at it from the consumer

06:09privacy side, but also from let that team that's paying, you know, get that lead and let them have

06:16an opportunity to close it without 20 different companies doing it. So, uh, we've heard a lot about,

06:22you know, at this event about the platforms, uh, you know, mortgage lenders buying, uh, portals and, uh,

06:29building these end to end platforms, uh, for home ownership. How does easy home search

06:35differentiate itself in this environment of end to end platforms?

06:40Yeah. I mean, right now. So the one thing we're focused on, um, you know, we have the agent tools

06:45and then I understand the lender side. A lot of times loan officers are paying real estate teams

06:48or companies or agents to, for lead generation. Um, you know, so one of the things we're focused on

06:54is like making it creating the ability for a loan officer to advertise an easy home search

06:59independent of real estate agent. You know, that's really what we want to focus on is, is allowing

07:06multiple companies instead of just one company. They all say like, yeah, we're going to keep it.

07:10You know, we have this real estate side, we have this mortgage side, but we're still going to give

07:14it to everybody. But still like the most profitability is if your team sells it and this part of it,

07:20right? So for us, we're just going to continue to focus on building simple solutions for agents and

07:26lenders to use. Um, and that's really, I think something that's going to set us apart because

07:31so many of them are focused on creating it all in one house and, you know, in one app and everything

07:36else. Does that mean you're pushing in a mortgage? I think that's what I heard. We are. Yeah. So one,

07:42so one of the things we want to do is generate, um, ways for loan officers to, uh,

07:49to generate leads independent of a real estate agent. Yeah. Right. So what we're doing now is

07:54we're launching in the next couple of weeks, we're doing a, we're launching a national lender

07:59directory. So easy home search generates about 50,000 visits a day. Um, we generate about 20,000

08:04registrations a month. Our database is about 500,000 people and it's grows, you know, 20,000 a month.

08:10Obviously it grows pretty quickly, but it's hard to find options out there for loan officers that are

08:16independent of a real estate agent or team. So we're creating it now where they could simply

08:21sign up. We help them if they need help with a Google business profile, we set it up for them.

08:25Um, they could, we generate loan officer landing pages and there's going to be a cool feature where

08:29they could actually search the lender directory. If they select a lender, it automatically adds that

08:34lender to all their agent pages on the website. So whenever consumers searching, they could see the

08:40lender and that happens between the lender and agent. So it doesn't have to, so say you're

08:44an agent advertising and a lender has the ability to reach out to you and you build that relationship.

08:50It's just a button they turn on and you're the loan officer's information shared all throughout the site.

08:56Amazing. Uh, so looking ahead as you grow the easy home search business,

09:04what role do you see the business playing in the overall housing ecosystem?

09:10You know, we're always going to focus on the consumer privacy side. Um, but we're also

09:18looking at launching more tools. Like the big thing with the loan officer tool, you know,

09:22they're talking about on stage now, like the consumer wants to gather as much information

09:26without going to so many different places. Right. So once we launch the loan officer tool,

09:30then we're actually going to move into home services where, you know, the way I look at it and

09:35the best way I could explain it is, you know, I have a friend of mine that just sold a roofing company

09:39and he was very successful for 10, 15 years, sold it. And I was talking to him about roofing lead

09:45generation. The majority of that happens on like social media. Somebody is selling and they don't

09:49want to have anything built. They're just like, yeah, I'm going to run these leads. I'm going to,

09:52you know, run these ads, generate leads for you. A lot of times the leads are crap.

09:56Um, so I was like, it got me thinking about where, when we start in the home services side,

10:04we already have the fish in the boat. Like we don't have to cast a wide net because we already

10:08have so many people searching. Um, so we really are focused on a way to continue to develop in a

10:14way where the consumer could get as much information, like the roofing side works. Then we're looking at

10:19it from, you know, home services, not to get into like painting and things like that, but, you know,

10:24moving companies, HVAC, electricians, landscaping. Um, so it'll always evolve. Like I'm, I don't like

10:31sitting still, you know, so I always want to develop things and, and, you know, being here,

10:36I got more ideas of things I want to do. Um, so it will continue to evolve. We, we're launching a

10:42consumer app and an agent app in Q3 this year. So once that launches, you know, anybody goes easy

10:48home search now, so many people want to use an app. And so we're pushing to launch that in

10:53Q3 and then it'll connect to, by then we'll probably be in 220 MLSs. Um, so that's about a

11:01thousand major cities and counties across country. Amazing. Well, Preston, really good to catch up

11:07with you today and really interesting hearing about your business. Yeah. Thanks so much. Thank you.

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