A new online marketplace with the descriptive name Home Equity Share matches home buyers with investors. To be exact: it brings together buyers who can afford monthly payments but not a 20% down payment, and investors who want to get into real estate but don't want to become landlords or make monthly payments.
Potential home buyers post a profile listing their preferences, including the area they want to buy in, and the price range they're looking for. They're automatically matched with compatible investors, come to an agreement and sign a preliminary commitment. This allows the buyer to become pre-approved for a loan, and to start looking for a property. Once buyer and investor agree on a property, the investor provides the down payment, the buyer arranges a mortgage for his home and moves in. At the end of a specified agreement term—usually three to seven years—the buyer can purchase the investor's interest in the property, or they can sell the house and share its appreciation in value.
Home Equity Share provides the matching service and contracts at no cost to buyers and investors, but requires that they use a real estate agent who is registered with the company. Agents pay a referral fee of 20% of the commission earned on transactions referred by Home Equity Share. (Since the service is still in its soft-launch phase, it won't be accepting new agents until early fall 2007.) We featured a similar business idea last year: Shared Spaces, a British network that also matches co-buyers. The major difference is that Shared Spaces is mainly targeted at buyers who'll be inhabiting a property together—roommates who are buying instead of renting to get a first foot on the real estate ladder.
Unlike P2P lending services we’ve written about in the past, such as Zopa and Prosper, Home Equity Share is targeting a very specific niche: real estate down payments. It matches the parties and provides them with contracts, but doesn’t facilitate the exchange of money. Other niche P2P lending matchmakers to follow?
Website: www.homeequityshare.com
Contact: info@homeequityshare.com
Spotted by: Susanna Haynie
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j'aurai besoin de 70000 euros très rapidement pour acheter la maison de mes parents
Dans quelles conditions prêtez-vous ?
Merçi de votre réponse au plus vite
Interesting concept, but I highly doubt the investors will be protected to the degree they should be...
Top of the residential property market anyone? When individuals wish to act as banks / building societies... A large lender has the advantage of spreading his risk through a wide variety of homeowners.
How does this make sense-
avg. house price in Calgary Canada is 430k and you can do a 5% down first time home buyer thru the bank. Why would some think of doing this?
430K
20% down= 86K for the investor
How would the buyer buy out the investor if they cannot come up with the down and what is your risk premium as an investor? also in Canada your down has to be unencumbered.
It's an interesting concept. So they're basically providing a match-up services for small investors who want to offer private second mortgages.
I wonder how the buyers are qualified in terms of creditworthiness. Maybe the investor is sufficiently satisfied if they're already qualified for the 80% first mortgage?
Fascinating.
...jp
jp moses | August 15, 2007 5:30 PM