OwnHome Turns Renters into Homeowners, Raises $3.6m in Seed Funding

Across the scale, most people start off renting before eventually purchasing a forever home. Jumping the chasm between the two can be one of the most stressful events someone can go through. To help ease the process is an Australian proptech that focuses on helping renters turn into homeowners. 

OwnHome has raised $3.6 million from investors Global Founders Capital, Entrée Capital, AfterWork, and InVentures. This comes after another seed funding round where it received support from Commonwealth Bank’s x15 Xccelerate program. 

Property prices in Australia, like most markets, are on the up and it makes the average renter feel like becoming a homeowner is nothing more than a pipedream. OwnHome wants to bring confidence to these renters. 

Co-founder James Bowe, explained:

“It takes up to a decade longer to save a deposit than it did 50 years ago and more and more homebuyers, if they have the option, are relying on the bank of Mum and Dad to get onto the property ladder. OwnHome is the only rent-to-own model that provides a path to home ownership in the area you want to live in that doesn’t require hundreds of thousands of dollars for a deposit.”

How OwnHome accomplishes this is simple. The company buys a property for the customer and allows for that customer to move in immediately. Then they can set up a monthly payment plan to pay back OwnHome for the property. High credit customers can move in with no deposit while continuing to build their credit scores while they live in the new home that they own.

The other draw of OwnHome is that the monthly amount is equal to what the now-homeowner would pay as rent. OwnHome says that between three and seven years, the customer would have paid off the property to OwnHome at the pre-agreed price.

Avi Eyal, an investor in OwnHome and the Managing Director for Entrée Capital, said: 

“We believe James and Tim [the two founders of OwnHome] have the vision, experience, and drive to deliver this new path to homeownership for Australians. Residential housing represents the world’s largest asset class at $160T – the size of the opportunity for OwnHome is enormous. Australia stands out as a country with one of the most acute homeownership issues globally, and OwnHome is forging a new way for hard-working Australians to realize their dream of homeownership.”

Currently, OwnHome is available in Sydney with plans to expand in the near future. The company has reported that there is already a waitlist filled with prospective homeowners.