INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
&Unmortgage enables everyone to live in the home they want to, that our mission,& Unmortgage co-founder and CEO Ray Rafiq-Omar tells me
&We do that by allowing people to buy as little as five percent of a home and rent the rest
So there no mortgage involved, hence the name Unmortgage&.The burgeoning London startup, which aims to launch next year having just closed a
hefty £10 million seed round, calls its model &part-own, part-rent&
However, unlike traditional shared ownership schemes, Unmortgage doesn&t want you to have to take out a mortgage to buy the first portion of
your own, and it isn&t targeting new-builds.Like a number of other fintech/proptech companies, such as Strideup and Proportunity, it is the
latest attempt to solve the increasing difficulty first time buyers face trying to get on the housing ladder as rising house prices
If people rent, they often cannot save the large deposit required for a mortgage
It is this &vicious circle& that Unmortgage want to break: by helping families that can afford to rent gradually buy a home.&The way we like
to think about it is the security of home ownership with the flexibility of renting,& says Rafiq-Omar
If we like it too, we&ll but it together in partnership
You&ll own your bit and you&ll pay rent on our bit
Then you have the option to buy more of your home from as little as a pound at any time&.To keeps things fair — Rafiq-Omar stresses that
fairness is &our core value& — Unmortgage will revalue the property on a monthly basis so you&ll always have an up-to-date valuation when
And at any point you are free to either buy out Unmortgage with a mortgage or an inheritance or to give the company three month notice for
it to buy you out so you can take your cash at market price and move on to your next home.Likewise, the rent you pay on the part of the
property you don&t own is pegged to rises to inflation
But in case inflation outpaces market rate rents, Rafiq-Omar says Unmortgage will allow the customer to ask for a rent review
&They have the ability to not have to worry about their rent but if they are worried they can have it reviewed,& he says.Unmortgage will use
institutional funding to finance its part of the homes it purchases, who Rafiq-Omar says would like to own residential property, and the
secure income stream it brings, but don&t want to be landlords or end up in the media for behaving like a landlord
&Unmortgage gives them a way to invest in residential property while solving societal need, which is [that] people want to own their own
homes and have security over their housing situation&.Meanwhile, investors in Unmortgage seed round are fintech venture capital firms
Anthemis Exponential Ventures, and Augmentum Fintech plc
&&We&re grateful to our investors for believing in us and our social mission and excited to be working with them & especially Tee Pruitt [of
Anthemis], who was instrumental through much of this process,& adds Rafiq-Omar.
