Dogecoin now accepted for tokenized real estate crowdfunding projects.

Due to the massive scale of farming in the region, with more than 1400 registered producers and 860 individual farms, the county offers up a robust agricultural infrastructure and tenant market, helping each individual farm punch higher than its weight. The planned offering will be used to both improve the drainage infrastructure for the farm as well as expand tillable acreage. AcreTrader is hosting a webinar with their farm analyst, Rob Moore, and their Investor Relations Director, Michael Iseman, which you can sign up for here. The farm itself will open for funding on Wednesday, January 26, at 1 PM Central time. 

General Crowdfunding Industry News

Despite a recent pullback in the crypto markets, interest remains strong within many segments of the real estate crowdfunding sector. Moore Global recently released a report that claims that tokenized real estate could reach $1.4 trillion in five years, with Dan Natale, Global Leader of Moore Global’s Real Estate, stating that real estate tokenisation is currently an emerging trend with the potential to become a mega trend in the future, and will eventually be a major disrupter within the global property markets by lowering the cost of capital and increasing the pool of potential investors, while at the same time increasing liquidity. 

As a reminder, real estate tokenization refers to the process of “tokenizing” real estate assets using blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies to offer fractional ownership of real estate via “tokens” which are non-fungible and provide proof of ownership, in much the same way that current title companies and other legacy records keeping systems prove the ownership of properties. 

Read the report here, at Ledger Insights.

In a similar vein, Benzinga recently reported that RedSwan CRE recently accepted Dogecoin, the dog-themed meme coin, for 2 multifamily property investment vehicles. The two properties are the Lakehouse, a 270-unit luxury multifamily development near Oakland’s Lake Merritt, and the 251-unit Apollo Apartments, which sits in the Seattle suburb of Edmonds, Washington. 

Accredited investors will be able to use Dogecoin to purchase shares in the building, which can then be traded like traditional stocks. Investments will begin at $1,000 for each share, and RedSwan CRE will also accept the US dollar as well as stablecoins pegged to USD in addition to Dogecoin. Read more at Benzinga, here. 

Crowdfunding Platform Updates

As always, we’ll finish off with some crowdfunding platform updates. Fundrise recently sent out their year-end letter to investors for 2021, originally published on January 13, 2022. Let’s look at some of the highlights. The big headline is the announcement that Fundrise welcomed more new investors in 2021 than in any previous year of operation- a fantastic development, but one that is not exactly surprising, considering the rapid growth of the crowdfunding industry last year. 

The average annual return for all Fundrise client accounts was a whopping 22.99%, but this number alone does not show the whole picture. Arguably, it’s important to view client accounts as either income-focused or growth-focused, with income-focused clients averaging a total annual return of 17.98%, with 4.96% paid out as dividends, and growth-focused accounts achieving higher average total annual returns of 25.12% with only 2.92% in dividends. All of the above return figures are net of fees. 

The letter also looks to the future, including information on inflation and how it will affect the real estate space, reasons to stay skeptical of consensus opinions moving forward, as well as questions about whether or not real estate will remain an attractive option for investors in 2022. If you were a client of Fundrise in 2021, or you’re simply interested in some data-based predictions for 2022, we would recommend giving the letter a read. You can find it at Fundrise, here.

That’s it for this month- but we’ll be back in February with all of your favorite RE crowdfunding news stories, platform updates, and new deals. See you then.