Colombian PropTech startup La Haus has expanded to another Mexican city and is looking to increase the financial solutions it can offer to Mexicans looking to own a home.
Founded in the Colombian city of Medellín by former Stanford Business alumni Jeronimo and Tomás Uribe and Rodrigo Sánchez-Ríos La Haus's mission is to digitalise and democratise the opaque world of Latin American property transactions. The company operates a marketplace for new build properties which also serves as a transaction platform for users to progress the sale and ultimately sign everything online.
Having expanded to Guadalajara in June, La Haus followed up by securing the backing of the likes of Jeff Bezos, Kaszek Ventures, NFX, Trulia’s Co-Founder, IMO Ventures, ex Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff, Brian Requarth and Hometeam Ventures in a $100 million funding round in July.
Now La Haus has expanded again, this time to the strategically located city of Querétaro in the centre of the country where it claims to work with 80% of developers in the region and market some 110 new developments. The ambition is now to facilitate 800 transactions in the region within the first 12 months.
Speaking to local agent publication inmobiliare.com, La Haus's co-founder and President said that the company is looking to add financial products to its range of solutions and bring technology to bear on the opaque and intimidating process of home loans in Mexico.
"The process of asking for a loan is intimidating, a lot of the time people don't even know where to start. So that's why we're adding world-class talent in the world of financing to our team, that's our next chapter."
"Our aim is to transform the social structure of all emerging markets. Homeownership is a catalyst for wellbeing that transforms communities, that's what we want to promote." [Translated from Spanish]
La Haus is one of a new generation of Latin American real estate marketplaces shaking up the traditional classifieds model to facilitate transactions. QuintoAndar and AoCubo from Brazil, Aptuno in Colombia and Homie in Mexico have all made significant inroads in their local markets in recent years by being disruptive and using technology to cut through bureaucracy - a way of working that is bound to catch the eye of those trendy Silicon Valley investors.