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Back in June of 2018, I became a Fundrise investor. After the team reached out to me and invited me to become an affiliate, I decided to make my initial investment to test out the platform.
When you invest with Fundrise, you can choose the Starter Portfolio which has a minimum investment of $10. Or, you can choose one of the advanced portfolios with a $1,000 minimum.
I ended up going with the Balanced Investing Plan in the Core Portfolio, but they also offer a Supplemental Income and Long Term Growth portfolio.
The Balanced Investing Plan gives you a blend of both growth and income-oriented investments.
The deposit hit my account on July 2nd and I was officially a Fundrise investor. I decided to start out with a $1,000 investment as a barometer to see how this investment worked and performed. Personally, I was familiar with the concept of crowdfunded real estate investing, but I wanted to see it in action for myself.
I earned my first dividend on October 10th 2018 which was the Q3 dividend. This was in the amount of $10.16 and I reinvested it via the auto-invest feature, which allows me to earn compound interest.
I earned my next dividend on January 9th 2019 in the amount of $9.53 which was the Q4 2018 dividend.
My initial account balance was $1,000 but by the time I had earned my Q4 2018 dividend, my balance was up to $1,044.86 meaning I had earned a return of about 4.5% in 6 months! I was very happy with this.
After 6 months as a Fundrise investor, I decided to scale up my investment to $5,000. I was satisfied with the return I had received, and I wanted more skin in the game. I bumped my investment up from $1,000 to $5,000 by depositing an additional $5,000 which took place on April 9th 2019.
Now, since I had significantly more invested, my dividends were more substantial.
Dividends Earned:
As I mentioned earlier, all of my dividends are reinvested back into my Fundrise portfolio. Here's where this gets exciting for me... If I add up these three dividends alone, that is $197.38 of passive income that was reinvested back into my portfolio, allowing my money to grow even more!
So, the question everyone is probably wondering is how much money have I made investing in Fundrise?
Well, my total investment of $6,000 has earned me a return of $373.27 however I ramped up my investment over time since I initially started with just $1,000.
Coming directly from the Fundrise dashboard, here are my returns so far based on the years that I have been invested. These returns are after the 1% fee Fundrise collects.
In 2018 I was only invested from July on, so it was only 6 months.
I earned a return of 4.3% or $43.89.
In 2019, I was invested for one full year as a Fundrise investor.
I earned a return of 7.7% or $311.54.
In 2020, I was invested for another full year on the Fundrise platform.
I earned a return of 3.9% or $741.69.
Overall, I have been very happy with my returns so far as an investor. I am still new to crowdfunded real estate investing, but based on what I have seen over the last year and a half of investing I am comfortable with making a sizable investment in this platform.
It is important to remember that any real estate investment is going to be a longer term investment and Fundrise is no exception. According to their site, Fundrise investors should have a minimum time horizon of 5 years. If you are looking for a short term investment, this is not for you.
Also, keep in mind that liquidity is not guaranteed. They do offer quarterly redemption periods, but you are not guaranteed the ability to cash out at this time. Your money is used to purchase real estate, and as such they may not have enough cash on hand if you are looking to cash out.
If you want to learn more, read our full Fundrise review here or click here to sign up!
