Crowdhouse wins Ralf Bellm as new advisory board member
The real estate online platform Crowdhouse.ch has shown considerable growth since its launch at the end of 2015. In the meantime, the fourth apartment building has been financed, and further investment properties have been contractually secured. In the course of expansion, Crowdhouse has now expanded its advisory board to include Dr. Ralf Bellm.
Already represented on the advisory board of Crowdhouse.ch are Dr. Francis Nordmann of Walderwyss Attorneys at Law, Dr. Christian König of Farner Consulting and Amir Suissa of Deindeal.ch. Dr. Ralf Bellm (born 1967), Chairman of the Board of Directors of Hochtief Development and member of the Board of Directors of the real estate consulting and production company BETTR++ AG, is a new addition.
Robert Plantak, Crowdhouse co-founder and CEO, says: "Dr. Ralf Bellm is a luminary in the real estate industry and shares our vision of a transparent real estate market. He is extremely well connected and at the same time so close to the market that we can benefit greatly from him."
Crowdhouse's Board of Directors consists of Ardian Gjeloshi (Chairman/Co-Founder), Robert Plantak (CEO/Co-Founder) and Ruedi Bär (Director/Co-Founder).
Crowdhouse.ch says it is the first and so far the only online platform in Switzerland that enables investors to acquire direct co-ownership of rented Swiss investment properties. Before the properties are offered, they are checked by Crowdhouse.ch experts, then by the consulting firm Wüest & Partner via market value assessment and thirdly by the mortgage-financing bank.
According to Crowdhouse.ch, co-ownership of investment properties is a good alternative in the current negative interest rate environment. The properties are co-financed up to 60 percent by fixed-rate mortgages, so that an optimized distribution return on equity can be generated for the owners. All co-owners will be entered in the land register. An investment horizon of at least five years is envisaged.
The properties offered on Crowdhouse.ch are all in the low to medium rent segment and are new or have no foreseeable need for renovation. The focus is on good B-locations, which in contrast to the A-locations offer further development potential and at the same time yield a solid return. The first property was put on the market in December 2015. Since then, five more properties in different regions have been presented on the Crowdhouse.ch platform, of which four projects have been financed in the meantime.
This corresponds to a total real estate volume of around CHF 18 million. For this, over eight million equity was invested by 54 co-owners. In the meantime, Crowdhouse.ch has contractually secured further investment properties worth around CHF 60 million for the 2016 and 2017 financial years. (ah)
