My reflections one year and a half later.

My first crowd investment date back to 2016, but it was not until March 2018 when I began to explore and invest systematically in the most promising platforms. After a year I made my first ranking with the best 3-4 platforms for each category: real estate, P2P and P2B.

Now, a year and a half later, it’s time for an update. My idea, in the future, is to reevaluate the ranking every six months. Note that, in recent months I have invested in six new platforms, although I do not incorporate any into the analysis. There has been no time to evaluate them correctly or for them to reach their maximum potential. However, there are some really promising ones and if everything continues, I’m sure some will end up entering the top-3.

I want this ranking is as objective as possible, to reflect my experience investing. I have in mind particularly the returns obtained (XIRR), but also other important factors such as the rates of delays and defaults (which will end up affecting profitability), the flow of projects or loans (which determines the possibility of investing quickly in a diversified manner) or follow-up time required for each platform. For more complete information on each platform, I recommend consulting their technical cards, as well as the latest monthly analysis of my portfolio for the most updated performance values.

That said, here’s my ranking of the best platforms in each category:

Real Estate Crowdfunding

#1 – Estateguru – Excellent flow of new projects (over 500 in a year and a half) and few defaults that do not worry me too much, because Estateguru is showing very effective when it comes to recovering them: there are already four recovered… Estateguru also offers the highest return rates of all real estate platforms (XIRR of 8.4%). The only thing that was missing, the secondary market, was just added to the platform last month. The only but (minimal) is the inability to configure the Autoinvest to avoid investing in several tiers of the same project (unless investing 250 EUR or more per project).

And now, by registering with this LINK , you’ll receive 1% of the amount invested during the first month and 0.5% the following 2 months (offer valid until the end of October).

#2 – Bulkestate – No historical defaults (since 2016!). I have already invested in 40 projects, 15 completed, almost all above 13%. It takes time to obtain meaningful returns since all benefits are almost always paid at the end (usually one year). Another downside is that the flow of new projects is quite low (1.9 projects per month), so you have to be patient to invest with some degree of diversification.

#3 – CrowdEstate – It dropped from first place to third six months ago. The reason? From having all payments up to date, CrowdEstate has gone to 9 delayed projects (15.8%) overnight. Really worrying. Some are different tiers of the same project (before it stopped investing in multiple tiers). Besides, the flow of new projects is not very high (4.3 per month). Still, with a XIRR of 7.5%, it is the second best real estate platform in this regard.

EVOEstate is a very promising platform with an innovative concept (i.e. it’s basically an aggregator of real estate projects chosen from many other platforms), but still very fresh in my portfolio to evaluate its performance. The same goes for Bricktarter, with just a couple of months history in my portfolio, but aiming high. Of the three Spanish platforms (Housers, Privalore and Inveslar), somewhat disappointing results, especially the first two.

Crowdlending to Businesses (P2B)

1# – Envestio – Envestio takes the gold medal of the category: it offers the loans with the best returns (17.9% XIRR), Buyback, repurchase, punctual payments and 0% default rate. The only problem is that lately there are not that many new projects being offered, so Cash Drag can become a problem. Envestio is working on this. The situation has improved over the last two months and the platform has promised to offer around one project per week.

Register with this LINK and you will receive a bonus of EUR 5 24 hours after the first deposit of minimum 100 EUR, plus an additional bonus of 0.5% of the amount invested during the first 270 days.

2# – Linked Finance – Incredible flow of projects (26.5 per month), only 1.6% default rate after over 550 funded projects, a XIRR of 8.6% and it works on autopilot (no manual intervention necessary). Just missing a secondary market for it to be perfect.

3# – Crowdestor – I started using it in April 2019. Projects with really attractive returns (up to 20.7%). Although the platform is young, several projects have already been completed and the payments are impeccably punctual. The returns are rising fast (XIRR of 10.0% at the time of writing the article). Some projects make the first payment after six months, so once some of these start generating interest (in a couple of months), I estimate that the XIRR will reach 15%. The only downside perhaps is that, due to its popularity, some projects are funded in a few hours. Only Autoinvest is missing …

Flender Flender exits the top-3 since last ranking. Too many defaults (6.7%) for which we’ll have to wait still a while to see how they are resolved and the returns are not that high to compensate (9-10% monthly in the absence of promotions).

On the other hand, Kuetzal may be the next to enter the top-3. I began investing in April 2019. Projects with really attractive returns of up to 21%. Not too many projects (1.9 per month), which can sometimes take several weeks to be fully funded, but payments are punctual and I have already reached a monthly return of 15.7% (in a clear upward trend). Other promising platforms with a very similar approach are Monethera, Wisefund and TFG Crowd.

Crowdlending between Peers (P2P)

#1 – Mintos – Mintos remains in first place. By history, volume, number of originators and the possibility of investing in a dozen different currencies, Mintos offers a potential for diversification outside the reach of any other platform. The XIRR of my investments in EUR remains excellent (15.5%), especially thanks still to the incredible promotions of March-June 2018, and despite the disappointing returns offered in recent months (maximum 10%). In addition, investing in other currencies, not forgetting the risk of fluctuations in the exchange rate, allows to easily obtain returns around 16-18% XIRR (GEL, RUB, KZT and MXN).

When registering, use this LINK and you will receive 0.75% of the amount invested during the first three months.

#2 – Grupeer – With a XIRR above 14% and a constant flow of new projects, what more can you ask for. If it had a secondary market it would be the perfect platform.

#3 – Swaper – An IRR of 14%. And that despite some Cash Drag problems a few months ago.

New investor who signs up by using my Affiliate LINK will get a Swaper Loyalty Bonus (+2%) on all investments made during the first three months.

Fast Invest (14%) Viventor (12.5%), Viainvest. (11.9%) and Peerberry (11.5%) all with Buyback and without Cash Drag problems are also up to par although with slightly lower returns.

The color code (green-orange-red) is only valid to compare platforms within the same category (real estate, P2P or P2B).

* These platforms have projects with defaults, so the returns may be lower depending on how they are resolved; ** In Envestio, all projects have either a minimum 90% guaranteed debt, or one must wait for the debt to be recovered from the borrower; *** The period to activate the Buyback in Fast Invest is only 3 days, compared to 30 or 60 days in all other platforms; **** There are platforms that offer loans both with and without Buyback; ⁺ Rebuy.

More details, characteristics and definitions in the tables of the Comparator