// Mortgage Mates is the brainchild of Daisy Ashworth and Jess Vesely, who want to make it easier for people to co-own their home.
Think of it like a ‘dating website for home ownership’, new Perth startup Mortgage Mates is looking to help people with similar housing preferences to co-own property.
It’s been estimated that 6.5 million Australians aged 18-39 are priced out of the home ownership market.
Following 12 years’ experience working within the legal, housing and welfare space, Daisy Ashworth saw a growing gap in the market, with people finding it harder and harder to put a roof over their heads.
In 2017, Daisy and co-founder Jess Vesely met while working in the humanitarian sector and the idea for Mortgage Mates came to life.
Jess had worked in the community development for five years, including in Nepal after the terrible earthquakes there.
Over the past two years, the pair have worked alongside an engineering and software team of three tech advisors to develop Mortgage Mates.
“Through the use of innovative technological solutions, Mortgage Mates will disrupt the house market, providing all Australians the opportunity to own their own home,” co-founder Daisy told Startup News.
Daisy Ashworth
“Mortgage Mates is a revolutionary website for the Australian housing market, assisting users to enter the property market in half the time.”
Using a ‘unique algorithm’, Mortgage Mates matches two or more users to other like-minded individuals to search for, apply for and purchase housing together. In so doing, the financial risk is lowered and the legal protection is raised, say the co-founders.
The immediate goal is to assist those in the upper level of rental housing to co-ownership of property, stepping them into home ownership for the first time, together.
In turn, this should help free up the rental market and provide downward pressure on rental prices, the co-founders argue.
Since launching in June 2019, Mortgage Mates has presented at the National Housing Conference in Darwin where the concept of co-ownership and the development of the website was well received.
Last month, the team attended the Pitch@Palace On Tour in Adelaide, where they were shortlisted to attend the Pitch@Palace Australia 3.0 final in Perth.
This has led to heightened interest from third party agencies such as mortgage brokers, real estate agents and others to improve the ‘Match to Buy’ user experience. The user base has doubled over the past month, and team feel like momentum is building.
“Everyone knows someone, who cannot afford to own their own home,” said co-founder Jess Vesely. “By using Mortgage Mates we can turn ‘strangers into mates’ and support every Australian to own their own home.”
Jess Vesely
~~
For more, visit the Mortgage Mates website.
