This week we announced our news that GROUNDFLOOR completed the nation's first-ever crowdlended, peer-to-peer real estate transactions. We're very proud to have connected our growing community of investors and borrowers to participate in this historic end-run around the usual intermediaries.
The news has been met with excitement amongst proponents of true crowdfunding (i.e. those who aren't confused by the loud labeling of accredited investor funding by some as "crowd" funding). Anyone waiting on the JOBS Act Title III crowdfunding provisions cheers intrastate and other approaches to achieving the same objectives (count our co-founder Nick Bhargava, one of the principal contributors to Title III, among them).
Why the excitement? Over half of the investments in our 905 Tift Ave Renovation and the Riverpark Townhomes New Construction were $500 or less. So everyone not only can, but is, participating. The projects pay 10-20 times what a comparable CD would pay. In an industry riddled with illiquidity, they pay back in six months or less. GROUNDFLOOR delivers an unparalleled value for the individual investor--and people are taking notice.
Even so, the press in Atlanta, where much of the action in providing access to the other 98% is actually happening, have been slow to cover what's happening there. They haven't devoted much digital ink to the state's innovative Invest Georgia Exemption and the early advances that have been made utilizing it. We suppose that true revolutions can be difficult to spot, even in one's own back yard. Equally, perhaps they are risky to herald. No doubt, at the first whisper of fraud, the same editors will be quick on the trigger!
For the time being, the victory is therefore a quiet one. In a week that has seen two incredible venture capital financings of accredited investor financing platforms that operate in the real estate sector, that's perhaps indicative of where the rest of us fit into the scheme of things, at least for now. Indeed, it's tough to compete with the big numbers that serving the top 2% of the U.S. can quickly put up.
We have more than a feeling that there's much more to this story, yet to be written. Never before have banks and Wall Street been displaced by the crowd in financing real estate this way. With this milestone, we proudly join other innovators who have gone before us in the arena of consumer finance.
Thanks for being with us as we move toward completion of this initial chapter. If you live in Georgia, we welcome your participation in the funding of our next set of projects. If you don't, rest assured that plans are well underway to bring GROUNDFLOOR to many more people beyond Georgia soon.