The Tiger Global Management firm (recognized for being one of the main investors of Facebook, Spotify, Mercadolibre, Despegar, Xiomi, among others), announced its investment in the Colombian digital housing buying and selling platform, habi.co, which will come out on air this week. The group, whose only other investment in the country is Rappi, joins: Homebrew, a classic seed capital fund, in San Francisco; Zigg, investment fund specialized in Proptech; and 10 local angel investors in the consolidation of this application that will transform the residential real estate sector in the country.
The reasons
According to Brynne McNulty Rojas, co-founder of habi, one of the main reasons for closing this negotiation is that the platform solves with technology and investment, the three main problems and obstacles that the real estate sector has in Latin America: transparency in the allocation of price, liquidity and security.
Transparency in the evaluation of housing: through algorithms and artificial intelligence, objectively compares the property against others with similar characteristics in more than 100 variables and makes a pre-offer, immediately. This allows the assigned price to be fair. This value is corroborated in person by an expert who analyzes that the conditions of the property are the same as the information provided and the offer is ratified.
Liquidity
In Bogotá the average wait for the sale of a used home (in stratum 3 and 4) is 14 months. Thanks to the investment support, there will be the purchase of the house in cash, in less than two weeks. Reducing waiting times more than 20 times.
Security: for home sellers, they should only open the doors of their home for once to the expert habi; and for buyers, who receive a certified property (with maintenance, repairs and study of titles) as it happens with those in the vehicle segment.
More reasons…
On the other hand, Sebastián Noguera, co-founder of habi points out that the group of investors also positively evaluated the technical capacity and human talent of the company, as well as its accelerated expansion plan, which projects it as one of the main actors of the digital ecosystem in the region: “Habi is a pioneer platform that will radically transform and energize the real estate sector in the mega-cities of Latin America.
In the first year we plan to buy at least 100 used homes in strata 3 and 4 neighborhoods of Bogotá (whose prices range between 150-350 million pesos each) and start our expansion to other cities in the region. In addition, we have initiated alliances with the country’s financial sector, so that those who want to buy a second home of greater value, new or used, can do so automatically, thus strengthening the entire construction and real estate ecosystem”, he says.
The startup was born in the country with the purpose of helping middle class people make one of the most important financial and emotional decisions of their lives: selling and buying their home.
Also published on Medium.