As our members know, here at Property Moose, we are keen to not only revolutionise the way people invest through technology, but also to help educate and encourage safe and sustainable forms of investment. This is why we lowered our minimum investment to just £10, and try to offer several individual opportunities each month on the platform. Hopefully, we can provide our members with the tools they need to achieve well-balanced, diversified portfolios.
We believe property is one of the best performing asset classes for medium to long term growth, with the market performing at an average growth rate of 14.34% p.a. over the past 20 years (1) (compared to 3.46% p.a. growth by the FTSE All Share). (2) But, as we all know, it is not without risk. Between December 2007 and December 2010, there was a fall in house prices in the UK of 11.41% across the period. The peak fall was between Q4 2007 and Q4 2008, which was 14.75%. (1)
That’s why we wanted to create a product that aims to provide market leading returns and a significantly reduced risk profile - one that statistically rivals leaving your money in a bank.
The Property Moose Mortgage Loan product is designed to do just that. We have focused on capital protection via four main areas:
Security
All loans are secured by way of 1st charge, registered with the Land Registry in the same way a bank would with your own mortgage. This is much safer than some of the second charge lending that other platforms offer, as you are in first position should a default occur. Our low loan to value (LTV) (maximum 55% LTV) also means that, even during the recession of 2007, lenders within a Property Moose Mortgage would have been overly protected as property would need to fall 45% in value before the lender was at risk.
Visibility
Property Moose has always focused on transparency and choice. Our members are in control. That’s why we are not offering our Mortgage Loans as a “black box” product, which would involve us choosing the loans on your behalf. With Property Moose, you can review each individual loan and choose the properties you want to lend against, building up your own personal loan book.
Experience
Although this is a new product, it has been built by our experienced team, led by our Chairman, Darren Schindler. Darren was previously Head of Corporate for HBOS, a director at Barclays and Managing Director at Metro Bank sitting on the executive board for launch. The product design has also been stress tested against the market and, with the low LTV of a maximum of 55%, there has been no time in the history of the recorded housing market that property prices have fell enough to risk lenders money. While past performance is no indication of future performance, we believe in the low-risk nature of this product.
Provision Fund Protection
All of our loans to Property Moose SPVs require a provision fund of between 6 and 12 months’ interest cover to be held on account to cover any void periods. This means that interest returns should be consistently paid on a monthly basis, even when the property is empty.
Summary
Despite our mortgage loans being our lowest risk investment on the platform, we also want to give investors a healthy return of 5% p.a. paid monthly. We believe that this is the highest returning product on the market in its risk class and we’ve produced a report looking at market comparables which you can read here.
As returns are paid monthly, investors can choose to withdraw or re-invest to compound up their returns to 5.12% p.a. assuming they reinvest all interest received in our mortgage product (at 5% p.a.).
Sources
- http://www.nationwide.co.uk/about/house-price-index/download-data#xtab:regional-quarterly-series-all-properties-data-available-from-1973-onwards
- http://swanlowpark.co.uk/ftseannual.jsp
Disclaimer and Legals
Property Moose does not provide any advice in relation to investments and you must rely on your own due diligence before investing. Please remember that property prices can go down as well as up and that all figures, rates and yields are projections only and should not be relied on. If in doubt, please seek the advice of a financial adviser. Your capital is at risk if you invest. This post has been approved as a financial promotion by Resolution Compliance Limited.
Property Moose is a trading name of Crowd Fin Limited which is an Appointed Representative of Resolution Compliance Limited which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (no: 574048).
