Cashed Up Investors Seek Exposure to Property

Online investment platform iPartners is reporting strong demand from its 5000 wholesale investors for exposure to property developments around Australia.

iPartners, which is now four years old, are approaching $600 million worth of funding across a wide range of alternative asset classes, including developments in the residential and commercial property sectors.

The funding platform has so far enabled investors access to seamlessly connect with developers as partners to consider acquisitions and development of hotels, caravan parks, apartments, residential sub-divisions and NDIS accommodation.

Managing director and co-founder of iPartners Rob Nankivell said the group is experiencing particularly strong interest from high-net-worth investors interested in exposure to property opportunities in both equity and debt.

“Many of them feel the sharemarket is becoming over-heated and there are often no real returns for them in interest rates, meaning property developments are high on their agenda to either lend or co-invest through the iPartners’ platform,” Nankivell said.

“Demand for property has continued to grow through the Covid-19 crisis and investors are using iPartners as the conduit for them through its scalable, efficient cloud-based platform that allows small to large deals to be funded.”

In one of the many successful transactions conducted on the platform, NSW property developer Clearstate has tapped iPartners’ investors to successfully complete a residential sub-division in a fast-growing residential corridors in Sydney.

A more recent transaction completed in the property space provided investors with an ownership interest in a portfolio of regional NSW pub assets to be managed by the Harvest Hotel Group.

iPartners’ investors usually acquire a minority equity stake in projects, which commonly have a shorter timeframe than larger unlisted property funds.

“iPartners is providing to be popular with investors to partner with developers and lenders across both the equity or debt components—an opportunity usually restricted to large funds or family offices,” Nankivell said

“We are finding strong levels of interest from developers who are looking to diversify their capital partners away from the usual suspects.”

A key to iPartners’ success is the simple online process it has created for investors to gain access to property investment opportunities.

Investors gain direct access to a deal’s data room, with documents including feasibility studies, term sheets, project information and risk analysis.

Investors can register, view the data room, agree the term sheet and invest fully online, with the progress of the investments regularly updated and posted on the investor’s own dashboard on the platform.

The developer or capital raiser receives funding form one counter-party, being the platform, rather than having multiple shareholders or lenders.

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