The House Crowd has launched a property development finance offering, which aims to help experienced developers and builders fund new projects via the company’s crowdfunding platform.

The solution will be available to firms in the North West of England with a proven track record in developing new build residential, commercial and mixed-use properties, as well completing office to residential conversions, and medium to heavy refurbishments.

Unlike many other lenders, the House Crowd has its own development arm, known as House Crowd Developments, which has been responsible for a number of housing projects within the region.

Borrowers can apply for loans ranging from £500,000 to £5,000,000 over a maximum loan term of 24 months, with interest rates starting from 8% p.a. The arrangement fee and exit fee both stand at 2%.

Funds for each project will be raised via The House Crowd’s crowdfunding platform. Investors, who must pass due diligence checks, will be eligible to partake from a minimum of £1,000 – in effect, buying a small share in the loan that is extended. The House Crowd will also collaborate directly with its partner firms on all marketing and advertising collateral used to promote its projects.

Charlotte Hall, business development manager at House Crowd Finance said: “We are excited to help like-minded property developers across the North West realise their ambitious projects, and to connect would-be investors with opportunities to earn reliable returns.

“Both developers and investors also benefit from helping, in a small way, to solve a very important and persistent problem: the lack of high-quality, affordable housing in the UK.”

The House Crowd is both a property crowdfunding and peer to peer lending platform, having gained FCA-accreditation to offer short-term, peer to peer bridging loans to homebuyers, along with investment options for users of the platform.

Hall added: “It has been a very successful year for The House Crowd so far. We will continue to expand our range of solutions for both borrowers and investors.

“While crowdfunding has always been at the heart of our business, we are now also rapidly growing our peer to peer lending capabilities, to help open up new ways for people invest in property development.”