The House Crowd raise funds for investors
A CROWD funding site is celebrating its fifth year after enabling thousands of people to invest in properties around the country.
Hale-based The House Crowd was set up by Frazer Fearnhead in 2012, and has grown into an industry leader.
It works by allowing individuals who may not have enough capital to take on a property on their own, to invest a smaller amount - a minimum of £1,000 - as part of a larger group and receive a return.
The kinds of investments on offer vary in style and scale, from single, tenanted properties to large newbuild schemes.
The House Crowd only works to fund the projects, however, when enough capital is raised and a property or plot, purchased, the management of the building, such as repairs and payment of rents is passed on to separate companies which work with Frazer and the investors.
Frazer previously owned another property investment consultancy, called The Armchair Property Investor, however after selling the firm in 2007 and the advent of the recession, he left the sector for a while.
It was only when former clients began to get in touch with him looking for advice, that he was drawn back in. He said: “It was great for some people who were lucky enough to either buy properties outright but mortgages were pretty thin on the ground.
“I thought, well I’ve got all these investors who are looking to invest in property, the banks won’t lend them the money to let them do it, so why not cut out the banks and just crowd people together instead?
“So, basically, it started out as a way to help current clients build up their property portfolio and over the course of the next year/18 months crowd funding as a whole really took off and we saw the massive potential for a platform within property.”
Since these humble beginnings, where the company was only initially allowed to advertise schemes of just £100,000, it has now raised more than £43m of capital and seen almost £10m worth of returns to over 15,000 investors.
To mark the fifth anniversary, Frazer has now released his first book, An Alternative Guide To Property Investing, which gets to the heart of the industry to help explain the whole process.