Fundrise is an online crowd funding platform that allows investors to invest into real estate.  The platform provides another avenue for passive income that can be helpful on the journey to financial freedom!  That is the exact reason we have been investing with Fundrise.

My wife and I have now been investing with Fundrise for  5 years.  We cannot wait to share another episode with you, the performance and the additional income that the investment can provide!

Fundrise: brief background

Fundrise has been around since 2012, investing over $7 billion of real estate holdings and transactions with over 330,000 investors.  They are a premier, real estate crowdfunding investment platform.

Fundrise has 4 different asset vehicles and strategies for you to invest into, see the picture of the 4 investment classes below, but they are:

1.) Supplemental Income – Primarily Tenant Driven Real Estate (i.e. rentals and other cash flowing assets)

2.) Balanced Investing – A mix of both growth and rental properties.

3.) Long-Term Growth – High growth real estate

4.) Venture Capital – Primarily Tech Companies/Investments as assets

Their fees are approximately 1.00%, 0.85% for asset management and 0.15% for for advisory.  My fees for 2023 were at approximately 0.15%, therefore – much lower than anticipated.  The fee jumps to 1.85% for the venture capital Innovation fund.

You can review Fundrise service and approach to investing here.

For further details on my investment and background, see – Fundrise Review – A New Investment, Pros & Cons

For 2020 Update – Fundrise: Real Estate Investment Lanny’s 2020 Year-End Review

For 2021 Update – Fundrise: Real Estate Investment Lanny’s 2021 Year-End Review

For 2022 Update – Fundrise: Real Estate Investment Lanny’s 2022 Year-End Review

Our Current investment

Supplemental Income

As stated above, we started our Fundrise real estate investment journey with their Supplemental Income type.  We initially started with a $1,000 investment back in February/March of 2019 and we invested $100 monthly through February 2021.  If you re-call, we made the following moves:

– Monthly Investment increased to $200 per month in March of 2021

– Monthly Investment increased to $250 per month in November of 2022

The total market value of our real estate investment is $23,504.77 (as of 12/31/23) and is now $24,018.45 as of 2/16/2024 ($32,048.40 less $8.029.55 from iPO investment).  I have taken a screen directly from the Fundrise platform, to show you what my real estate investment looks like.  My attempt is to make this as transparent as possible.  We have almost $25,000 in real estate investments on the platform.

In 2024 we made changes.  If you remember, we moved to $250 per month in November 2022.  We continued the $250 per month all the way through the end of 2023.  However, we dropped to $200 per month in January 2024.  We decided to do that, to allocate just a few more dollars to emergency savings and our down payment fund, vs. the real estate investing platform.

The goal to $25,000 should occur by year’s end and may even occur by June 2024, as I’ll have another 4 months of $200/month go into it, not to mention dividends being reinvested.

Performance has been interesting, as of late, with Fundrise.  Our investment in Fundrise performed well during the pandemic – returning 7.4% in 2020, outpacing the REIT index (which was negative).  Then, in 2021, my performance or return on investment stood strong at 22.2%.  2022, though the markets finished heavily down, Fundrise still edged out a positive return of 1.7%.   2023 was a poor year, though, finishing down -0.60%.  2024 we are up 0.40% thus far, trailing the stock market and public REIT sectors.  Return by year chart:

Active Projects within my Supplemental Income Plan

What’s great is that the investments are spread throughout the country.  In addition, the Fundrise investments are on different timelines from an investment standpoint.

Recently, they changed their dashboard – split between Private Credit Real estate investments and Real Estate investments

203 Investments for Real Estate:

52 Investments for Private Credit:

The one public REIT that Fundrise has a small investment in is AGNC (AGNC).  Too funny.

Example of a few stabilized apartments in Florida and North Carolina:

I appreciate the full transparency.  Sleeping like a baby with Fundrise!

Fundrise iPO – Owning FUNDRISE… the COMPANY

I invested over $8,029.55 into Fundrise iPO (internet public offering) (through a few rounds of investing).

I OWN part of the Fundrise Company.

I took the opportunity and, based on my holdings, was able to invest $8,9029.55 so far over the last 4 years.  The valuation is currently at $10,328.70.

Extremely curious as to what may occur at the end with the iPO!  I assume they’ll either go public or will be acquired by a large investment firm that is looking to grab a few billion of assets under management and real estate.

Related: Fundrise iPO, Say What?!

Related: Fundrise: Internet Public Offering (iPO) Round 2 – Adding $900 to My Fundrise Investment

Fundrise: Performance

My friends, including Bert, and I have a very good joke.  We send a message out about how our Fundrise investments are doing and each response always follows the lines of, “Steady Eddy”.  However, the trend of “Steady Eddy” has been a little different over the last 18 months.  Is real estate showing signs it could crack?  Are the high interest rates dragging overall returns in real estate?  I am sure that with the high interest rates, that is the exact reason why Fundrise pivoted into Venture Capital and technology related investments.

2022, however, provided headwinds with rising interest rates, inflation and fears of a recession, not to mention the real estate market cooling.  It’s nice knowing that the real estate investment with Fundrise trended positive in 2022, as the equity markets significantly fell.  The REIT index plunged 27% in 2022.

It was tough seeing an overall down year in 2023 for Fundrise.  My first down year since investment with them.  2024 is starting off on a positive note, but will have to admit – I need to see a 7%+ year in 2024 with them.  If not – I may trim my monthly investment yet again until I start to see results.

The best part of the performance is that it’s primarily driven from Dividends.  Fundrise has paid almost $2,300 in dividends.

What happens with the dividends earned?

The dividends are reinvested, of course!  Fundrise gives you the option to either receive dividends as cash or reinvest back into the real estate investment.  You better believe, sticking to my dividend investing roots, I am reinvesting dividends earned.

Related: The Power of Dividend Reinvesting

Each quarter end – dividends are automatically reinvested in that subsequent month.  No timing and no emotions!

Below you can see that this typically occurs between the first two weeks after the quarter ends.

My goal wasn’t to beat any index or market, but to differentiate my investment portfolio.  To have a differentiator that also produces a steady stream of passive income.  I would say, Fundrise has fit the bill perfectly.

Fundrise: Investment Update 2023 Conclusion

Fundrise, overall, has been a great way for us to diversify our investments and have real estate exposure outside of the public REITs.  The investment definitely hasn’t tracked the S&P 500, which was the goal and provides a steady stream of income.

Fundrise adds more to the passive income stream that we have built.  This is paramount on our family’s journey to Financial Freedom.

The $200 month will test our capital deployment limits, but we want to hit the $25,000 mark!  We are also eager for the full outcome of Fundrise from their iPO.  Does an investment management company buy out Fundrise at some point?

Given I chose the “lower” risk amongst the investment class (i.e. supplemental income), my returns in economic booms could be better BUT in down years, my downside risk is limited, with 2022 as a perfect example.  Time for 2024 to see if Fundrise can step it up here.

If all looks well with our investments and net worth, we will consider additional one-time contributions with extra money my wife and I make on the side.

In summary, our investment in Fundrise has provided a very transparent, consistent income stream that has differentiated our portfolio.  The platform is tremendously easy to use and understand.  The time input after the initial investment is minimum.  I tend to read new investments that are added and update performance on my spreadsheet.  Here is an example of an investment update:

We plan to continue to invest in Fundrise as an alternative to our investment portfolio.  Fundrise has provided us an exposure to actual real estate and to do this in a low-cost/low-barrier to entry, as well as a less-time consuming aspect to real estate.  We love the portfolio income / cash flow stream that Fundrise provides, no doubt!

Is there something more you’d like to see during my next update?  Something you are not sure of that I can go into detail on?  Please let me know, as I’d love to help out as much as possible.  Thank you again for reading, good luck and happy investing!

-Lanny

Note: We’ve been investing with Fundrise since 2019. Disclosure: when you sign up with our link, we earn a commission. All opinions are my own.