5 Best Real Estate Crowdfunding Sites in Europe for 2023

Real estate crowdfunding platforms in Europe offer everyday investors an easy entry to the continent’s booming property market. While investing in property has traditionally been reserved for professionals and wealthy individuals, online real estate crowdfunding is an exciting new way to invest with others in a high-profit market that would be out of reach otherwise.

The best real estate crowdfunding sites in Europe let you diversify your portfolio across multiple rental and commercial property objects and provide attractive returns with limited downside risk. After years of research and testing over 30+ platforms, I’ve selected the top 5 trusted European real estate crowdfunding sites that have stood the test of time.

These sites all provide easy real estate exposure without the hassle of dealing with tenants, maintenance, or managing properties. The best property investment sites are regulated, require a low minimum investment, and offer automatic investing with the ability to easily rebalance.

Best real estate crowdfunding platforms in Europe

Here are the best real estate crowdfunding platforms in Europe, based on years of research:

1. Best overall: EstateGuru
2. Best for UK real estate: CrowdProperty
3. Best for French real estate: Raizers
4. Best for German and Austrian real estate: Rendity
5. Best returns and best for the Baltics: BulkEstate

1. EstateGuru

#1 Best real estate crowdfunding site in Europe

Best for: Overall

Founded in 2013, EstateGuru earns our top spot as the best real estate crowdfunding platform in Europe by offering clients a complete package of property investing tools coupled with high levels of security for your money.

As the leading real estate crowdfunding platform in Europe, EstateGuru boasts a user base of over 55,000+ members and more than 1,500+ funded loans. Since inception, the company has continued to perform above expectations with zero capital loss of client funds and above-industry-average interest rates while maintaining an unmatched deal throughput.

Special offer: Get a 0.5% bonus on all your investments for the first 3 months. The bonus is automatically applied when you open an account with the below partner link.

EstateGuru offers around 12% interest on secured property loans, with a minimum investment amount of only €50 and zero-to-low fees charged for its services. As such, the platform has proven an excellent source of stable income to investors from short-term loans, while giving the borrowers funds to grow and expand.

Estateguru features

EstateGuru has expanded its operations into Western Europe during the last past years and now offers investment deals from multiple European countries. As a result, there is growing amount of loans available at all times, making it easy for investors to diversify their portfolios and reduce their geographical concentration risks in the process.

Moreover, EstateGuru offers deep transparency in each business transaction they finance, detailed statistics regarding its loan book, and insights into its internal business operations. In terms of user experience, the platform has an easy-to-use interface with detailed information on available loans, including a host of great features like auto-invest, two-step authentication, and a secondary market for reselling loans to other users.

2. CrowdProperty

#2 Best real estate crowdfunding site in Europe

Best for: UK real estate

Established in 2015 and headquartered in Birmingham, CrowdProperty is the leading platform for investing in real estate in the UK, specializing in low-risk property development lending. In 80 transactions, they have lent £155 million to over 50 different borrowers, enabling the build of over 900 homes.

CrowdProperty is our number one choice for low-risk investing, as the platform exclusively offers first-charge loans only to experienced developers who already have planning approval. As a result, they are one of the few property crowdfunding platforms that have achieved 100% capital and interest payback and 0% loss of investors’ funds.

Special offer: Join over 10,000 investors, FCA-regulated, 100% historical payback

on CrowdProperty’s secure website

CrowdProperty is regulated by the FCA in the UK, one of Europe’s top-tier financial authorities. The company is led by a team of seasoned real estate experts who performs rigorous due diligence on all property objects to secure investors’ funds.

CrowdProperty features

Besides the UK, CrowdProperty is accessible to European citizens with a UK bank account like Revolut or TransferWise. However, only UK citizens can qualify for tax exemptions on gains through the IFISA or SIPP products.

CrowdProperty offers up to 8% return on investment, which is higher than the average first charge secured loan. Investments are usually short term, from 6 to 24 months duration, with the capital as well as interest paid back at the end of the term. The platform doesn’t offer a secondary market, so you’ll have to wait till the expiration of the loan tenor to get your money back.

3. Raizers

#3 Best real estate crowdfunding site in Europe

Best for: French and Swiss real estate

Raizers is our number one recommendation for investors that want to invest in French Swiss, and Benelux real estate on a finely regulated platform. Raizers was launched in 2014 and is today licensed by tier-one authorities in France and Belgium, including the French Financial Markets Authority (AMF) and the Belgian Financial Markets Authority (FSMA).

Seeing that France’s urban housing prices rose by 3% in 2019, and Paris alone showed a massive upswing of 6.5%, this could be a great time to dip your toes in the French property market.

Special offer: Up to 10% annual returns and easy access to French & Swiss real estate through a tier-one licensed platform with 100% payback track record

on Raizers website

Offering 10% returns from medium-sized secured property loans, extensive documentation, and direct access to borrowers, Raizers has done an excellent job making Western European real estate more accessible to everyday investors. Raizers charges no fees and accepts international investors regardless of their nationality (with few exceptions).

Read more: My review of Raziers

Raizers review & features

Apart from real estate development loans, Raizers also facilities loans for buy-to-let properties, green crowdfunding projects for financing renewable energy production, and offers mortgage-backed loans from small and medium-sized businesses.

All in all, with a solid combination of regulatory licenses, years in business, experienced management team, secured property deals, and access to Western European real estate, Raizers provides a great all-around investment experience.

4. Rendity

#4 Best real estate crowdfunding site in Europe

Best for: German and Austrian real estate

Rendity is a real estate crowdfunding platform based in Vienna, Austria that allows investors access into quality real estate projects in Austria & Germany. They offer two classes of deal on the platform – development projects (known as Rendity growth) and the conventional buy-to-rent opportunities (called Rendity Income).

Special offer: Get a free €100 sign-up bonus for your first investments on Rendity.

The returns can be as high as 7%, but on average, investors can get about 6.1%. Rendity income is low risk with the return on investment in the range of 3%-5% while Rendity Growth offers a higher return – 4% to 7%, but higher risk. You’ll get an incentive of EUR25 once you register on the platform.

With Rendity, you can invest in properties with a relatively small capital, track your investments, track the returns, and monitor your real estate projects. The platform is straightforward to use, and you’ll get excellent customer support.

• Type of Investment: Real estate
• ROI: up to 7% per annum
• Security: Asset
• Secondary Market: Yes
• Auto-invest Function: No
• Minimum Investment Amount: EUR1,000 for each property
• Currency of Investment: Euro
• Platform Founding Year: 2015
• Country of Operation: Austria, Germany

Anyone who is 18 and above can invest on Rendity so long as you have a European bank account. Companies, too can invest on the platform if they have a bank account. The minimum investment amount is EUR1,000.

Rendity will pay you instant interest whenever you invest in a new project that is still being funded. This cool feature ensures your money won’t be idle while waiting for the project to meet its funding goals.

5. BulkEstate

#5 Best real estate crowdfunding site in Europe

Best for: High-quality projects

Thanks to its unique focus and local anchoring in Riga, Latvia, Bulkestate has created an excellent all-around platform for investing in the Baltic real estate market. Key highlights include low minimum investment of €50, industry-leading returns, attractive loan-to-value ratings, and segregated escrow accounts for investors’ funds. Finally, most projects have a quick turn-around time of only 12 months and are secured by way of a legal charge over the borrower’s assets.

on Bulkestate’s website

Special offer: Up to 1% cashback for investments above €5,000, 14% annual returns, high-quality projects, great loan-to-value evaluations

Bulkestate features

Besides in-house experts, Bulkestate partners with local real estate professionals to handle all property-related issues. Better yet, Bulkestate charges no fees to investors, and large accounts can enjoy up to 1% bonus on their investments.

Best real estate crowdfunding platforms in Europe: Conclusion

There you have it: the best property crowdfunding sites in Europe. If you’ve ever wanted to invest in real estate from the comfort of your own computer, you’ll find amongst them, one or two that meets your risk acceptance criteria.

Here is a summary of the best real estate investment sites in Europe:

Real estate investing: Fundamentals

According to Ernst & Young, the European market for real estate crowdfunding saw an incredible growth rate of 90% last year. A similar report concluded that property prices in the EU went up 5% in the last three years, due to the increasing demand for housing.

Most interestingly, many of the world’s millionaires made their fortune by investing in real estate. While prices might go up and down, holding real estate in one of the world’s capitals remains a pillar of security to building long-term wealth.

However, the opportunities of investing in the European property market aren’t just for billionaire investors alone. Small-time investors now have access in the European property market on equal footing although they don’t have the same amount of capital to flex. Thanks to technology, crowdfunding real estate investment have drastically lowered the barrier to entry into real estate.

You can get a slice of the lucrative real estate deals through the increasingly popular crowdfunding model. This is the time to learn about the best property crowdfunding sites in Europe.

If you’ve always dreamed of becoming a landlord, but either lacked the time, money, or knowledge to get started, you’ll find a solution to these hurdles with real estate crowdfunding. This new model of co-financing breaks the barriers to investing and gives anyone a chance to take part in high-yielding projects that are shooting up across the continent. It requires very little money to get involved, and you’ll be participating side-by-side with thousands of other small investors or big financial institutions.

But before you put down cash on this relatively new investment vehicle, you should learn how crowdfunding real estate works.

Real estate crowdfunding 101

Crowdfunding, a way of pooling funds together for a common cause, has recently found application in real estate investing. Real estate crowdfunding is a system of raising capital by assembling a large pool of investors who each contribute a relatively small amount of money for real estate investments.

This way, the pool of investors can put their money in a diverse range of properties without the associated headaches of dealing with mortgage brokers, contractors, or real estate agents.

The Five Different Types of Property Financing

Investing in the property market requires substantial capital. Real estate crowdfunding is a relatively new and alternative way to raise money for investments in the property market. Traditionally, investors in real estate often seek funding from financial institutions like banks. These loans may be sought to enable the investor to take their first steps or to help them expand their portfolios.

Here are the five major real estate loan types available on real estate crowdfunding sites:

Bridge Loans

A bridge loan is a short-term, high-interest loan that enables a property developer to meet current financial obligations until a permanent financing solution has been put in place. A bridge loan enables a property owner to buy another property pending the sale of their existing property. The existing property acts as collateral in this case. This loan is usually more expensive than a home equity loan but makes buying another property much easier. A bridge loan can be obtained for residential as well as commercial properties.

Property Development Loans

Property development loans are for funding larger new building projects or total renovations. This could include new housing projects office converted to blocks of apartment buildings, luxury homes, and more. Developers can use property development finance for residential and commercial buildings alike.

Buy to Let

A buy-to-let loan or mortgage is for investors who buy property for rent as an investment. Properties for rent cannot be financed with a regular residential mortgage. And unlike most residential mortgages, buy-to-let loans are available on an interest-only basis. You’ll only pay interest monthly, leaving the principal untouched. You’ll pay this principal amount in full at the end of the loan tenor.

Buy to Sell (Property Flipping)

A buy to sell mortgage is used to purchase property to sell. This loan type is popular with investors who intend to make money flipping properties since traditional mortgages won’t cut it. This is because lenders will charge an early redemption fee and may not allow you to sell within 6 months of purchasing the property.

Residential Mortgage 

A residential mortgage is a long-term loan, usually substantial, taken out by one or more individuals to buy a home to live in. The house thus purchased must be used as a place of residence by the borrowers. It’s not meant to be rented or used for other commercial purposes.

Is real estate crowdfunding in Europe a good investment?

Real Estate Crowdfunding investment can be a source of steady cash flow and typically delivers a high return on investment – up to 14% in some cases. This is higher than investments in stocks, which are more volatile. Property investment, especially residential, are usually stable and trend up in the long run. Housing is one basic human need, and the demand is always on the rise.

An even better reason to invest in real estate crowdfunding is the ease of access. Everyday investors can have access to commercial and residential projects that were available to only wealthy accredited investors. Some platforms offer pre-vetted deals with a minimum investment amount as low as €50.

And you don’t have to muddle through extensive paperwork. You simply log in to the website, research, and place your investments, all from the comfort of your home. This low minimum investment also makes it possible for you to properly diversify your investment across property types and locations thereby hedging your risks.

How safe is it to invest in real estate online?

Like every other form of investment, investing in real estate online, through peer-to-peer models or crowdfunding platforms, comes with some level of risks. However, the best property crowdfunding sites in Europe put measures in place to mitigate these risks.

If your investment takes the form of equity, an SPV is created specifically for each project with the SPV holding a charge over the property. This ensures that your investments are safe even if the crowdfunding platform goes belly-up.

Debt investments are considered even safer. Actual physical properties directly secure your investment. Crowdfunding real estate platforms deals are typically secured against a first or second rank mortgage.

Having a first rank mortgage on a property is the highest level of security possible to safeguard investors. This means that if a borrower defaults in repaying its loan, the crowdfunding platform can and will take ownership of the property having the same level of security as a mortgage company.

Investors will have the first right to the proceeds when the property peer-to-peer company sells the repossessed property to recover the debt.

Secondary rank charge holders will only be considered after settling those with first-rank charge.

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