Commercial property finance brokerage Stamford Capital has launched a fintech marketplace for commercial real estate agents.
The comr8 marketplace was originally created in direct response to the increasing complexity and opaqueness of the commercial property finance market – the revolving door of new lenders and the on-going competition between banks, non-banks, and private lenders.
In the last financial year, Stamford Capital reported almost 60% of its deals were transacted with non-banks, reflecting non-banks’ increasing participation in the commercial property market and continued appetite for deals.
This trend highlights that unless borrowers consider the complete lender market, they run the risk of paying too much interest.
“We created the new comr8 for agents platform in direct response to the demand from commercial real estate agents,” said Stamford Capital joint managing director Michael Hynes (pictured above left). “They are increasingly asking us for assistance, with finance often an impediment to their sale process. With a comprehensive knowledge of agency and sales fundamentals, we have been able to incorporate features into comr8 that streamline and enhance the sales process.”
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The platform was launched in October 2021 and tailored to be the finance arm of commercial real estate agents.
It is free for borrowers of commercial property finance and provides insights on the lending market comprising banks, non-banks and private lenders.
Comr8 provides an immediate estimate of the best interest rates Stamford Capital is seeing in the market based on a particular borrowing scenario, delivering borrowers the best interest rate available based on a sophisticated calculation, with the back end supported by raw data from Stamford Capital.
It provides agents with specific finance insights, primarily interest rates and leverage metrics to help them market their listings.
“Comr8 is a true finance arm of the commercial real estate agent,” said Stamford Capital joint managing director Domenic Lo Surdo (pictured above right). “The access to critical finance data on-demand and the ability to generate marketing material on the go is simply a game-changer. Agents can use the tool to run buyers through different financial scenarios at inspections, with the confidence that it is the latest data and help empower buyers in decision making.”
Lo Surdo noted that the comr8 platform was able to distinguish between different finance criteria across a range of sub-sectors of the commercial property market including multi-residential, commercial, retail and industrial.
Comr8 has proven popular with investors, who represent more than 50% of users to date.
