Do you need to turn one of your luxury watches into cash to pay your taxes? If you don’t want to risk being seen at the pawnshop around the corner, check out Borro.com, the online pawnshop that lets you turn that Rolex watch or spare Mercedes into fast cash. Borro accepts only items worth $5,000 or more and will return them to the owner once the loan is repaid with interest.
In an interview with CNBC, Borro founder Paul Aitken explained that his service caters to the upper 5% to 10% of the population including business owners and entrepreneurs. “They need liquidity quickly, they’ve probably got regular cash flows, so more traditional forms of lending aren’t an option, so they fall into asset-backed lending.”
Items accepted by Borro include jewelry & diamonds, luxury watches, gold & precious metals, luxury cars, fine art & antiques, luxury handbags and fine wines. Among the 50 or so watch brands that qualify for loans are Rolex, Cartier, Omega, Piaget and TAG Heuer. Watches are appraised according to brand, model, condition, scarcity, age and “provenance” which can mean anything that would add value to the piece like the original box or bill of sale. As an example, a Patek Philippe 18k white gold and diamond set watch would receive a loan offer of $19,200.
Borro promises a luxury asset loan of $5,000 to $2 million in 24 hours without a credit check. A statement on the benefits of Borro says: “Get access to the money you need without having to sell your luxury watch. Receive money within 24 hours and when you pay back your loan you’ll get your luxury watch back.”
If you’re ready to sell a watch or other luxury item, Borro offers sale advance loans along with managing the sale of valuable assets. Clients can get an advance of up to 70% of the estimated sale price of the luxury asset with funds available immediately.
If you plan to get a quick loan from Borro, be sure you can pay back enough to retrieve your item within the required period of time because pieces not bought back are sold through agents and auction houses.