As urban retail developers, we spent years building unique real estate projects in Washington, DC. But more often than not, when we went out to raise money it came from investment funds in places like New York City or even outside the country. Most of them had little connection to the places we were building and often had never even heard of the neighborhood.
On the other hand, our friends and neighbors, people with real connection to the projects, couldn’t invest with us. Even though they understood the opportunity and our vision, there was no feasible or economical process to allow them to participate.
Real estate has consistently proven to be an extremely lucrative investment. Since the early 90s, private equity investment in real estate has grown in excess of $100 billion.
But the vast majority of these investments are limited to a very small, select number of institutional investors. The reality is that as an individual, it is easier to invest in a company in foreign country than to invest in a property across the street.
So, we started Fundrise with a simple goal: give everyone the opportunity to invest in real estate.
Our idea definitely had its skeptics. Many professionals in the industry told us that raising money directly from large numbers of investors was impossible.
Well, they were wrong.
After nearly a year of working through the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), we crowdfunded the first online equity offering for a real estate property… raising $325,000 from 175 individual investors. Then we did it again and again. What took months to raise the first time, now takes hours.
It’s caught on because it’s intuitive. It makes sense and it’s a good investment strategy. Now with Fundrise you can invest alongside these same investment companies in top quality real estate projects around the country. By cutting out unnecessary middlemen, we make the process simple, efficient, and transparent.
Welcome to the future of investing.
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