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General questions

The word Crowdfunding comes from the union between the words "crowd" (collective or group) and "Funding" (to finance). Crowdfunding refers to collective or collaborative investment: many small investors coming together to invest in a project. In Spanish, it is also defined as participatory funding.
Housers is the meeting point between small and medium investors and developers. Housers is the crowdfunding platform that has democratized investment in the real estate sector, allowing any investor to invest as large investment funds do but with small amounts and without worrying about the paperwork and procedures associated with this type of investment.
Housers allows investors to invest in real estate or business projects previously studied by a team of expert analysts in risk analysis of projects of these types. Once studied and approved by our team of analysts, the developers will have access to agile funding with interesting conditions provided by our investors to develop their real estate or business projects. The objective of the selected projects is to generate attractive returns for the investor, helping the developer to find financing for their projects. Housers thus becomes the meeting and contact point for the investors and developers. To make life easier for the investor, Housers provides a control panel where the investor can manage and view the status of all their investments in real-time.
Housers is not a credit institution or an investment services company, nor does it provide financial advice, so nothing on this website should be interpreted as such. Housers does not adhere to any investment guarantee fund or deposit guarantee fund. Therefore, the investment capital is not covered by these funds. The information on it is for general information purposes only and does not constitute specific advice. The participatory funding projects published on the website are not subject to authorization or supervision by the Spanish Securities Market Commission, the Bank of Spain or any other national or foreign regulator. The information provided by the developer has not been reviewed by the CNMV and does not constitute a prospectus approved by the CNMV.
Any developer interested in being able to fund their real estate or business projects in Housers can apply in the "Get funding" section of our website. Our investment and analysis team will study each developer, their history, professionalism, and experience and will analyse in detail the project presented by the developer. After an exhaustive study, if the project meets the minimum criteria set, the projects that pass the filter will be offered on our platform so that any registered investor can invest in them.
The objective of the Friend promotion is to reward our investors for referring new investors of their trust and, at the same time, to give a welcome gift to the newly referred investors. Each Housers investor can invite as many friends and acquaintances as they wish. Both investors (referrer and referred) will receive their gift when the referred investor makes his/her first investment.
Housers charges a commission to the developer if the project published on the platform is funded: this commission is a maximum of 10% of the total funding amount of the project (the average is 8%). Those investors with a Housers Premium account are not charged any commission for the use of the platform. For investors with a Housers Basic account from June 2021 Housers charges a monthly platform usage fee of €2.5 (VAT included). For these projects before March 2021 Housers charges 10% of the returns distributed by the developer to investors.
If you have any questions, you can contact us through the form that you can find in the Contact area of the website, and we will be happy to help you.

Investment opportunities

Housers publishes on its platform opportunities consisting of fixed-rate loans or participating loans. In both cases, the developer, in exchange for an amount borrowed by investors, offer interest that is paid monthly, quarterly or at the maturity of the loan. Loan maturities are usually between 12 and 48 months.
In this type of investment, the investor has no liability to third parties. The hypothetical loss of the investor would always be limited to the capital contributed by the investor.
The title/fraction of a loan is a credit right. It is the right granted to the investor who is the holder of the loan to be able to demand from the developer the repayment of the capital contributed and the payment of the accrued and overdue interest. The initial unit value of the title is €1.
The total return on an investment in a fixed-rate project is obtained by dividing the total return obtained by the investor (interest) by the value of the capital borrowed, and then multiplying the result by one hundred to obtain a percentage. For example, an investment in a €5,000 project that after 18 months has generated €1,000 in interest for the investor gives a total return on the project of 20%.
The annual return is obtained by annualising the total return of a project. To do this, we divide the total return of the project by the number of months the project has been active and multiply it by the 12 months of a year. For example, an investment in a €5,000 project that after 18 months has generated €1,000 in interest for the investor gives a total return on the project of 20% and annual profitability of 13,33%.
The IRR or Internal Rate to return is the rate of interest of profitability that a project generates and is responsible for measuring the profitability of an investment. This means, the percentage of profits or loss that this investment will have. The IRR makes it possible to compare the profitability obtained from different projects.
The investment that is made in the opportunities published on crowdfunding platforms such as Housers is not exempt from risk and can produce, in the worst-case scenario, the total loss of the investment, partial loss or temporary illiquidity for the duration of the loan.
The best way to reduce the risk in your investments is to diversify your portfolio by spreading your investment capital across different projects. For example, instead of contributing €10.000 to a single project, you can diversify by making small contributions of €1000 to 10 different projects. With this simple mechanism, you are diversifying the risk between several opportunities.
In Housers we guarantee that all projects that are registered in our opportunities section have been thoroughly analysed by our real estate and risk analysts. Each funding request from a developer is carefully examined. In addition, we commission a risk analysis (scoring) from an external auditor who assessed distinct aspects of the project according to a specific methodology that is the same for all. We publish all the supporting information of the project, including the scoring, so that the investor can analyse it and make the most appropriate investment option. For all opportunities, Housers uses project monitoring companies to provide greater security and control over the use of the funds delivered to the developer.
Scoring is defined as the impartial analysis of the main parameters of a company, a financial product, or an investment project, to obtain an evaluation. In the case of Housers's projects, the scoring analyses the possibility of success, or in other words, the level of risk that the opportunity of not being completed has. The scoring assigns a risk code ranging from AAA (lowest risk) to C (highest risk).
In Housers we have been the first to outsource the scoring calculation so that it is impartial and independent from the platform. We have a group of external auditing companies that perform this analysis for our investors' opportunity by opportunity.
All the companies that form the risk analysis group calculate the scoring for Housers in the same way so that the result obtained is comparable. The methodology is based on static analysis (comparison of data at a fixed point in time including information on the guarantees provided and developer information such as experience, number of developers projects, liquidity rations, debt rations, assets management ratios, term ratios, profitability ratios and operational ratios) and on dynamic analysis (analysis of IRR, ROI, licences, location, construction price/m2, the sale price/m2, LTV, LTC, %sales, etc.).
To control and supervise the disposals made by the developer of the loan given by the investors, Housers contractually obliges most of the developers to receive the loan in a joint account with an external monitoring company. To access the loan funds, the developer needs the signature and authorization of the monitoring company. The monitoring company controls the drawdowns made to the developers based on a drawdown schedule agreed upon with the developer and initially supervised by Housers. The provisions must be justified by the developer to the monitoring company, which makes administrative supervision of them.
The mortgage guarantee is the right that is granted on a property to a person or entity with which a debt or commitment is contracted, so that, if the debt is not satisfied or the payment commitment is not fulfilled, the person who receives the mortgage guarantee can become the owner and sell the property that is the object of the guarantee to recover the money lent or to be compensated.
These are opportunities where the developer pledges as collateral for the loan received an asset that will be pledged as security in the name of a guaranteed agent acting on behalf of the investors. This mortgaged asset may or may not coincide with the target asset of the project. If the developer is unable to meet its payment obligations to the investors, the guaranteed agent will foreclose on behalf of the investors and the investors will recover all or part of their investment. If the project is active, the mortgage on the asset is active.
It is a company independent of the platform specialized in taking collateral, custody, and execution of the same if necessary. It always acts on behalf of and under the mandate of the investors.
Loan to Value (LTV) is a mortgage information ratio that measures the percentage of the loan to the value of the property used as the mortgage asset and given as a guarantee. The value of the property must be following the latest appraisal. For example, for the LTV in the case of a loan granted for €500,000 on an appraised value of the mortgage guarantee of €750,000 is 66.66%.
The investors. Once the loan has expired, if the developer has not repaid all the amounts owed, the decision to foreclose the mortgage guarantee will depend solely on the investors who have invested in the project, who will decide at a meeting of lenders and by the majority reflected in the contract whether to foreclose the mortgage guarantee, whether they prefer to give the developer more time to pay or whether they prefer to restructure the loan by accepting the developer's proposal, if any.
The foreclosure of a mortgage guarantee depends on how long it takes for the property given as a guarantee to be auctioned and sold. it is influenced by the location of the property, the type of property, the appraised value of the property and other factors. Generally, the estimated time that the process can take is around 2 years, although in many cases these periods are shortened.
Yes, sometimes projects can be split into several phases or tranches of funding, although the project remains a single project. This means that all phases or tranches must have the same conditions and end at the same time.

I want to be an investor

Once the investor has completed the registration process and his account has been validated, he will be able to access his private investor area to analyse all the documentation of the different opportunities and invest in them. Only registered and properly validated users can participate in the investment opportunities.
Individuals, of legal age, with Spanish or foreign nationality. Legal entities (companies) with tax residence in Spain or the EU can also be investors. There is a limitation of a few countries from which the payment institution (Lemon Way) cannot accept that the investors make any movement of money from or to any of the following countries. Among others Afghanistan, Barbados, Byelorussia, Birmania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bosnia, Burundi, Corea, Egypt, Emirates Arabs Unidos, Ethiopia, EEUU, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Macao, Mali, Mongolia, Namibia, Panamá, República Centroafricana, Congo, Russia, Samoa, Somalia, Sudan, Sri Lanka, Syria, Ucrania, Venezuela or Yemen.
Registration on the platform is completely free.
The Housers Premium account is the one whose holder has invested in the last 12 months or the one in which, not having made the first investment, maintains a balance in the wallet of fewer than 12 months. The Housers Basic account does not meet the requirements to be Premium. The Housers Premium accounts that lose their Premium status will become Housers Basic accounts.
The Housers Premium account has no cost for the investor. The Housers Basic account will bear a platform usage fee of 2.5€/month (VAT included). In the case of Housers Basic accounts, this will only be charged if the balance is higher than 0.05€. If there is not enough balance in the account to support the €2.5 fee, it will be promptly reduced to the balance of the account at that time to avoid negative balances in Housers accounts.
No, by opening your Housers account the investor does not acquire any kind of investment commitment.
It is not mandatory to have financial knowledge although it is advisable to be properly informed and read all the documentation that Housers makes available to the investor both in the daily use of the platform and in the information of each opportunity.
To register in Housers and open your Housers account the investor must: 1) Click on "Register"; 2) Select the "Individual" option; 3) Fill in the form with the "identification data" (your name and surname, telephone number, email, and password); 4) Accept the "Housers Service Conditions" and the "Lemonway Terms and Conditions"; 5) Click on "Create account". Once the email and telephone number have been validated, and are already inside the investor's private area, the investor will be able to access "My details" and will have to fill in the following sections: 1) In "Identification details" you must fill in the fields that have not been filled in (country, sex and tax residence); 2) In "Documentation": 2. 1) If you are a tax resident in Spain you must attach your DNI, in PDF format or similar, on both sides and in colour; 2.2) If you are a foreigner tax resident in Spain you must also provide your Foreigner's Identity Number; 2.3) If you are a tax resident in any other EU country other than Spain you must attach your ID or passport. 2.4) If you are from outside the EU, you must also provide a second identity document. Once all the information is completed, the investor will request the activation of his Housers account by clicking on "Accept and continue". If there is any problem uploading this documentation or with its validation, the investor can always contact Housers through the form available in the "Contact" area.
To register in Housers and open your Housers account the investor must: 1) click on "Register"; 2) Select the "Company" option; 3) Fill in a form with the details of the legal representative of the company (name and surname, contact telephone number, email, password); 4) Accept the "Housers Service Conditions" and the "Lemonway Terms and Conditions"; 5) Click on "Create account". Once the investor's email and telephone number have been validated, and are already inside your private area, you will be able to access "My details" and you will have to fill in the following sections: 1) In "Identification details" you must fill in the fields that have not been completed for the legal representative (nationality, sex) and the company details (company name, VAT number and tax residence); 2) In "Documentation", the legal representative must attach, in PDF format or similar, their DNI or Passport and NIE in the case of foreigners, attach the deed of incorporation of the company and, if necessary, the deed of actual ownership of the company, a document of the company's activity (any certificate from the Mercantile Register, a Tax Certificate and any document of payment of taxes, VAT - with a maximum age of 3 months - are considered valid) and other documents that you consider necessary (such as the DNI of the partners who have more than 25% of the company's shares); 3). Once you have completed the above sections, you must click on "Accept and continue". If any problems are uploading this documentation or with its validation, the investor can contact us through the form available in the "Contact" area.

Housers Account

The housers account is an account in the Housers platform in the name of an investor that has passed the corresponding validations and that allows him to operate in Housers by investing in projects. The Housers account is always associated with an account in an external payment institution for the investor's security. in the case of Housers, the selected payment entity is Lemonway.
To access your personal area the investor must enter the Housers website (www.housers.com) and click on "Login". Then you must enter the email with which you registered on the platform and the password you chose. The same procedure must be followed if you want to access your personal area in the Housers App. From the Housers App, you can configure other types of biometric access using the fingerprint, graphics or through the investor's face recognition.
The password can be remembered in a quite uncomplicated way: click on "Login" and then click on the option to recover the password. The investor will be asked for the email address with which he/she registered on the platform. After a few seconds, the investor will receive an email with instructions on how to change the password at the email address provided (provided it is correct and the one he/she registered with). Sometimes it may be necessary to check the Spam folder to look for this email sent by the platform.
After sending all the requested documentation in the appropriate format, the user validation process begins. Normally this process is completed in less than 48 hours. At that time, the Housers account of the investor will be operational, and he/she will be able to invest in opportunities published on the platform. While the account is not operational the investor will not be able to make investments on the platform.
The Housers account of an investor is not operational until all the requested documentation has been received and validated to verify the registration data and the user's registration in Lemonway.
Housers uses an external and regulated payment entity called Lemonway, which safeguards and manages the funds of all investors. When an investor deposits money into their Housers account, they do so in an account created for them by the payment entity. Each real estate project funded on the platform will also have its Housers account separate from the others so that what happens in one project can never affect the other projects on the platform. Lemonway is a Limited Company with a capital of 860.232.53, SIREN number 500486915, with registered office at 14, rue de la Beaune, 93100 Montreuil, France, accredited on 24/12/2012 by the "Autorité de Contrôle Prudentiel et Régulation" ("ACPR", France, 61 rue Taitbou 75009 Paris, as a hybrid Payment Institution, under number 16568 J) and authorized in Spain by the Bank of Spain to carry out its activity as a payment institution without a permanent establishment by the applicable regulations.
The funds of the Housers account are safely deposited outside Housers in the payment entity Lemonway, so that the money of each investor is segregated from that of the other investors, the developers, and Housers' funds.
The investor can improve the security of his Housers account by activating the OTP (One Time Password) functionality. By activating this option, every time the investor tries to perform an identification or investment operation in the platform, he will be asked for a code that he must enter to continue with the operation. This code will be sent to the investor by SMS to the phone associated with the investor's Housers operation. You can activate the OTP functionality by accessing the "My details" area and in the "Account settings" area by clicking on "Change settings". once in the "Account settings" screen you must activate the OTP option. If you want to disable this functionality, you can do it in the same place.
To fund your Housers account click on the "Deposit" button. You can fund your Housers account by bank transfer from a bank account in your name. You must make a transfer with the amount you want to the IBAN indicated on this page indicating in the concept of the transfer the code that is indicated. Normally the amount will be available in your Housers account within two working days. Housers does not apply any commission to this operation.

No, it is not possible. You can make investments directly from your bank card but not deposits to your Housers account.

Yes, select this option when investing. The direct investment with a bank card does not apply any kind of commission to the operation. Bank card transactions are limited to a maximum amount of €5,000.
Yes, at any time and no cost the investor can order the transfer of funds to any of the IBANs associated with their Housers account. You will receive the money in the indicated bank account in 1 or 2 working days normally.

Investing

In the "invest" section you can find the different opportunities in funding status with all the documentation and characteristics of the project so that the investor can consult them and invest if he/she considers it appropriate.
In the "Invest" area, investors must choose the opportunity they are most interested in by clicking on "More information". Within the opportunity file, the investor must review the proposed project, including all the associated documentation. To review this documentation the investor must be correctly identified with their Housers account. Once the project is reviewed, the investor must choose the amount to invest (considering the limits of the investor depending on whether he/she is accredited or not accredited) by pressing the button "Invest Now". At that moment, the investor must select the payment method with which he/she wants to invest: 1) Payment with the available balance in the Housers account; 2) Direct investment with bank card charged; 3) Investment with Bitcoin. The investor must then accept the "Mandate Contract" and the "Investment contract" and click on "Confirm investment". If the investment is successful, a screen will appear confirming the investment in the opportunity. In addition, the investor will receive an email (Annex I of the contract) informing him/her of the investment you have made. This investment as well as the contract are suspended until the funding of the project is completed, at which point the contract and the investment will become firm. At that time, the investor will receive an email informing you of the entry into force of the contract and your investment (Annex II of the contract).
The minimum amount to invest per opportunity is €300.
It will depend on the type of investor: for accredited investors, there is no investment limit; non-accredited investors are not allowed to invest more than €3,000 per project, nor more than €10,000 in 12 months in projects published on any crowdfunding platform.
Once the investment in a project is committed, the money is blocked in the Housers account of the investors until the opportunity is funded: at that moment, automatically and transparently for the investor, the amount is unlocked and moved to the developer's account so that he can have the funds provided by the investors with the corresponding security measures. If the opportunity is not funded within the stipulated time or in its mandatory extensions if they exist) the money of the investment would be unlocked and would reappear in the balance of the investor's Housers account.
Generally, it is necessary. As an exception, the Law allows the platform to decide whether projects that have reached at least 90% of the funding needs can be considered viable, allowing in these cases to consider a project that has not reached 100% of the funding target as funded. To this end, the platform must expressly warn of this possibility when publishing the Opportunity on the website.
Housers establece a su criterio y para cada oportunidad un plazo para que ésta se financie. Depende de la demanda de los inversores para participar en el proyecto que éste se financie antes del plazo establecido. En caso que no se financie dentro del plazo estipulado inicialmente, la plataforma tiene la posibilidad de ampliar un 25% el plazo inicialmente establecido. Para ello la plataforma deberá advertir expresamente esta posibilidad al publicar la oportunidad.

My investments

Housers establishes at its discretion and for each opportunity a deadline for it to be funded. It depends on the demand of investors to participate in the project that is funded before the established deadline. In case it is not funded within the initially stipulated deadline, the platform can extend the initially established deadline by 25%. To do so, the platform must expressly warn of this possibility when publishing the opportunity.
The information on the progress of each project can be found in the project file, in the area called "timeline" where the different milestones that the opportunity is reaching are referenced. investors will also receive email communications about their projects. they will also receive notifications via the APP (if installed) and in their personal area, informing them of any project updates.
Each opportunity published on the platform has a time limit. To be able to withdraw the invested capital, you must always wait until the developer returns the capital received from the investors in the form of a loan.
Profits are received by the investor in the form of interest on the loan granted to the developer.
The profit of all opportunities is distributed monthly, quarterly within the first fifteen working days of each month, monthly or quarterly in arrears. In some projects, the profit is distributed at the same time as the capital is repaid on the maturity date of the project.
Yes, once the profits are in the investor's Housers account, the investor can use them to invest in other projects or you can withdraw them to a bank account in the name of the investor and associate with the Housers account.
To withdraw funds from your Housers account the investor only must: access your personal area and go to "bank details". Click on the "withdraw funds" tab. Fill in the transfer request form (Select bank account, concept, and amount). Click on "request transfer". This operation is free of charge for the investor.
The developer is responsible for withholding the interest or dividends distributed to investors and settling the corresponding payments to the tax office in your country. in addition to making an annual informative summary of the interest or dividends paid and the withholdings made. However, Housers will annually make available to investors (Within their personal area) a tax certificate with the tax withholding made as well as a report with all the data of your operations during the year so that you can prepare your income tax return.
The developer will always apply a withholding tax to investors on interest and dividend distributions by the legislation in the developer country of origin. For Spanish developers, the withholding tax will be 19% for individuals and legal entities. For Portuguese developers, the withholding tax will be 28% for individuals and 25% for legal entities. For Italian developers, the withholding tax will be 26% for individuals and legal entities.
In the investor's personal area, in the "Documents and reports" area, there is an area for tax reports. By selecting the year for which you wish to obtain the report, you can download the report for the year selected. The responsible for the withholdings are the developer in front of the Tax Agency of his country. The information provided by Housers in the document is merely informative. in addition, the withholding made by housers when the payment of interest improvement promotions will not be included in these reports.

Delayed projects and debt recovery

Loan contract decisions such as restructuring a loan contract, accepting early repayment, or taking a loan into debt recovery by foreclosing on existing guarantees are made by investors at Lender Meetings which are held digitally on the platform. These meetings are fully binding for investors.
As it is considered a single project, the lenders' meeting of these projects for contract and project decision-making takes place in a unified manner for all phases or tranches.
First, the platform tries to understand the developer's problem. Then we look for ways with the developer to restructure the debt so that the investors recover the capital with a later maturity than initially planned while improving the profitability of the project. If these formulas exist, they are presented to the investors at a lenders' meeting. It is at these meetings that investors decide to restructure the loan or claim the debt out of court or in court from the developer.
If the investors of a project with mortgage guarantees decide to take the project to debt recovery, the existing guarantees are initially executed and the Guarantee Agent that holds the guarantee is instructed to initiate its execution. If after the enforcement of the guarantee there is still a debt with the investors, the process of claiming the outstanding amounts would be initiated as in the case of debt recovery of projects without mortgage guarantees, This hypothesis, although feasible, is unlikely, since the projects have mortgage guarantees with LTVs of less than 70%, which means that the guarantee should in most cases cover and pay off the total debt owed by the developer to the investors.
No, the entire cost of the foreclosure has been initially advanced by the developer and the amounts are held in custody by the guaranteed Agent who, if necessary, will use them to foreclose the guarantee and, if this is not necessary, will return these amounts to the developer when the debt with the investors is cancelled.
Yes. In each case, investors are presented with both the company that will conduct the debt recovery and the costs associated with the debt recovery. The most common approach is to be successful so that the debt recovery company only gets paid if it manages to recover the amounts. The debt recovery company will keep a percentage of the amount recovered. Normally this percentage is 10%, although it can be as high as 20%.
The extrajudicial claim can accept to 90 days. The judicial claim does not have a specific time limit and can take between 12 and 36 months.