Want to invest in short-term rentals without the hassle? It’s right Here

This new Miami startup raised $2M in pre-seed funding. Joe Montana is on the cap table

Are you ready to go from vacation rental aficionado to vacation rental empresario? Meet the recently-formed Miami startup that will help you build the beginnings of your personal real estate empire.

This week, vacation rental investment marketplace Here has just launched to the public. The Miami startup has amassed $2 million in pre-seed funding to enable everyday investors to profit off short-term rental properties.

Users only have to part with a meager $100 to get started. They earn passive income through their property’s monthly booking revenue, while also benefiting from potential property appreciation. According to Here, vacation rentals generate up to 160% more revenue on average than traditional long-term rentals.

In a statement, Here’s founder and CEO, Corey Ashton Walters, underscored the company’s mission to make it easy for accredited and non-accredited investors alike to get involved in the market for vacation rentals. “Real estate investing is broken – the barriers to procure and manage rentals are too high and it’s only accessible to an elite few,” he commented.

“We launched Here because we believe anyone should have access to the same investment opportunities the ultra-wealthy have,” Walters continued. “Since our lightbulb moment in 2020, we’ve been obsessed with the idea of making it easy for anyone to invest in vacation rentals.”

Corey Ashton Walters, CEO of Here

This message has already resonated with leading investors. Here’s cap table includes NFL Hall of Fame Quarterback Joe Montana’s Liquid 2 Ventures, Mucker Capital, Bragiel Brothers, Alumni Ventures, Gaingels, and a handful of fintech executives.

The customer experience for investing in a Here home is significantly more straightforward than you might expect for a real estate transaction. Users start by browsing Here’s marketplace to find available properties that work with their investment criteria. Once they select a property, they determine how much to invest, review the deal’s terms, and sign on the (electronic) dotted line. That’s it – from there, Here takes care of the day-to-day management of the property itself.

While the short-term rental market is valued at $1.8 trillion dollars, this asset class has typically been dominated by wealthy investors or those with property management expertise. With Here, investors purchase fractional ownership in properties while avoiding the need for high down payments, credit checks, or property management experience.

Before founding Here this year, Walters co-founded Seattle-based Homeworthy, a fully remote real estate brokerage focused on the Pacific Northwest. Here’s team includes Caleb Olthoff, Head of Product and formerly VP of Technology at vacation rental platform Evolve, and Keith Breon, Head of Operations and a member of the founding team of vacation rental management platform Vacasa.

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Riley Kaminer