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How To Select A Real Estate Crowdfunding Project For First Investment?

Posted On : October 30, 2022

There are multiple real estate projects which are being offered in various real estate crowdfunding platforms. Projects can contain new residential real estate project developments, residential refurbishment projects, industrial real estate projects and other. Despite the fact the object of funding, each of them have a couple parameters in common. What are these and how to interpret them description is provided below

Real estate crowdfunding project duration

Each project has certain defined project duration for which borrower is borrowing required capital. As real estate crowdfunded capital is relatively expensive, borrowers are aiming to do a quick turnaround of projects and return invested capital relatively soon. Therefore real estate crowdfunding project developers are usually borrowing for months, not for years. Typical duration varies between 6 and 18 months, 12 months being an average. The shorter the loan duration, the more confident is the buyer that he or she can turnaround the project.

Duration always depends on the investor needs, for how long capital provider is looking to employ the capital. But it is expected that shorter duration of the real estate crowdfunding project should give low risk because of the above described aspects.

The shorter the duration, the better.

Real estate project LTV (loan to value ratio)

LTV is a loan to value ration, which calculated as the proportion of loan size compared to total value of pledged assets. This is a typical ratio, which originated from banking, where it was used as a risk assessment KPI. In real estate crowdfunding projects LTV is varying between 50% and 80%. The lower the ration the higher value asset is pledge for the loan. Therefore lending for a real estate crowdfunding project with lower LTV brings lower risk. In case project will have to be liquidated there is a higher probability that investors will recover the money as asset value is covering loans at a higher extent. Also, if project developer is failing to return the loan, there is a higher probability, that developer refinances existing loans via other financing options by offering higher LTV for them.

The lower LTV ratio, the better.

Required capital to be raised for crowdfunding project - Goal

It is important to understand, that not all the projects are being financed in real estate crowdfunding platforms. Certain projects, due to their risk level, are not fully financed by the investors. If during period, which is allocated to raise capital, real estate crowdfunding project is not being financed, money for investors, who selected to invest in the project is returned. There are different real estate crowdfunding platforms, who are aiming for different ticket sizes and if the ticket size exceeds the average of the platform, there is a likelihood for project not to be financed. Typical project size varies around 100 000 EUR. Investor, could lose time and not to receive money if allocated capital is not invested – no interest is calculated during capital raising process.

The lower goal, the higher probability of project to be financed.

Crowdfunded interest rate

Interest rate is one of the indicators showing risk level of the project. Interest rate of the project is being defined by a borrower and the platform. Borrower is looking for the lowest possible interest rate, whereas platform is trying to inflate it to level, which would be attractable to investors and real estate project would be financed as well as would not kill the project due to a high interest rate burden. Real estate platforms is advising on the interest rate level based on their historical experience from other funded projects.

As this is a direct risk indicator, the lower the interest rate, the lower the risk.

Supporting documentation and description of the crowdfunded project

Real estate crowdfunding platforms together with real estate project developers wants to provide as much information on the project as possible. This allows for potential investors to familiarize with the projects, understand development level, risk level, budget and other parameters. Different platforms provide different level of description. Some just provide written explanation on the key parameters of the project, such as location, duration, project developer and etc. Whereas other provide valuation reports, planning documents, land ownership documents and etc. Expert investors analyzed the documents, estimates the risk and makes their decision based on this.

As supporting documentation and description is not a KPI based on which investment risk can be assessed, this depends on time and knowledge invested in reading this.

Risk profile

Real estate crowdfunding platforms are regulated by central banks and one of the requirement is to have a risk scoring methodology which typically ranges from A to D-E. Risk assessment methodologies are not publicly available but the general scale – A contains the lowers risk, whereas D-E, the highest risk. Risk methodologies are approved by central banks. Crowdbulls does not include this ratio in the comparison tables as scale is not available and B from one platform could not be compared to the B in other platform.

Average ticket size

Average ticket size is an indicator calculated by Crowdbulls platform. Ticket size stand for a capital amount allocated for the project by an investor. We calculate it by dividing total capital raised by number of investors. This gives a feeling on the investor profile, who is investing in the real estate crowdfunding project. The bigger the ticket, the larger the investor is potentially investing in the platform. Typically investors, who are investing larger portfolios are allocating larger tickets. It is believed, that larger investors has a larger investing and risk assessment experience, thus they tend to asses the actual risk profile better.

The higher the ticket size, the better.

Crowdbulls .com

October 30, 2022

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