All Forum Posts by: Mark Robertson

@Ian Ippolito I was going to post I pitty the fool that post on BP saying they have XXX dollars and does not know what to do with it. You beat me to the punch. The public "self promoting" advice in this thread is egregious, but can you imagine what his inbox looks like?

Be very very careful when strangers come a calling with perfect advice for your money.. "just private message me and I will take care of your money problem"  

I made almost 100 crowdfunding investments over the last 3 years.  You can see some of the results at my BP blog. 10%+ returns are not unreasonable.

https://www.biggerpockets.com/blogs/6400-equity-an...

Crowdfunding is pretty much online syndication. Before crowdfunding you had little or no access to deal flow unless you had a superior network or paid high fees to a broker.  Thing have changed and you can direct and bypass a lot of fees.  

DST's are fee ridden instruments. Google it and see results like this:

Under a DST, an investor is prohibited from entering into new leases or renegotiating current leases. This prohibition adds a layer of complexity, requiring the DST to enter into a ground lease for the property with a master tenant" who in turn enters into may smaller leases with tenants. The investments are also completely illiquid and there is no secondary market for beneficial interest in DST's Assuming such a market even did exist, the sale of a DST interest would trigger capital gains tax- the exact thing investors hope to avoid.

Additionally, in many cases, initial fees associated with investment actually exceed the income tax deferred. Fees paid to the FINRA member brokerage firm or stock broker at a closing also increase the fees related to DST's.

I had my mother in law invest in Aapha Flow fund III... They invest in crowdfunding  hard money loans and its paying 8-9%.  She does not have the skills to pick her on loans, so its worth the 1% fee to have a professional pick them for her. (She has to be accredited to invest with Alpha Flow) Beats the 1% CD rate she been getting.

DST's are horrible investments, they only benefit the people selling them and managing them. May make sense if you are desperate with 1031 money, but not in any other circumstance.

Just put up a blog post on my Realty Shares investments:

https://www.biggerpockets.com/blogs/6400/51837-investor-results-2016---realty-shares

Be careful where you invest and do your due diligence.  Be very careful when people pitch xx% return monthly on a forum.  If the deal is not a 506c registred offering they are breaking sec rules even mentioning the deal.  When they get in trouble, your money gets in trouble.

@Petra M.  I can only imagine what your BP inbox looks like now that you posted that you have 7 figures to invest.  Do yourself a favor and ignore each and every email. Never invest with someone who reaches out to you.  Go to one of the top 10 crowdfunding sites and discover the reputable sponsors on your own.

The best IMHO: RealCrowd, CrowdStreet, Realty Mogul, Realty Shares, Patch of Land and Lending Home.  I also invest with an online syndicator I meet on BP, Jeremy. 

PS 8% return on $10 million houses sounds horrible to me.  Too little return for too great a risk. The high end is the first to go south in a recession. 

First time flippers are going to have a very difficult time raising money via crowdfunding.  People may think crowdfunding money is "dumb' money, but I would be shocked if a platform touched a complete newbie and even more shocked if it got funded.  Get some experience with friends and family money and then come to the crowd.

@Ian Ippolito  It must be Holdfolio that @Larry Fried calls the Holy Grail, (it may be the Holy Grail since no other platform has taken non accredited money using 506b) They are the only real estate crowdfunding platform that takes non accredited investors and puts together 10 SFH portfolios. It will be interesting to see if the principles post again after BP members called into question the legality of how they operate.

Frank and Dave now raise direct and you save over 2% a year in fees over RM.

http://mhcamerica.com/

I never seen any other MHP crowdfund...a guy use to push F & D fund under another name a skim the profit.

@Chris Strokes Any of the CF sites that offer equity investments pass through the depreciation in the K1's.  The ones I still use are Real Crowd, Crowd Street and Realty Shares. Realty Mogul has equity deals as well, but they charge a 2% annual fee on most deals.  I invested in a few RM investments that only had a 1% fee and a couple that seemed very very solid even with the 2% fee.