CrowdSeekr.com Launches Innovative New Technology Promising to Disrupt Real Estate Investment
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (PRWEB) April 12, 2016 -- CrowdSeekr.com officially launched on January 14, 2016 and investors interested in diversifying into real estate should pay attention.
CrowdSeekr.com is seeking to become the industry standard search engine by indexing hundreds of real estate investment opportunities from around the country.
The investments listed on CrowdSeekr are real estate crowdfunding investments. Real estate crowdfunding is a method for acquiring or financing real estate by connecting sponsors or developers with online investors who each invest a relatively small amount in exchange for a percent of ownership. Investors typically earn a return by sharing in appreciation and operating income of the property.
Over $1 billion was raised through real estate crowdfunding in 2014; the market was projected to reach $2.5 billion in 2015, and is expected to continue growing rapidly. Although investment dollars have flooded into this growing market, tools for searching for and discovering deals are struggling to keep up.
The problem for investors is that, due to the proliferation of crowdfunding websites, they must now spend valuable time registering for and searching through numerous websites to find what they want.
That is where the problem arose for Tim Strange, president of Newmark Grubb Levy Strange Beffort Commercial Real Estate in Oklahoma City.
“What I found out was there is not a good system in place for searching across multiple websites to find a deal that best suits an investor’s needs. I had this experience when I was raising equity last year and that’s what led me to conceive of CrowdSeekr,” Strange said in a recent interview.
Strange approached family friend Ashley Smith, an e-commerce attorney, and CrowdSeekr.com was born. Smith is now Chief Executive Officer and Strange is Vice President of Real Estate and subject matter expert. Marylee Strange rounds out the team as Chief Technology Officer, bringing over thirty years of experience in IT consulting and project management.
Smith, Strange and Strange have worked with a leading web development team to build CrowdSeekr.com. They recently secured proof of business concept funding from i2E, an Oklahoma nonprofit that provides support to startups. The team has also participated in an i2E-sponsored program to mentor student interns from an honors entrepreneurship class taught by Dean Daniel Pullin at the University of Oklahoma Michael F. Price College of Business.
Seven of the top real estate crowdfunding websites have already agreed to share their data with CrowdSeekr; the site launched with one of the industry’s largest databases of crowdfunded real estate deals. Investors will now be able to search for deals filtered by return on investment, location, property type and other customizable search criteria.
“Rather than signing up for and searching dozens of websites, like many investors are doing now, they can come to one place, create a profile and begin searching for real estate investments immediately,” Smith said. “For busy investors, this means a more streamlined and user-friendly real estate crowdfunding experience.”
Noted real estate attorney and syndication expert Gene Trowbridge, CCIM has taken notice. “CrowdSeekr is a great idea and I’m happy to tell my clients when they’re looking for a crowdfunding platform to use, check and see if that platform is linked up to CrowdSeekr,” he said.
For more information on how you can work with CrowdSeekr.com, contact the team at info(at)CrowdSeekr.com or Ashley Smith, CEO at 1.800.439.3857.
Ashley Smith, CrowdSeekr, http://www.crowdseekr.com, +1 800-439-3857, [email protected]
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