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After just five years in operation, an Australian property investment platform has plunged into the Florida real estate market.
Godfrey Dinh, CEO and founder of the property fintech platform Futurerent, has his eye on an ambition: to “transform how Americans, as well as Australians, purchase real estate”.
In 2019, Mr Dinh – a Sydney-based entrepreneur and former vice president of Deutsche Bank – founded Futurerent. The platform touts itself as a “simpler way to cash out and access the money you need to grow your wealth” by allowing property to “unlock up to $100,000 of your rental income in advance”.
Futurerent reportedly works by inviting Australian investors to enter into a concurrent lease. The company agrees to fund investors up to two years of rental income in advance, and in return Futurerent receives tenants’ monthly rental payments.
Now, Mr Dinh has launched a new spin-off of the company, Downpayments, in Florida. He stated that Downpayments aims to revolutionise American property transactions by “financing the down payment and allowing the buyer to break down their commitment into affordable, manageable payments that are interest-free, or at low rates”.
Downpayments offers Florida investors a 10 per cent deposit interest-free, and a 20 per cent deposit at an interest rate of 7 per cent per annum. The loan is secured by “a second mortgage on your existing property or properties”, with these properties being used as collateral.
Mr Dinh presented Downpayments as an alternative to cash-out refinancing, which he argued is increasingly difficult to manage in an era of rising mortgage rates.
“Mortgage rates skyrocketing to nearly 8 per cent has created a difficult environment for investors to cash-out refinance without losing their existing low fixed rate,” Mr Dinh said.
The company makes profit by partnering with in-house buyer’s agencies and brokerage services, from which it takes a commission.
“It is not dissimilar to the Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) industry where the merchant pays to help cover the cost of finance for the buyer,” Mr Dinh explained.
Futurerent stated that the expansion into Florida is “the culmination of the team’s hard work and dedication on both sides of the Pacific, building on our experience helping Australians with the capital they need to take control of their financial future through real estate”.
“Together, we are empowering people in some of the most meaningful financial transactions of their lives and making the world’s largest asset class more accessible,” Futurerent stated.
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