Interview with Daan Reekers of Adelaer Financial Architects- an early adopter of FinLoop's White Label Technology
Since it was founded in 2015, Adelaer Financial Architects has become the Netherlands' largest real estate debt broker. We spoke to Daan Reekers, the business' founder and CCO, to discover the secrets of Adelaer's success.
It's all about innovation and data,
he says.
The digitalisation of real estate finance is still in its infancy and many in the industry are only, just now, waking up to the possibilities and benefits that technology, AI, and automation will bring them, simplifying and speeding up business processes. The world of real estate needs to focus on data more than ever, and can expect much more digitalisation within real estate finance in the coming years.
This is a transformation that Daan understood and saw coming a decade ago, following the Global Financial Crisis.
After the credit crisis, with banks withdrawing from the real estate sector, it was inevitable that the market would have to look for alternative sources of funding,
he says.
Understandably, any lenders providing alternative funding streams to the banks would want to understand and minimise the risks involved, and the easiest way to analyse threats is through data. It was foreseeable that real estate finance would follow the dramatic changes that were being seen elsewhere in the world of finance, such as the need to have real-time insight into the whole process.
One of the drivers behind the success of Adelaer has been enabling clients and partners in real estate to benefit in this way,
he says.
Adelaer's innovative approach did not slow during the pandemic. It highlighted challenges that were already there,
says Daan.
Lockdowns around the globe further highlighted the need for connectivity and the ability to collaborate remotely. This was particularly important to the real estate finance process and offer. We took steps to improve our platform and assist the market in the sharing of business-critical information.
Despite the impact of Covid-19, Adelaer's team expanded the financing search engine, using Finloop's White Label product, to develop a Loan Management System. This provides a unique and important addition to the Adelaer platform, giving clients and partners access, and insight, to financial data in real-time. The data is stored in a highly secure 'Data Room'.
All the relevant information is stored in one place. Authorised users get prompted when they are required to undertake a task or perform an action, vastly improving efficiency,
says Daan.
The new tool also allows the real-time generation of reports and cash flow analysis models that provide an overview of property portfolios and real estate loans.
Our Loan Management System also allows those involved with a transaction or a particular asset to undertake up-to-date analysis of a situation and make rapid decisions. I believe that the ability to manage and minimise risk, in this way, will transform the real estate sector.
The property sector still has a long way to go, and I suspect that the true impact of digitalisation is not yet fully understood by many real estate professionals,
he concludes.