Egyptian property technology start-up, Nawy, has positioned itself ready to take the future head-on. This bold move comes after the Cairo-based startup raised $5 million from Egypt’s wealthiest family.
Nawy, which was founded in 2016, provides a platform for its users to search for homes online – based on their preferences, such as unit size, price, location, and payment options.
The startup uses its AI-powered platform to broker deals between property owners, and people in need of properties; making deals smooth and easy. Nawy claims that in 2021 alone, it brokered a connection between about 40,000 property owners, and their target buyers.
The startup was founded by Mohamed Abou Ghanima, Abdel-Azim Osman, Ahmed Rafea, Aly Rafea, and Mostafa El Beltagy. Initially, the start-up was known as Cooing Real Estate, before it went through rebranding in June, 2021.
Coming after Nawy secured $5m in seed funding from the Sawiris family, Nawy is now on track to introduce a mortgage service for pre-owned property, to serve a market that is predominantly shunned by Egyptian banks, which serves as traditional lenders for property buyers.
“I honestly believe that when it comes to allowing and assisting Egypt’s real estate market, technology is only touching the surface. Even though we have accomplished a great deal in a short period of time, the prospects to expand our services and capitalize on digital technologies remain enormous. We will be restless in extending our business with the goal of actually transforming the real estate market in the region, making the decision-making process much more informed and transparent for the clients,” Mostafa El Beltagy, CEO of Nawy, said.
Nawy has an employee base of about 200, and so far, has connected about 60,000 property buyers to sellers, in deals that amount to over $200 million. The company recorded unprecedented growth at the end of 2021, as the annual growth rate reached 5.4% by the end of the year – which doubled the figure from 2020.
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In an interview with TechCrunch, Nawy CEO explained that the Egyptian mortgage industry is dominated by banks, and that most of these banks prefer to support buyers of new properties over buyers seeking to buy pre-owned properties. This financing gap for pre-owned mortgages became the problem that Nawy aims to solve with its offerings.
“If you go into the resale market, it’s primarily cash. What we want to do is to build for the resale market, a very similar kind of process where we are continuing to own the house, but letting people pay in installments, rather than pay fully upfront,” said El-Beltagy.
Nawy has a large database of real estate properties, where its users could comb for their property needs. The startup noted that it plans to use the data it collects to offer while delivering its services to tailor real estate advisory services, forge funding partnerships, and provide insights into market trends.
“Once we have visibility on the rental market, the primary markets for resale property, we can start to answer some of those fundamental questions… like what is the forecast of the appreciation? Which properties are probably underpriced or overpriced? And using all of that information, we can start to give some very real financial advice,” El-Beltagy added.