Become a co-owner of dream apartments through Lilo
Owning a nice house in Barcelona or London is probably a dream of many people. The recently founded startup Lilo wants to enable its customers to do just that – at least in part. Lilo buys trendy real estate and apartments and sells them back to interested investors in the form of shares. According to Gründerszene, the investors do not acquire the entire residential property. If you want to participate, you have to pay one eighth of the purchase price. For apartments that should cost an average of between one and four million euros, that makes around 125,000 to 500,000 euros. According to FINANCE FWD, after the investment has been made, buyers can live in the apartment for 45 days a year and of course hope for an increase in the value of their shares. Lilo makes money from the deal by reselling the purchased and self-furnished apartments at a 12 percent premium and charging an additional 2 percent to manage the properties.
The competition among startups is fierce
According to the start-up scene, the American startup Pacaso should serve as a model for the “co-ownership” business model. This would now have a billion valuation. Because of this success, more and more startups would enter the market. As a result, the competition for Lilo is not exactly low. One competitor, for example, is the Berlin startup Myne, which only received around 24 million euros from investors in June. In its portfolio, this offers villas on Mallorca, beach houses in Cape Town and holiday apartments in the Berlin area. According to Gründerszene, other well-known names in the industry include Kocomo from Mexico, August from Great Britain, Everomes from Bavaria and Villacircle from Düsseldorf.
In order to stand out from the competition, Lilo tries to pursue a slightly different strategy than the competition. Instead of investing in holiday apartments in popular holiday locations, Lilo focuses on properties in large metropolises. As co-founder Christopher Lass explains to Gründerszene, the startup is primarily building on a target group “that may at some point simply get bored of sitting in a large villa in the French countryside for six weeks”. “I personally find it more exciting in Barcelona, for example, where I can also live and work,” continues Lass. According to Lass and FINANCE FWD, these cities, which are suitable for “workation”, have become very popular with young people due to the Corona crisis. In addition, the startup is working on being able to offer its customers a financing option.
Tech specialist meets real estate expert
In addition to the already mentioned Christopher Lass, the two founders of Lilo also include the real estate expert Emily Chan. As Gründerszene reports, today’s business partners haven’t known each other that long. It wasn’t until February 2022 that Lilo’s current investors introduced the two founders to each other. The founding of the company followed promptly in April. Decisive for the step should be the good complement of Lass and Chan. While Chan has previously worked at Goldman Sachs and Apollo Global Management and is therefore very familiar with real estate, Lass is a specialist in the IT and tech sector due to his work as a software developer.
Nicolas Flohr / Editor finanzen.net
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