Today we are introducing a significant GROUNDFLOOR upgrade and dropping our minimum investment to $10. Those changes are closely related to one another, as well as to our mission as a company.
In a world of real estate investment websites whose limitation to accredited investors takes the “crowd” out of crowdfunding, we’ve been asked by many “why $10?” Simple. Our new $10 minimum makes real estate investing more accessible than ever before.
That’s arguably true in the sense that more people can or will choose to afford $10 than could or would ante-up $100. The real breakthrough, however, lies in what this opens in financial diversification and in financial control, for whom. Having direct access to this class of investment has never been practically and legally available to anyone other than the very wealthy. Only a company dedicated to changing that would venture into the territory we’re penetrating today.
From the beginning, our vision for GROUNDFLOOR has aspired to mirror the architecture, values and economics of the Internet itself. Our first year of offering loans taught us a lot about what that vision looks like in very practical terms. This upgrade delivers. Not only our new $10 minimum, but also the new loan grading system, redesigned presentation of data and investor tools support offering a greater variety of loans, while making it faster and easier for anyone to participate with precise control over the level of risk and reward they want. A minimum investment that’s 500 times larger than ours (as is typical for accredited investor real estate investment sites) correspondingly requires at least 500 times the capital to match us in diversification and control. Obviously, more people have $1,000 per month to invest than $50,000 per month (or in any time period, actually).
To read more about the factors we use to grade our loans, please refer to this blog post.
If you live in Georgia, make your first $10 investment today. If you live elsewhere in the U.S., stay tuned. Today’s upgrade also sets the stage for expansion beyond Georgia early in the new year, as we continue to clear the regulatory hurdles required to offer real estate microlending to all.
In the meantime, have a thought, idea or a vote of moral support? Comment below, or email us at founders@groundfloor.us. We always enjoy hearing from you.