Market

Target market

Our target market includes:

The 1.8 million 25-34 year olds who are locked out of home ownership, but potentially want exposure to the property market, whilst they save for a deposit for a home.

By 2014 64% of first time buyers were purchasing with help from their parents. Brickowner would enable parents to invest into property and over time build up enough for a deposit for a first home for their children.

Property investors or owners in the UK wanting to diversity into different regions of the UK.

People who live in or have links to our investment regions wanting to invest in and support these areas.

Existing property investors wanting a more diversified property investment portfolio.

Investors looking for possible better returns on their money than they would get by holding cash in the bank, or investing in an alternative asset class.

People who want to invest in property but do not want to own and manage the property directly themselves.

People looking for a hedge against inflation, whilst having the potential to benefit from income and capital growth.

Since the recession, the rich are 64% richer and the poor 57% poorer. In part this is because those that are wealthier own property. Brickowner intends to help democratize property ownership and allow more people to invest into property and enable them to keep track of house price growth.

Since the financial crisis an extra 600,000 people have become private landlords, taking the total to over 2 million. We believe that the recent government tax changes has significantly reduced the viability for many of these individuals of investing in property directly themselves. We believe that in the future many of these people will choose to invest in property through the Brickowner platform instead.

We envisage that once we start offering portfolio’s and third party partner investment opportunities on the platform, using the platform could also be viewed as attractive by institutional investors, who would invest alongside individuals.

Characteristics of target market

A further 600,000 people have become private landlords since the credit crisis, taking the total number of private landlords to over 2 million.

In 2016 the Government increased regulation of the Buy to Let sector. Many of these investors will need an alternative way to invest into property. Brickowner provides such an alternative way to invest.

Since 2001 1.8m 25-34 year olds have been locked out of home ownership.

84% of the UK population would prefer to buy their home than to rent.

The Office for National Statistics stated that in 2014 the average home in England and Wales cost 8.8 times the typical local salary, up from 6.4 times local salaries in 2002, leading to a need for greater deposits to purchase a home.

According to the Governments English Housing Survey, the rental market has been growing by 17,500 households a month over the 10 years to 2014.

Before the 2007 crash 30% of first time buyers were helped by their parents, whilst by 2014 this had increased to 64%.

Marketing strategy

From our previous seed round we have a number of significant high level shareholders who we expect will be able to help market the platform.

We have put together a detailed PR and marketing strategy, for our launch and ongoing basis after launch.

In our initial target investment regions of East Anglia and East Midlands we feel the team have strong existing connections. Through these existing networks we aim to target clients from the East Midlands and East Anglia, who have not previously had an opportunity to invest in their region.

We aim to use national media coverage to source clients from across the country.

As well as PR, we will implement a strong social media strategy to reach the market. Online and social media marketing strategies will be implemented which specifically target those that fit our core investor profiles.

We believe that the low investment entry point of £100 will incentivise many more new investors to “dip their toe in the water” after which we feel they may become repeat investors and invest significantly larger amounts. This will also create a larger and more diverse pool of investors. We intend to incentivise users to make referrals to new investors and to promote the platform on social media.

Brickowner will create business for companies selling property, and property service companies. We will look at ways of working with these companies to promote the Brickowner platform, including cross marketing techniques, and strategic partnerships.

Many of the third party property partners we would use would lack a liquidity mechanism for any existing equity investors they might have and be unable to take investors wanting to invest smaller amounts. As partners we could solve both of these issues for them. We would envisage that they would be keen to promote and market our platform.

We will aim to incentivise individuals and companies that have access to potential clients for the platform, such as accountants, and financial advisors.

Competition strategy

The equity crowd funding model for direct property investment, such as ours, is a less mature model than the peer-to-peer lending model. In that respect we are amongst the early entrants in this sector.

Our market is huge, as we envisage the main initial users of our platform will consist of the present 2 million Buy to Let Investors, and the 1.8 million 25-34 year olds who are presently unable to get onto the property ladder.

We envisage that over time many investors that presently invest into property through listed property funds, will find the Brickowner platform a more attractive way of investing into property due to the greater control and transparency they will have over their investment.

We are building the platform with a strong emphasis on user experience to try and make it as user friendly as possible.

We intent to build up strong brand awareness, both nationally, and in the areas we invest.

We believe in a national coverage local knowledge approach. In the areas we invest we aim to become known as a reliable purchaser and landlord committed to that area. We expect that this will help enable us to secure the best available properties at the best prices. We believe we can grow fast in the areas we target by following such a sustainable and community based approach. We aim to become a strong active local partner and positive contributor to the local economies.

We will target regions of the UK with growing economies and what we consider to be undervalued properties, and properties with significant capital growth and income potential.

Many of the other property crowdfunding platforms don’t presently have an automated secondary market, which we believe is something investors strongly want. We will have a secondary market from launch.