Alexa Rosario, who started her real estate career in 2013, built a platform to help heirs and real estate agents navigate the complexities of inherited properties.
“We are in the real estate space but very specifically we serve families that are navigating inherited property,” she says of her company, Heirloom, which is headquartered in Davie.
Rosario has trained over 1,500 real estate agents, her core clients, on the language to use during inheritance, logistics, and how to build relationships with vendors and organizations that do estate cleanups, “so that the family doesn’t have to do that on their own,” she said.
She said that marketing inherited properties, with personal belongings of the deceased often still in view, is different than traditional real estate marketing, where personal items are usually removed and the home is sanitized and decluttered.
“We train the agents to market the properties differently than you would a traditional real estate transaction,” said Rosario.
Through Heirloom and through training and guest speaking, she aims to provide real estate agents with “the tools, resources and training to be able to protect family legacies” while they’re going through this transition, she said.
“We partnered with industry partners that coordinate with the estate transition,” she said, “and the consumer platform that we’re building is designed to help with things like valuation – determining what’s valuable in the property.”
Her family spent 2.5 years in probate eight years ago after her father’s sudden death from a heart attack at 51-years-old, as he didn’t have an estate plan for his property nor for his business. This served as a catalyst for Rosario to create something to help other families who were going through similar situations.
“Only about one out of three families have done their estate planning and two-thirds of Americans are homeowners so there are a lot of properties that go through this high conflict transition,” she said.
Last fall, Rosario participated in the Levan Center of Innovation at Nova Southeastern University’s Accelerate Program, an 11-week program for startups that are generating revenue and are ready to scale. At the end of the program, the Leven Center held a public pitch night with prize money provided by the Better Business Bureau serving Southeast Florida and the Caribbean. Rosario won the pitch competition.
Rosario’s team consists of four people, including herself, her partner, who specializes in marketing automation, and two virtual assistants. She started Heirloom two years ago under a different name.
“Inherited property represents more than just an asset,” she said. “It’s the place for a lot of families where all of the belonging happens, like the traditions, the rituals, the memories – all of that. But then, there’s also the actual physical belongings of inheriting,” she added.
“I’ve had clients who’ve held onto a property so long that it almost bankrupted their family,” she said, recalling a client who wouldn’t sell her late mother’s house “because it was the only place that she could go that still smelled like her mom,” she said.
Rosario self-funded her company and vibe-coded the part of Heirloom’s platform for heirs while using the software platform, Rolodex, for real estate agents. Rolodex works as an “inherited property operating system” so that information and data can easily be shared with attorneys, wealth managers and accountants to facilitate inherited real estate.
“Right now, our goal is to get adoption for our Rolodex platform in every marketplace that has a high senior population and specifically seniors that have out-of-state heirs,” she said, mentioning that Florida, the Carolinas, Arizona and California are some of her biggest markets.
Rosario is also aiming to build deeper partnerships with vendors and to expand into business inheritance within the next three to five years.
READ MORE IN REFRESH MIAMI:
- Simple gaming app created by Boca teen helps those with cognitive decline
- AI-powered Alpha School’s afternoons are for building life skills and that’s what sets it apart. No teachers.
- How Fairchild and NASA team up to inspire the next generation of space farmers
- Opening this year, KIPP Miami Tech will get students ready for tech-forward futures
- SoccerPath helps parents find the right soccer team for their kids
