Coldwell Banker is getting into Fractional NFT Ownership?

Welcome GowerCrowders! We’ve got another issue of The GowerCrowd Real Estate Crowdfunding Newsletter for your reading pleasure, including new investment webinars from CrowdStreet,a new row crop farm offering from AcreTrader, and big developments in the burgeoning fractional real estate space. Let’s get into it.

New Crowdfunding Platform Deals

As always, we’ll get started with a few new crowdfunding platform deals. The Irondale at Wharton is a 60-unit Class A multifamily community located in Western Morris County, N.J., one of the most exclusive markets in the state. The property is well-positioned for commuters looking to work in NYC, with direct mass transit access to New York City, and broader regional connectivity via quick access to Interstates 80, 287, and Route 46. 

The sponsor, Diversified Properties, LLC, has a long track record in developing and building multifamily projects across the Northeast, with over 10,000 multifamily units under their belt in New Jersey, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut. They were recently named by NJBIZ as one of 2021’s top developers, and currently manage a development pipeline of more than 4,000 units across 10 different communities. To learn more, sign up for the webinar directly at RealtyMogul, here.

Now we’re going to head to Illinois, to a crowdfunding project that couldn’t be more different than the Irondale at Wharton– a 146-acre corn and soybean farm in Knox County, Illinois, the Spoon River Farm. This farm sits roughly an hour west of Peoria, Illinois, in a prime farming area in the heart of the American Corn Belt. This agricultural crowdfunding deal has an estimated ownership duration of 5-10 years, a gross cash yield of 3.2%, a net cash yield of 2.2%, and an estimated net annual return of 8.1%. Check it out directly at AcreTrader, here. 

General Crowdfunding Industry News

Now onto some of the going ons in the wider crowdfunding industry. Melissa Brock at Entrepreneur.com recently penned an article exploring the current boom in real estate, and how investors who may not necessarily be able to allocate a large portion of their portfolios to real estate assets can still benefit from the tremendous growth we’ve seen over the past few years. If you’re on the fence, or unsure how to proceed in such a dynamic market, head over to Entrepreneur.com to take a read. 

If you’ve been following the news (or this newsletter) you’ve probably heard a bit about the growing adoption of NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, for real world real estate. This growing movement hopes to supplant traditional title companies and other real estate industry players with blockchain-based methods of transferring ownership of properties. One of the players in the space, Fractal Property, recently announced the creation of a new marketplace for real estate-related NFTs. They aim to create value by not only changing how people buy and sell real estate, but also growing the size of the real estate market itself, primarily by increasing accessibility and efficiency, and using blockchain tech to complement existing methods and approaches. Read more about how they plan to leverage blockchain technology in the RE space, here.

The growth in tokenized real estate is not limited to young upstarts- Coldwell Banker- perhaps one of the most respected names in the American real estate industry- is launching a tokenized real estate effort- not in the US, but in Thailand. The company represents more than 3,000 individual real estate firms across 49 countries, and is partnering with crypto firm Coinweb to offer tokenized real estate to clients, in an effort to develop and support cross chain issuance for luxury properties and high end commercial property portfolios in the country. This is an effort to watch, as success may lead to similar efforts in the United States.

Crowdfunding Platform Updates

The good news keeps on coming when it comes to the major real estate crowdfunding platforms. While the success of individual deals and sponsors varies, the industry itself has shown remarkable resilience, even after a slight dip caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Recently, CrowdStreet, one of the stalwarts of the space, reported a near full allocation in a 348-unit project in Garland, Texas, capping a successful end to a project close to major local employers in the Dallas/Fort Worth region. 

That’s all we have for this week- but check out our full list of links below and we’ll be back next week with plenty more real estate crowdfunding stories and updates. Ciao.