Meet Ben Schuldenfrei, Co-Founder Of Factored.

Tell us about Factored

Factored empowers landlords to access capital from their future rental income to fund property improvements that will reduce carbon emissions and improve tenant well-being. In 2023, less than half of all private rental homes in England had an energy efficiency rating of A to C. This is partly because landlords have been unable to access the capital they need to address the issue.

At Factored, we enable landlords to advance up to £15k of rent, to make those necessary improvements, helping to improve energy efficiency and improving living conditions for tenants. Our finance can be paid back in manageable monthly installments over 6-18 months, effectively removing the large upfront cost needed for retrofit/refurb and giving landlords the flexibility to work on the terms that suit their needs.
 
 

 
 

What do you think makes this company unique?

Factored is customer-driven. This means that we have a customer-first approach to everything we do. We build products that answer customer needs and we craft and refine them with customer feedback. Unlike traditional financing routes, we have more flexible criteria, which means that we look at individual circumstances for each application, avoiding hard credit checks, meaning our offering is more inclusive.

We also seek to work quickly, making sure that customers aren’t left waiting for a decision. And we don’t levy unnecessary fees like early repayment charges. If a landlord can repay their advance early, then that’s great, it’s entirely up to them, and we won’t penalise them for it.
 

How has the company evolved over the last couple of years?

Factored hasn’t evolved massively. Our core idea was strong from the start and our focus has been more on achieving our vision, so initially, that meant finding VC and angel funding, building a team, and refining our product.

Since launching, we’ve gained a lot of traction and found far more demand than we’d initially anticipated. So, we’ve had to invest a lot more time and effort than we’d originally projected in enhancing our underwriting model and our platform as a whole, improving our ability to work at scale. While this could be viewed as a form of evolution, it was always part of the plan, it’s just been necessary a lot earlier than we’d imagined.

What can we hope to see from Factored in the future?

Scaling is our main priority for 2024. We want to focus on doing one thing well and not develop other products or services until we know that our current offering is the best it can be, and is reaching as many people as possible. We also have some exciting partnerships in the works, so watch this space!