Faes & Co. scores funding from U.K. investment firm

Faes & Co. recently entered into a funding partnership with U.K. investment manager Triple Point. The funding will go toward Faes & Co.’s U.S. fix-and-flip lender F2 Finance.

Launched by Christian Faes in 2023, F2 Finance is active in California, Texas, Florida, Virginia and Washington. Faes is also the co-founder of LendInvest, the largest nonbank mortgage lender in the U.K. The company was listed on the London Stock Exchange in 2021. LendInvest has about £3.7 billion in funds under management and funding from major institutions, including Citibank and Wells Fargo.

Faes had previously partnered with Triple Point on funding deals in the U.K. He told Inside Nonconforming Markets that his history with Triple Point made the company an ideal partner once he began looking for additional financing for his most recent endeavor.

“Triple Point was the logical first partner for me to talk to in the sense that we have a long-standing relationship,” Faes said. “There’s a deep level of trust, which is really important on both sides.”

Faes noted that the U.S. fix-and-flip market has seen strong interest from institutional investors in recent years. He said the market is mature and strong home equity growth has allowed the asset class to perform well.

He added that investors like the short-term nature of the loan, which allows them to leverage the asset to diversify portfolios with less exposure to risks. “It’s typically 12 months or less in duration, so there’s a limited exposure to underlying market risks and macro factors,” Faes said. “From a headline perspective, that makes the investment proposition quite an attractive one.”

Faes said the limited housing supply available in the U.S. market has also created a need for fix-and-flip funding.

He noted that F2 Financing is trying to strike a balance between working with heavily experienced property investors and those newer to the fix-and-flip market. “A lot of people enter the fix-and-flip market because there’s a lot of TV shows that glamorize it,” Faes said. “But the reality is, it’s not that easy. The challenge for us as a lender is always to try and find the borrowers who know what they’re doing and have got a track record.”

F2 Financing received its license to lend in California earlier this year. Faes hopes to grow the company into a nationwide lender but is taking a slow-and-steady approach for now. “We’ve got to crawl before we walk,” he added.