The House Crowd: We are not in a Lendy situation
THE House Crowd is looking to attract £30m of institutional investment over the next 12 months as it sets out plans to tackle non-performing loans and boost returns, liquidity and choice on its peer-to-peer property lending platform.
Frazer Fearnhead (pictured), founder of The House Crowd, said the platform has hired a consultant to attract investment and is already working on its first deal.
Speaking to investors in a webinar, Fearnhead said the platform was shifting from bridging loans – where he admitted there have been repayment issues – to development finance.
“We are not in a Lendy-type situation but the level of defaults is higher than we would like,” he said.
“We have tightened our criteria, made fewer loans and employed highly experienced case management people to speed up repayment.
“We are making good inroads and we feel development should be the main focus of our business.”
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He said the platform plans to focus more on auto-invest products and would launch products offering a choice of classic, balanced and adventurous products targeting rates of 5.5 per cent, seven per cent and eight per cent respectively.
These are set to be launched later this year and manual lending will still be available alongside a secondary market.
Fearnhead also revealed a self invested personal pension product would be available in the next couple of weeks.
It comes as the platform plans to raise £500,000 in a Seedrs crowdfunding campaign.
The campaign has attracted £237,370 as of 3 October.