Colibid, the Valencia-based mortgage-auction fintech, has practically all the banks operating in Spain and 75 mortgage brokers in its portfolio. With only one year of operations, the startup has surpassed 29,000 registered users and more than 12,000 auctions carried out, with a mortgage value of 1,600M. Now Colibid is going after the ‘autopromotor’ mortgage loan.
Stefano Scardia, CEO of the startup, says that incorporating this number of mortgage brokers has not been easy: “reaching this number of agreements with mortgage brokers is an enormous effort. We strive to ensure that our platform and users have the best conditions for their mortgages, and only by having the largest number of offers bidding for them can we achieve the best results,” Scardia points out.
Colibid gets brokers and banks to compete with each other through an auction and thus get, in record time, to offer the customer the best market conditions for the mortgage. In just 4 minutes, by verifying the profile, banks and brokers can start an auction that lasts only three days. The number of bids the user receives depends on the profile and the mortgage he is looking for.
The founders of the company met in October 2021 thanks to the Demium Valencia incubation program; they are all winners of the Valencian incubator’s All Startup. In addition, they have been recognized a couple of weeks ago as finalists for the Best App award by the E-Show 22, a famous e-awards focused on the best technological solutions and trends that will mark the future of business realities, competing with companies of the level of Damm and Grupo Saba.
‘Autopromotor’ against inflation
The incorporation of the ‘autopromotor’ mortgage is aimed at profiles that own or have acquired a “land” or plot on which to build their own home. This is a very new and scarce real estate financing product in the sector, since the banks or brokers that offer it can be counted on the fingers of one’s hands (several of them are in the portfolio of the Valencian startup).
The difficulty in accessing these self-promoting loans lies in the fact that, as a general rule, banks only finance the acquisition of homes when they have been built and, therefore, appraised. However, with this modality, the bank previously evaluates the viability of the house, the construction cost, and its value, once it exists. In order to carry out this procedure, the entity in question unlocks the budget items that include this financing for its execution (construction, foundations, tiling, etc.).
