US: Fractional ownership vacation rental marketplace Here has announced that it is shutting down with immediate effect.
A notice posted on the company’s website read: “We launched Here in 2022 with a mission to make it easy for anyone to become a vacation rental investor. We’re grateful for everyone who believed in our mission and invested with Here.
“With a heavy heart, we are sad to share that the Here fractional investment platform will be shutting down on January 3rd, 2024, due to the current interest rate environment and economic conditions,” he added.
In its statement, Here said that it would list each Series property for sale and return the net proceeds to applicable investors, adding that it was aiming to sell all of the properties within the next six months to allow “sufficient time to maximise value”.
A temporary portal has also been set up by Templum Markets, a broker dealer to Drivewealth [a registered custodian of cash deposits and securities], to enable investors to access their Here portfolio and withdraw funds once each Here property has been sold.
Here launched in early 2022 after closing a $2 million pre-seed funding round, before raising an additional $5 million in a seed round in July of the same year, which helped the startup expand into 20 new destinations. While closing the seed round, however, the company reportedly laid off around one-third of its initial team.
The marketplace allowed investors to obtain partial ownership of vacation rentals. Here handled the property management process from acquisition to management [retaining a minimum of one per cent ownership in every property it acquires], and members could earn monthly income on their investment proposition and potential property appreciation.
Analysis of Here’s SEC [US Securities and Exchange Commission] filing revealed that the company had reported a net loss of -$56,000 from its 18 properties for the final six months of 2023. In addition, it generated $365,000 in revenue over the same period last year.
