DomaCom Clears Regulatory Hurdle For Mortgage Crowdfunding

A recent squeeze on investment loans for new customers by banks have led listed crowdfunder DomaCom to offer investors the opportunity to invest in residential mortgages after clearing a regulatory hurdle.

The news broke this week that the fractional property investment firm was given ASIC approval to extend its crowdfunding model to securities, which means it can now offer fractional investment in corporate bonds as well as peer-to-peer mortgage bond sub-funds.

According to the Australian Financial Review, the DomaCom platform allows investment in fractions of real property through collective investment schemes and crowdfunding.

Its offerings target self-managed super funds and are on the approved product list of 41 financial adviser groups.

DomaCom Chief executive Arthur Naoumidis told the AFR he was confident more people will use them because they won't be able to get a position in debt from the bank.

“The varied AFS licence will allow us to offer peer-to-peer mortgage bond sub-funds and a fractional investment model for corporate bonds, with work well under way to issue a new Product Disclosure Statement to support these new products,” he said.

"Mortgage bond sub-funds will be the first product we are planning to launch and will allow for investment loans in the DomaCom property portfolio.

“They will offer a yield of 3.54% over the RBA cash rate with the security of a first registered mortgage and a loan-to value ratio (LVR) of less than 50%.

"Mortgage Bonds will usually have a fixed term of 5 years and the current expected return of 5.04% with the security of a first registered mortgage and low LVR is expected to be attractive to the SMSF market.

“DomaCom has many property book builds that have been waiting for a debt solution and we expect the launch of Mortgage Bonds to accelerate our property book builds," Mr Naoumidis said.

Mr Naoumidis said the new fractional investments will operate on the same principle as its property crowdfunding service, which involves DomaCom securitising individual properties and creating a platform for investors to trade fractional ownership.