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Updated almost 5 years ago,

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3
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1
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George Dixon
1
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3
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Irish Construction Crowdfunding Website Interest?

George Dixon
Posted

In Ireland, we've had a severe lack of construction finance since the crash of 2008. As such, only large REIT's and pension funds can afford to finance construction. There is massive housing demand that is driving up residential rents to the point where individuals can't afford them, and house prices so high it is impossible to cashflow unless you are building to rent or paying cash (income tax laws also make this tricky).

But, there is lots of opportunity in land that already has planning permission (houses approved to be built). Due to the requirement to have 20% down as cash, very few developers can afford to get financing, resulting in a significant slowdown of houses being built compared to demand. (Larger developers who could afford the development are instead chasing larger deals)

I thought of an idea to help increase supply and share the opportunities with smaller investors everywhere. If I created a crowdfunding website, that allows investors to commit funds to a project, in exchange for a share of the development profits, would that be of interest to anyone here?

My idea would be that every project would technically be a limited partnership, where cash investors/funders would supply the entire cash required for construction, and developers would be under contract to finish within a certain time frame. The later they are based on the timeframe agreed, the smaller cut of the profit they would receive. 

The idea would be something similar to kickstarter, where the terms of the deal would be laid out plain as day for anyone interested. You could also incorporate leverage into the deal, but that kind of defeats the purpose. In my mind, if the deal were all cash, and investors only signed up if they knew what they were getting into, its quite hard for anything bad to happen, other than a significant underestimation of costs (completely preventable with duedil before appearing on the platform), or supply outgrows demand (which is a long way off for Ireland). The returns would also be so significant that leverage wouldn't really be required.  

I'm a software engineer by trade, but work a lot with a property developer. Would there be interest for this? (I don't want to waste time building something if it doesn't at least make sense to some)

Note: this isn't an advertisement, and I don't plan to advertise without consent. Merely gauging interest in an idea.

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