Cadre and Point are betting that the best way to win in real estate is to disrupt the market

On the stage of TechCrunch Disrupt, the founders of two of the hottest startups in real estate, Cadre and Point articulated the inefficiencies of today’s real estate markets and expressed optimism in their ability to use innovative markets to benefit investors and homeowners respectively.

Cadre is an exclusive startup that connects real estate investors to top deals while Point enables homeowners to sell equity from their own homes. Despite favoring different participants, each of these models alter the way that people interact with physical assets.

Eddie Lim, founder of Point, believes that his company can not only help individual homeowners get access to traditionally illiquid assets in times of need, but can help the overall housing market.

“By creating a liquid market, by creating more ways to finance, more way to be liquid, you can actually smooth out the boom and bust cycles that have defined residential,” argued Lim.

The catch of course is that when the market collapses, homeowners and “investors” alike lose, potentially putting Point in a tough spot. But Lim believes that because Point’s financial incentives are aligned with homeowners, it’s positioned well to help homeowners refinance or find insurance to recoup some value.

Cadre on the other hand avoids this problem by servicing wealthy investors — trading democratization for reduced exposure. Ryan Williams, founder of Cadre, does eventually believe that with time, Cadre can grow to serve more diverse users

“We want Cadre to be established as the domain and the hub for high quality access to opportunities,” explained Williams. ” We know that if we do that, we will build an enduring business, and we will have the optionality to open our marketplace to a much wider subset of our global economy.”

The company has also taken heat in recent weeks because of the specific investors it has let onto its cap table. The Kushners, Peter Thiel, Goldman Sachs and George Soros have all backed the company, a series of names that doesn’t send positive signals.

“At Cadre we have a pretty powerful mission and there’s nothing, even if it was dynamics in DC, that would change or even disrupt, to use the name and theme of this conference, achieving our mission,” asserted Williams.