Real estate crowdfunding welcomes 2022

Happy New Year GowerCrowders! Hopefully you’re all rested up and ready to take on 2022, and to help you in that task we’ve got a diverse selection of real estate crowdfunding news for you this week. We’ll look at new deals, including Ascent at RealtyMogul, which boasts a 17.59% IRR, a new office tower in Chicago on offer at CrowdStreet, and a new Illinois Farm offering from AcreTrader. That is in addition to a few general news stories and platform updates, which you’ll be able to read about below. Let’s get 2022 started off right.

New Crowdfunding Platform Deals

Our first stop is a 25-story, 259-unit building in Milwaukee, WI. The Ascent, which is set to be the world’s tallest mass timber building, is nearing completion. This environmentally-friendly, is a revolutionary design in the United States, which still has a small number of timber towers compared to parts of Europe. This project currently has a projected 17.59% IRR, and is not yet open for offers. RealtyMogul is hosting a webinar for The Ascent on Fri, Jan 7, 2022 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM PST, which you can sign up for here. 

Now on to CrowdStreet, and 200 W Jackson, a Class A Chicago office tower in Chicago’s CBD. This heavily cash-flowing asset has a credit-backed rent roll and is currently on offer at a discount to its appraised value, replacement costs, and comps, potentially helping investors to achieve strong risk-adjusted returns. It’s got a targeted investor IRR of 18.5%, a targeted equity multiple of 2.1x, and a targeted average cash yield of 11.8%. Learn more about this office opportunity at CrowdStreet, here.

Finally, we’re going to head elsewhere in Illinois, to a new farm offering at AcreTrader, the Odell Farm. This 393-acre corn and soybean farm sits in Livingston County, Illinois, which ranks in the top three counties for agricultural production in Illinois. It also has the benefit of sitting near a major highway, I-55, helping to increase productivity and decrease transportation costs. AcreTrader is holding a webinar for the Odell Farm, which you can sign up for here.

General Crowdfunding Industry News

Now on to some news. The SEC’s Office of the Advocate for Small Business Capital Formation, or OASB, recently released its annual report for 2021, which reviews capital raising activities for numerous different types of companies, from smaller public companies, to startups and emerging businesses as well as crowdfunding outfits. According to the report, regulation crowdfunding activities raised a total of $174 million from July 1, 2020 through June 30, 2021, a 61% increase year over year. 

In a bit of interesting news, the crowdfunding space also seems to be growing more diverse, with 40% of companies completing regulation crowdfunding offerings having women or underrepresented minority founders. JD Supra wrote up an excellent analysis of the report, which reviews several different types of capital raising methods from last year, including other forms of regulation crowdfunding- you can find that writeup, here.

Crowdfunding Platform Updates

Finally, we’ll finish off with a couple of crowdfunding platform updates. CrowdStreet’s CIO, Ian Formigle, will be hosting a webinar entitled “Special Roundtable and Q&A with CIO, Ian – What To Know About Tax Savings with Opportunity Zones.” This discussion will be focused on CrowdStreet’s new Opportunity Zone Fund III, as well as information dedicated to the regulation and potential direction of the Opportunity Zone space in 2022 and beyond. If you’re interested in tuning in, you can catch the live webinar at Jan 7, 2022 10:00 AM, here. Also, if you miss the webinar, don’t fret, you can access a copy of the talk after it airs via the same link at CrowdStreet. 

1031 Crowdfunding, an Irvine, California-based 1031-focused crowdfunding platform recently announced the acquisition of the Iris Memory Care Portfolio via its affiliate, 1031 CF Properties. This 76-unit, 88-bed memory care portfolio sits within the Oklahoma City and Dallas-Fort Worth MSAs. The portfolio itself was acquired on behalf of 1031 CF Portfolio 1 DST, a private placement offering looking to raise $16.85 million in equity from accredited investors. The portfolio is currently operated by Iris Senior Living, a firm headquartered nearby, in Dallas, Texas.  Learn more about this memory care acquisition at Real Estate Weekly, here.

That’s all for the first issue of 2022- but we’ll be back next week with more news stories, new deals, and platform updates. We’ll see you then.