Are alternative investments good for your portfolio? Alternative investments, or “alts”, can add diversification to your portfolio, which reduces your investment risk. They don’t have to be complex, though they certainly can be! Key takeaways: - Alternatives include any investments outside the traditional stocks, bonds, cash, and mutual funds. They include private equity, hedge funds, real estate, etc. - They provide diversification since they do not perform the same way as the traditional asset classes do. - Most individual investors can have 10-20% of their portfolio invested in alternatives. - Real estate is a good alternative for many people. You can own actual property. Or, you can invest in Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs), which act like mutual funds. What are alternative investments? The traditional investing universe is comprised of stocks, bonds, cash, and the mutual funds that invest in them. Real estate and REITs (Real Estate Investment Trusts, which are basically mutual funds for real estate investing) are considered alternatives. Hedge funds, commodities, futures, and private equity funds are also examples of alternatives. What is Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT)? Given your risk tolerance, you can build an optimal portfolio providing the highest return using a mix of assets. Correlation is a measure of how strongly asset returns are related to each other. Noncorrelated assets create a more diversified portfolio, reducing risk. If one asset class isn’t performing well, a different one may be doing better. After a point, adding more assets doesn’t give you any more risk reduction. Think about a one-asset portfolio. Let’s say the asset is Google stock. This is a very risky portfolio, because if anything happens to Google, you could lose all your money. Now add a second asset, such as Apple stock. A two asset portfolio is more diversified, because if something happens to Google specifically, the price of Apple may not change. However, Apple and Google are both large tech stocks. If one experiences a price decline, the other might as well. They’re highly correlated to each other. Instead of adding Apple as a second stock, let’s add Ford instead. With this two-asset portfolio, if Google experiences a price decline, it’s less likely that Ford will too. They’re in different segments of the economy. Since both are large company stocks, they are still somewhat correlated. If investors stop buying large company stocks for some reason, they’ll both experience the decline. We can diversify further. Investment grade bonds aren’t particularly correlated with any stock. Below investment grade, known as junk, bonds are correlated with the stock market. Let’s add a bond in for a three asset portfolio. Now there’s a portion of the portfolio that doesn’t move in tandem with the stocks. Even when the stock market declines, your bonds will keep you afloat. They don’t provide as much capital appreciation as stocks do, so the total return will not be as high as the two-stock portfolio. Bonds lower the investing risk, but with low interest rates don’t provide much return. It’s a trade-off between risk and return. The more risk you can take, the lower your bond exposure, and the higher your return. But you’ll experience a lot of ups and downs in the portfolio as a consequence. Asset allocation Having a mix of assets optimizes this risk/return tradeoff. Someone who is a conservative investor will have more bonds in their portfolio compared to a more aggressive one. Stocks need to be diversified as well. Small companies, mid-sized companies, and international ones are all somewhat uncorrelated with each other, and with large cap stocks. Adding in alternative investments to the mix, in addition to the stocks and/or bonds, further diversifies the portfolio and may increase the return as well. They’re not intended to replace stocks and bonds in the allocation, but to enhance it. How much should be invested in alternatives? Allocations vary from investor to investor, of course. Shifting 5% of the portfolio to alts isn’t going to make much difference to the portfolio either way. You need at least 10%. If you’re not as familiar with these investments, you can start by allocating 10%. Experienced investors might want to increase the percentage to around 20%. Institutional investors will often invest much more of their portfolios in alts. However, they have different investment goals and an infinite time horizon, which individuals don’t have. You don’t need to sell off stocks or bonds to invest in alts. Use the cash you have, if any. If you’re making periodic deposits into your account, you can invest them in alts instead until you reach the allocation you want. Should I use real estate for my alternatives portion of the portfolio? Real estate is an excellent alternative for many investors. Many people understand real estate basics, so the investment doesn’t have a significant learning curve. Some of the other alternative strategies are more complex, and their risk/return characteristics may not be as clear. Real estate in general is uncorrelated with either stocks or bonds. Owning real property has historically been a wealth generator for Americans, though of course real estate values fluctuate just as stocks do. REITs in particular make good diversifiers for a portfolio. They typically collect rent from the properties they own. They’re required to distribute 90% of their income back to shareholders. Many distribute all of it. Not only do shareholders earn income, but often the funds provide some capital appreciation as well. In other words, REITs provide income, some capital appreciation, and uncorrelated performance. They’re a great tool, especially for those newer to investing.  

Value Add Multifamily Real Estate Investing is a Great Idea. Here’s Why... Finding a real estate investment can be an intimidating step in expanding an investment portfolio. However, real estate investments can have numerous options, bringing opportunities for both the novice and experienced investor. For many investors, multifamily real estate investments can prove very lucrative, yielding returns not possible with single family residential properties. In today’s economy, it would be a mistake to not consider a real estate investment as you seek to create wealth. Value add is a real estate investment segment of that can be very profitable for the right investors. What is a value add real estate investment? They are properties, like an apartment building, that have a cash flow set up in the form of income producing units but are not producing to their full potential. So, the opportunistic investor will purchase the property and make improvements to the asset that will increase the cash flow generated from the property. Improvements can come in many forms. They could be in the form of renovations, upgrades, improving the management of the property, seeking quality tenants, lowering operating expenses, or anything that will contribute to the ability to command higher rents and reduce vacancy. Once the “value” is added and the property is producing at its full potential, the investor can sell the asset for the new appreciated value, making a substantial profit. It is a more secure strategy The economy is booming right now, unemployment numbers are dropping every quarter and the stock market remains strong, but things are forecasted to shift. As we saw earlier this year, the volatile stock market can change at any moment. The real estate market can experience volatility as well. But, by investing in value add real estate investments, the investor is not just “riding the wave,” so to speak, of the real estate cycle in which values rise and increase based on numerous factors affecting the market. To put things in perspective, multifamily property prices increased 11% this past year, compared to the 6.5% increase experienced in single family home market. In adding real value to the asset, the property will not only benefit from any upswing in the market, but more stable growth in the long term is realized through the appreciation because of the improvements. Identifying the assets The most important part of value add investing is finding a property with the potential for a substantial increase in cash flow. As stated earlier, this will come in the form of increased rental rates and occupancy and/or a decrease in operating expenses. The assets offering the greatest potential are ones that have deficiencies which are contributing to the unrealized profit. Typical properties ripe for value add investing will have an occupancy rate of 50-80%. The investor will determine the cause for the vacancies and develop a cost-effective plan to rectify while evaluating the feasibility. The deficiencies could be an outdated lobby, ugly exterior, outdated units, or poor property management. If the reason for the low occupancy is remedied, and demand for the property goes up, increased rents will be possible for the remaining units as well. The demand for multifamily real estate will remain high The largest generation in the United States’ workforce right now are the millennials. Their power in the consumer market has increased over the last decade and they are now entering the real estate market in high numbers. Many in this demographic are moving out of their parent’s home for the first time and are looking for housing in urban environments, where multifamily real estate is in high demand. As the sluggish economy in the past prevented many from going out their own, they now represent a substantial percentage of the job market and carry enormous spending power in all financial sectors. The strong desire to live in the urban environments near employment and entertainment will continue to fuel demand as more and more of the younger generations seek housing. The cost of living in these metropolitan areas make it almost impossible for many to purchase a home, leaving renting in multifamily housing the only option. Supply is not keeping up with demand According to the National Apartment Association, the United States market will see the demand for an additional 4.6 million housing units by 2030, meaning an additional 328,000 new units will need to be constructed every year. At present, 225,000 units are being added to the market every year. The deficit will keep demand higher than supply, which will increase rent prices and contribute to the appreciation of the multifamily units. Innovative ways to enter the market A relatively new approach to real estate investing is crowdfunding to raise capital for investments. Aggregating the dollars allows regular investors to access the lucrative real estate market with relatively small amounts of money--something that was never an option for average Americans in the past. With DiversyFund’s Growth Fund, investors are able to immediately diversify their portfolio with one investment. The diversification through the access to numerous projects is a huge benefit as the investor can grow their real estate investments while reducing some of their risk. By adding multifamily real estate to your investment portfolio through DiversyFund's platform you can reap the benefits without having to fork over high broker fees. With secure payment portals and easily navigable dashboards, tracking performance could not be easier.   As you seek to increase your wealth and live like the 1%, don’t underestimate the potential in value add real estate investments. Create a free account today to learn more about the Growth Fund.

Millennials and investing in real estate has been a hot topic for a while now. You hear jokes like….Millionaire to millennials: Lay off the avocado toast if you want a house. Millennials tend to get a bad rep. The common perception of the Millennial generation, which refers to people that were born between the years 1982 to 2000, is that they are entitled, spoiled, lazy, obsessed with social media and lack a strong work ethic... The list goes on. But is it accurate? U.S. Millennials are now the largest age group in the United States. There are millions of intelligent hard working Millennials that are changing the world. More and Millennials are getting great jobs and gaining financial stability every single day. 1 in 6 Millenials now have savings of $100,000 or more according to a new Bank of America survey. Contrary to popular belief, Millennials aren’t as lacking with ther money management skills as you might think. This generation loves to find a good deal and invest in something that they really believe in. It makes a lot of sense that Millennials are becoming increasingly interested in Real Estate. In fact, recent research from Fannie Mae found that 85% of Millennials agree that real estate is a good investment. The Millennial generation is also more likely to value real estate more highly over other types of asset classes. This has a lot to do with the Great Recession of 2008 that many Millennials lived through. One thing is for sure, Millennials these days are definitely open to investing in Real Estate. This trend is only going to continue in the future. Is it really true that most Millennials can’t afford to invest in real estate? According to a recent Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data, more than 1 in every 3 working Americans are Millennials. That means that the Millennial generation is gaining wealth from their employers and looking for great investment opportunities. In 2017, millennials made up the largest group of homebuyers (34 percent of the total buying pool) and of all millennial homebuyers, 66 percent were first timers. Millennials can indeed afford to invest in real estate. Their generation will soon make up the vast majority of all real estate buyers in the US. Homeownership is on the rise in the United States, and the real estate sector is flourishing. It’s safe to say that the rise has something to do with Millennials and their willingness to invest in Real Estate. One common conception about Millennials has some real truth behind it. It’s fair to say that most Millennials are very adept with technology. The rise of social media, the internet, smartphones, and more has placed technology directly into the hands of millions. Real estate has become increasingly integrated with technology as well. Applications like AirBnb allow you to rent out and manage an investment property directly from your smartphone. These advances in technology are driving the real estate market forward and creating lots of new opportunities for savvy real estate professionals and Millennials alike. Since Millennials are great with technology, they are more willing to consider these newer investment options. Providing the opportunity for Millennials to Invest in real estate in more modern ways is something that can’t be ignored. That’s where real estate crowdfunding comes into play. Investing in Real Estate Online Real Estate investing online via crowdfunding allows Millennials (and anyone else for that matter) to invest in Real Estate without a large initial investment, and without the hassle of being a landlord. It’s easy to choose which specific real estate investment they want to put their money in with Crowdfunding. Some fintech platforms like DiversyFund, offers the option to invest in funds which allows regular investors to Make a single investment and immediately own a portfolio of diversified real estate assets. The flexibility, variety, and low costs that real estate investing via crowdfunding offers makes it extremely attractive to Millennials. See how DiversyFund can help yu build wealth through real estate. Check out our investment opportunities by creating a free account today.

When the stock market goes up one day, and then goes down for the next few days, then up again, and down...you get the picture...that’s what you call stock market volatility. If you don't have the stomach for it, real estate investing is an option you might want to explore. What can you do about it? One thing even new investors understand about a portfolio is the concept of diversification — blending a variety of asset classes to reduce exposure to risk. There are different forms of diversification and at some point further diversification within an asset doesn’t really eliminate that much more risk. For example, diversifying not just among different stocks, but utilizing different types of assets, is how an investor can mitigate risk. Even with a well-diversified stock portfolio, an individual is still exposed to market risk which cannot be reduced by adding additional stocks. The goal is to find assets that are not correlated with stocks – meaning its less influenced by the stock market’s volatility. Asset correlation is a measure of how investments move in relation to one another and when. If two assets are considered to be non-correlated, the price movement of one asset has no effect on the price movement of the other asset. There are many alternative investments to choose from, but real estate is undoubtedly a significant element of asset allocation, and for centuries, real estate ownership has been the hallmark of the elite in most societies and continue to be the asset class of choice for the wealthy. Real Estate, like any investment, can go up and down in value, but it never goes to zero value, unlike an investment in stocks where a company can go out of business and the stock becomes worthless. If you’re thinking about diversifying away froms stocks and considering if real estate investing better for you, there are many benefits to the latter, especially in the new alternative form of investing in the form of crowdfunding. Benefits of Real Estate Investing Via Crowdfunding A study by the Harvard Business Review in 2013 entitled "Crowdfunding's Big-Bang Moment" noted that the "JOBS Act was the catalyst needed in order to democratize commercial real estate investing and open new doors of opportunity." According to a recent article in Forbes, less than 10 years from now the real estate crowdfunding industry is expected to be valued at more than $300 billion...a nearly ten-fold increase from today's industry value of just over $34 billion. That's an explosive amount of growth over a very short period of time! Here are some of the reasons by so many people are investing so much money in real estate crowdfunding: 1. Participate in large, high-quality real estate investments with small amounts of capital 2. Choose specific properties to invest in thanks to the transparency of crowdfunding or... 3. Select from funds that match individual investment strategies such as income, growth, or more aggressive venture capital portfolios 4. Balanced blend of both active and passive investment allows investors to analyze individual opportunities while leaving the buying, managing, and selling to experienced real estate professionals 5. Crowdfunding allows deals to be executed quickly resulting in increased opportunities for real estate investors If you’re thinking of diversifying away from the stock market roller coaster and exploring real estate investing, check out how we can help you grow wealth.  

Ever since we were kids we were told that saving money should be a priority. Work for want you want, and save. And although saving money is a great habit, investing your hard earned money is an even better one. Investing is essential to good money management because it plays  a big role in your financial security. Not only can you end up with more money in the bank, you end up with another income stream. Saving Money vs. Investing. What’s the difference? While they are related, saving money and investing are entirely different things. They have different purposes, and play different roles in your financial strategy. The one thing they do have in common is how important they both are in securing our financial future. Saving Money: Putting money aside gradually, typically into a bank account where you can get to it when you need it. People usually save toward a short-term goal like planning a vacation, putting a deposit on a house, or preparing for any emergencies that might come up. While the money you save may earn interest, rates tend to be very low. The trade-off is that your money is accessible. Investing: Taking some of your money with the intention of making it grow, by buying assets that you think will increase in value, such as stocks, property, or shares in a mutual fund. Are you ready to invest? You may want to consider starting your investment strategy after you do the following: Build your emergency savings. Savings should come first. Before investing, try to make sure you have an emergency fund you can use to cover expenses for unforeseen events like if your car needs new tires, the pipes in your house burst during a deep freeze, etc. Pay off high-interest debt. By paying off high-interest debt in full, you’ll reduce the total amount you owe faster, and free up money to put toward savings or investing. Max out your 401(k) and IRA. If you’re offered a 401(k) or other employer-sponsored retirement plan and your company kicks in matching contributions, you should take full advantage of those first. That’s an automatic 100% return on your investment. If your long-term goals include a comfortable retirement and you’re already contributing the maximum amount to your retirement accounts, it may be an appropriate time to explore additional investment types. Investing in Real Estate: Investing can help you reach big financial goals. If your investment is earning a higher rate of return than a savings account, you will be earning more money both in the long term. Property investments have proven to be successful for the richest men and women around the world. The wealthy focus on investing in high quality, top tier commercial assets.  When you purchase a property and it increases in value over time, you get to reap the rewards. If you have any questions about getting started in investing in real estate, or if you want to sign up for our online investment platform, we would love to chat with you! Here at DiversyFund, we are striving to fundamentally change the real estate investment industry for small and medium - sized projects across North America. We are determined to help everyone build wealth through online real estate investing and believe that saving money  is good, but investing is SO much better. Similar articles: https://diversyfund.com/investing-in-real-estate/real-estate-investing-vs-stocks-one-better/ https://diversyfund.com/investing-in-real-estate/4-ways-make-extra-money-real-estate-investing/  

Quarterly Investment Update (Q2 2018) Goshen- Investment Update Q2 2018 Vacation rentals are underway at all three Goshen units but the vacancy rate is still higher than it should be in order to attract a buyer for the property.  The property manager expects that the rentals will be stabilized soon as renters continue to post positive reviews online. Also, we have strong interest from student renters looking for a 9 month lease in September which will create the annual rent roll of an attractive investment property when coupled with the summer vacation rentals. The condo mapping process with the City is underway, as mentioned last update round, in order to maximize upside potential for the sale as an investment property. Project Stage:  Completed and Cash flowing. Costebelle- Investment Update Q2 2018 Costebelle is finally on the market and looks fantastic.  We hosted a San Diego Association of Realtors event the first week and received overwhelmingly positive feedback about the property and its ocean views.  Our realtor team, Eric Iantorno and Brett Dickinson from Pacific Sotheby’s hold several price records including San Diego’s highest sales price ever ($24 million) so we are confident we have the right team in place. Project Stage:  Completed and on Market. Felspar Investment Update Q2 2018 Felspar is completed and looking phenomenal. A neighborhood BBQ was hosted by the listing agents last week to build awareness about the property. The feedback from the neighborhood has been extremely positive, with many neighbors stopping in to congratulate and thank us for the project we have built in the neighborhood. The word has been getting out on the project completion and we are hoping to have these two great properties sold soon. Project Stage:  Completed and on Market. Park Blvd Investment Update Q2 2018 We just celebrated a major milestone for Park Blvd last week as we received 1 out of the 2 permits we will need to build the project! The foundation and parking structure permit was approved on July 12th and we are currently working on the wood frame permit submittal. The process of securing a construction lending partner has begun and we are looking forward to breaking ground as soon as the wood frame permit is received. We are also down to four general contractors in the vetting process. Project Stage:  Pre-Construction. Foundation Building Permit Obtained. Granito Investment Update Q2 2018 The foundation subcontractor continues the tedious process of drilling shoring piles and setting the steel beams on the property that will anchor the extensive concrete and steel foundation to the hillside.  We have also been working with over ten sub-consultants and over 50 sub-contractors to get the best bids possible on the remainder of the project. Project Stage:  Construction. DiversyFund Income Fund Q2 Investment Update: As you know, the DiversyFund Income Fund makes loans to the properties under development by DiversyFund, some of which are now on the market.  Please see the project updates for details on the underlying properties. DiversyFund Growth Fund Q2 Investment Update: The Growth Fund has made several preferred equity investments such as our Park Blvd multi-family project, Goshen (student housing) and Felspar (Pacific Beach condos), along with a small investment in Granito Drive.  We are currently performing due diligence on a new multi-family value add deal.

New investors often assume that investing is strictly limited to the stock market. But there is a whole galaxy of alternative investments beyond the more typical stocks and bonds that everyone talks about. As your net worth grows, you might want to take your portfolio up a notch and diversify your portfolio. A properly diversified portfolio includes different types of stocks and bonds—international stocks, for example—and it also includes something called alternative investments. Why Buy Alternative Investments? There many reasons for buying alternative investments. The main reason for using alternative investments is to help spread out your risk by giving your portfolio an extra layer of diversification. Alternative investments are seen as a way to diversify against potential downturns in the valuations of traditional investments. Other reasons include the following: - To lower correlation to traditional stock and bond markets - To invest capital for a longer timeframe in exchange for higher return potential - To hedge a portfolio against inflation or rising interest rates Questions to ask Should you invest in alternatives? Unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all answer. It all depends on your current situation, financial goals, and the resources at your disposal. There are countless alternative investment strategies being applied in the marketplace today, and simply conducting research and due-diligence on all of them to determine their risk and reward characteristics can get tedious.  But, here are a few questions you should ask yourself when considering your options:  - Am I investing for a long time horizon? - Does my portfolio need additional diversification beyond typical stock and bond asset classes? - Is there a chance I will need to access this money in the near term? - Is my risk tolerance sufficient for these opaque and lightly regulated investments? - Do I have a trusted professional helping me find the right investment options? Historically, access to alternatives was limited to institutional and high-net-worth investors. However as their popularity has increased, they have become more widely available. A good example of an alternative investment that is now made widely available is real estate through crowdfunding. Real Estate crowdfunding as an alternative investment Real estate crowdfunding has disrupted the status quo of real estate investing with online platforms that put new opportunities that were previously exclusive to the ultra wealthy into the hands of everyday investors. According to a recent article in Forbes, less than 10 years from now the real estate crowdfunding industry is expected to be valued at more than $300 billion...a nearly ten-fold increase from today's industry value of just over $34 billion. Here are some of the reasons by so many people are investing so much money in real estate crowdfunding: - They are able to participate in large, high-quality real estate investments with small amounts of capital. - They can choose specific properties to invest in thanks to the transparency of crowdfunding or select from funds that match individual investment strategies such as income, growth, or more aggressive venture capital portfolios. - They get a balanced blend of both active and passive investment allows investors to analyze individual opportunities while leaving the buying, managing, and selling to experienced real estate professionals. - Crowdfunding allows deals to be executed quickly resulting in increased opportunities for real estate investors. With so many benefits to alternative investments, it’s no wonder they continue to grow at rapid rates. As investors realize the benefits of higher returns and lower risks that many of these alternative investments have, we expect this growth to continue well into the future. If you’d like to learn more about real estate crowdfunding, read our favorite posts: Everything you need to know about real estate investing Forget being a landlord, you can invest in real estate online ---------------- DiversyFund’s crowdfunding platform is dedicated to offering everyone the opportunity to diversify their portfolio. We are opening up what used to be exclusive wealth building opportunities to everyone. Crowdfunding allows us to aggregate dollars to purchase real estate, we develop it manage it, receive the cash flow, and then divide the profits. We combined our decades of real estate expertise with technology to make investing even more cost-effective for people like you. Now, you don’t need to be a millionaire or an expert to invest in real estate. Multi-million dollar investment opportunities can be shared for as little as $5,000, and everyone can join in.  

It’s an age old question-- which is better: real estate investing or stocks? Each option provides a unique opportunity to gain immense wealth and financial freedom, and there isn’t a simple answer because both have their advantages and disadvantages. Trying to figure out if real estate investing or stocks is better is like asking someone which ice cream flavor is better, chocolate or vanilla? It all comes down to your own unique personal preferences. We truly hope this article provides you with all of the information you need to decide which investment option is best for you. Investing in Stocks – The Benefits Buying a share of stock is buying a stake in a company. You are purchasing the opportunity to own a portion of a business or corporation and experience all of the ups and downs that it goes through. The stock market offers seemingly unlimited options in terms of the types of companies you can purchase. You can easily diversify your investment portfolio by purchasing a mutual fund or shares in different industries and companies. This is a big advantage. Another plus with investing in stocks is the ease in which you can make stock transactions. All you need to buy and sell stocks is a connection to the internet and a brokerage account. The transaction costs for buying and selling stocks are typically minimal, particularly when compared to the costs of real estate investing. Another advantage is the liquidity that stocks provide. When the market is open, you can sell the entirety of your holdings with the simple click of a mouse. Finally, perhaps the most intriguing benefit of investing in stocks is that successful companies will provide shareholders with share price increases as well as increases in cash dividends. That means you are earning money on your shares as well is through the increases in residual dividend income that your shares provide. Stock Investments – Some Disadvantages As you can see, investing in stocks provides quite a few benefits. However, this investment option is not without it’s faults. It’s time to take a look at some of the disadvantages that come with investing in stocks. Perhaps the biggest disadvantage to stocks and a major deterrent for those who fall on the more risk averse side when it comes to investing is the fact that the price of stocks can experience dramatic fluctuations both in the short-term and over the long-term. You can own stock in a company that doubles in value one month and is worthless the next. Anything is possible with stocks. That’s why it’s absolutely crucial to invest in companies that you truly believe in and have thoroughly researched. Another downside to stocks is the emotional aspect. To be successful with stock investing, you have to have an iron will and be devoted to your investment strategy, even if the world appears to be crashing down on you. Lots of people end up losing a ton of money in the stock market because they let their emotions get the best of them. Finally, another disadvantage in stock investing is the capital gains taxes you will have to pay if the sale of your stock is considered a short-term. You can wind up with a very large tax bill at the end of the year if you are making significant gains on short term holdings. Real Estate Investing – The Benefits When you are investing in real estate, you are buying physical land or property. It’s a tangible investment, versus stocks, which are intangible investments. Lots of people would consider that to be a big advantage. Real estate investments can also provide consistent monthly income if you are renting it out. Perhaps one of the main benefits from real estate investing is that it allows you to easily leverage other people’s money. Whenever you purchase real estate, an investor is typically required to put down 10%-30% of the total value of the real estate as a down payment. The rest of the money is provided by a lending institution like a bank. There aren’t many investment opportunities that allow you to buy something for a fraction of its total cost. In general, it’s typically much safer to make leveraged real estate purchases rather than buying stocks on margin. Additionally, when you purchase a property and it increases in value over time, you get to reap the rewards. Any property has the potential to appreciate in value. Real estate investing also provides lots of tax related advantages. This is particularly advantageous if you have a knowledgeable accountant. Real Estate Investing – Some Disadvantages One of the main downsides to real estate investing is it’s lack of liquidity. Your money will be tied up in a real estate investment, and if you ever need the cash quickly, it might present a real challenge. You can’t buy and sell real estate as easily as you can with stocks. Additionally, investing in real estate will require a lot of your time. The process of purchasing real estate can be complicated and lengthy. Another con of real estate investing is that if you aren’t careful, your investment can end up costing money on a monthly basis. For example, if you purchased office space real estate and do not have any tenants, you will lose money on the monthly property fees, maintenance, utilities, and taxes on the property. Finally, another big con related to real estate is that success can be difficult to achieve. Being successful in the real estate game means hard work, doing your research, and being willing to deal with emergencies at any time. For some people, the responsibility is too big of a burden to bear. But in recent years, an alternative has emerged in the form of crowdfunding which takes away many of the disadvantages of traditional real estate investing. Real Estate Investing of the Future We’ve gone over a lot of the disadvantages that come with real estate investing, but what if there was a way to invest in real estate while avoiding the disadvantages? Enter real estate crowdfunding. This is a dynamic and revolutionary form of investing that allows people to diversify their portfolio with real estate without having to be a millionaire or an expert. This option allows you to invest in different types of real estate with much smaller amounts of money than usual. Low entry fees, or in the case of DiversyFund, zero-fee investments for investors make creating a diversified real estate portfolio without the normal private equity requirements a reality. When considering real estate crowdfunding, look for a company with an experienced team that understands the markets they operate in. As with any investment, it pays to take the time to choose the right crowdfunding site for you. For today’s investor, crowdfunding can be a great way to invest in real estate and generate income.      

When looking for options to diversify your portfolio, did you ever look into real estate, or real estate crowdfunding? Real Estate is often considered to be one of the best asset classes to make an investment in. The numerous benefits that come along with investing in real estate make it attractive to those who are able to afford it. However, some of the downsides are too big for many investors to overcome. Traditionally, it costs a significant amount of money up front to invest in real estate. This can be a huge deterrent for potential investors. However, there is a new trend in the investment world that provides investors with access to the real estate market using much smaller amounts of money. It’s a revolutionary concept that has gained a lot of momentum in recent years. Let’s talk about real estate crowdfunding and why this investment opportunity is a great option to explore. What is Crowdfunding? To understand how real estate crowdfunding works, it’s important to understand the basic concept of crowdfunding. Crowdfunding is essentially raising money through the collective effort of friends, family, acquaintances, customers, and investors. It’s putting together capital from a large pool of individuals and using their networks to grow the cause. Typically, social media and online campaigns drive the success of a crowdfunding campaign. We are living in a digital world, and this has created countless new opportunities in entrepreneurship and business. Historically, access to investing in high quality alternatives to the public stock market such as multi-million dollar private market real estate has been limited to super-wealthy investors who get the attention of wall street or large developers.  But real estate crowdfunding has changed things in a big way. With the passage of the JOBS Act,  accredited and non-accredited investors now have a new way to gain entry to this asset class. Real Estate Crowdfunding Explained Crowdfunding and real estate is a match made in heaven. There are lots of opportunities for investors to make lucrative financial returns with real estate crowdfunding. As mentioned earlier, one of the major benefits related to real estate crowdfunding is that more investors are able to gain access to real estate market investments with smaller amounts of money.  Real estate crowdfunding platforms act as online peer-to-peer marketplaces that match investors with borrowers, often under better financial terms than what they can get through traditional lending institutions, such as banks. There are two basic ways to invest in crowdfunding property deals: Equity investments - with equity investments, Investors make investments in commercial or residential properties and In exchange, the investor receives an equity stake in the property. Returns are realized in the form of a share of the rental income the property generates, less any service fees paid to the crowdfunding platform. Investors may also be paid out a share of any appreciation value if the property is sold. Debt investments- this means investing in a mortgage loan associated with a particular property. As the loan is repaid, the investor receives a share of the interest. The loan is secured by the property itself and investors receive a fixed rate of return that's determined by the interest rate on the loan and how much they have invested. Finding Success in Real Estate Crowdfunding So, you find yourself intrigued with the concept of real estate crowdfunding. It’s a truly unique opportunity to invest in real estate on your own terms. However, there are a few things to keep in mind in order to achieve success with real estate crowdfunding. Doing your due diligence is absolutely crucial with any real estate investment, and crowdfunding is no different. There are many real estate crowdfunding sites to choose from. But many suffer from poor investor protections, inadequate volume and/or hidden fees.  So how do you find the best platform for you, and avoid making an expensive mistake? Finding the best real estate crowdfunding platform for you can be a challenge, particularly if you are a new investor.   When looking at your options, take a look at the founders and the senior management of the crowdfunding firm or platform. Compare and contrast a few different real estate crowdfunding companies before making any decisions. You want to make sure you are working with an established, well-capitalized company that will survive over the long term. Seek out crowdfunding platforms that clearly acknowledge the risks of investing with them. When in doubt, go with your gut and invest with someone you trust. What makes DiversyFund different from other Real Estate Crowdfunding Platforms DiversyFund is only vertically integrated real estate crowdfunding platform, which means that we own all of the assets and properties that are being developed. Unlike other online platforms that function as a broker, matching investors with different third party projects, we offer real estate investments where we are the developer and sponsor, and we manage each investment on our platform. So with DiversyFund, you get an investment partner with skin in the game. Say goodbye to brokers and middleman fees. Crowdfunding allows us to aggregate dollars to purchase real estate, we develop it manage it, receive the cash flow, and then divide the profits. Everything is done online, so we cut out the middlemen and unnecessary costs like bank fees, document prep fees, storage, and additional operational salaries that are usually passed on to investors.

If you want to become a millionaire, start saving as much as you can as early as you can. We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again- you don’t build wealth by working more hours a day. You create wealth by taking calculated risks and being smart enough to delay gratification. The basics are simple: earn money, spend less than you earn, save, invest, rinse and repeat. Though this whole “save more, spend less” game plan sounds easy enough, the reality is that the majority of us aren’t following it.   You are not alone According to a Bankrate survey, one-fifth of Americans are adding nothing to their savings. Why? Expenses were cited by 39% as the main reason people are not saving. The second reason is that their job isn’t good enough, while an equal amount said the main reason they aren’t saving more is because they “haven’t gotten around to it.”         The good news: it's not impossible to become a millionaire There are no steps, formulas or secrets to become a millionaire. But there are strategies that can help you reach your goals. At the end of the day, you control your future and how you approach it, and that is the biggest determining factor as to whether you will become a millionaire. Pay yourself first One of the oldest rules of personal finance paying yourself first.  This means before you pay your bills, buy groceries, or spend on anything else, set aside a portion of your income to save. This habit, developed early, can help you become a millionaire. There are many ways to save more, but to save big, you need to think bigger than giving up your daily cup of Starbucks. There’s a money lesson to be learned from this couple who spent $30,000 eating out in a year-- money that could have easily been part of their savings. Save half your raises One way to achieve a seven-figure net worth is to put away all the raises and bonuses you get. But as behavioral finance research shows, depriving yourself too much may cause you to binge later. So as a compromise, save 50%. Spending the rest on yourself should help you feel like you’ve celebrated your success without derailing your financial goals. Re-evaluate your living situation The rule of thumb for how much house you can afford is 28% of gross monthly income, but who says you have to spend all 28%? Think about it, do you really need the space, or could you be just as happy if you spent a little less on your home? For example, this couple banked 50,000 by paying a smaller percentage of their income on their condo. Invest, invest, invest “Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it…he who doesn’t…pays it.” – Albert Einstein Despite what most people think, investing isn't an opportunity limited to those who are already wealthy. Forgoing some luxuries can help you save tens of thousands of dollars a year which can be allocated towards investing wisely. The idea is to take advantage of compound interest. Think of it as the cycle of earning “interest on interest”,  so a little money invested now can end up being more than a lot of money invested later. When coupled with a rigorous savings plan and budget to make sure you never need to dip into your investment pot, the power of compounding is without a doubt more important than any other financial planning aspect. __ ______________________________________________________________________________ DiversyFund’s crowdfunding platform is dedicated to offering everyone the opportunity to diversify their portfolio. We are opening up what used to be exclusive wealth building opportunities to everyone. Crowdfunding allows us to aggregate dollars to purchase real estate, we develop it manage it, receive the cash flow, and then divide the profits. We combined our decades of real estate expertise with technology to make investing even more cost-effective for people like you. Now, you don’t need to be a millionaire or an expert to invest in real estate. Multi-million dollar investment opportunities can be shared for as little as $5,000, and everyone can join in.

Have you ever wished you could invest in real estate but didn’t know where to start? You may think the only way is to own properties, but did you know that you can invest in real estate online? Predating modern stock markets, investing in real estate is one of the oldest forms of investing and is one of the five basic asset classes that every investor should seriously consider adding to his or her portfolio for the unique cash flow, liquidity, profitability, tax, and diversification benefits it offers. The trouble is, investing in real estate  requires a significant amount of capital and isn’t as widely available as other investment vehicles like funds and equities. While buying property is the main way to invest in the real estate market, there are other money making opportunities you may want to consider. There is a common misconception that property ownership is a requirement to invest in real estate. But there are many real estate investment opportunities that don’t require you to have hundreds of thousands of dollars on hand or the ongoing responsibilities of building maintenance, landlording, and other obligations of property owners. And these options still offer lucrative, steady cash flows and far less maintenance from an investor. [caption id="attachment_16634" align="alignleft" width="300"] You can start earning interest in minutes[/caption] You can invest in real estate online Real estate investments required huge amounts of money or the right contacts to access deals. These are multi-million dollar assets and regular investors were never able to participate. Until now-- thanks to crowdfunding real estate platforms like DiversyFund that are disrupting real estate. Crowdfunding real estate lets investors own an interest in real estate with as little as $5,000 and unlike Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs), investors can choose the properties to invest in. If real estate crowdfunding seems like a way you would like to grow your wealth, here’s what to  look for: First, find a crowdfunding platform you trust. Read the bios of senior management and look for real estate expertise. After all, crowdfunding may be relatively new, but real estate isn’t and it’s an industry where experience really counts. Make sure the website is informative and easy to use. Are the investments clearly explained? Is there enough information for you to make an informed choice? Is there investor support if you have questions? After you’ve found the platform, examine the investment offerings. While the type of property, expected return and investment period are all important to consider, don’t forget the most important item: fees. In other words, how much will it cost to hold this investment? Fees reduce your investment return and set you back before you’ve begun. Some crowdfunding real estate platforms charge a 2% property acquisition fee, so for every $1,000 you invest with them, only $980 gets invested in real estate. This might not sound like a lot, but it means the first 2% the property earns doesn’t benefit you, it just gets you back to where you started. Since fees are a drag on returns, what should a savvy investor do? Look for no-fee funds that put all your money to work for you. DiversyFund has pioneered the first no-fee crowdfunding real estate funds: the DiversyFund Income Fund and Growth Fund. Just as crowdfunding disrupted real estate, DiversyFund is disrupting crowdfunding through a vertically integrated structure that controls costs and allows better control of outcomes. Vertical integration is nothing new. Fast fashion retailer Zara uses vertical integration to adapt quickly to new fashion trends and keep stores current. Most of Zara’s merchandise is manufactured in their own factories, allowing them to introduce a new line of clothes in weeks, instead of the months many traditional retailers take. Similarly, DiversyFund “manufactures” or develops their projects in-house, maintaining the highest standards of quality control and keeping costs down. To recap, do your homework. Decide if real estate could help you meet your investing goals, then look for a reputable crowdfunding site with an experienced real estate team. Look for solid investments with low, or NO fees. Make sure you fully understand what you’re investing in, then take the plunge. Congratulations – you’re a real estate investor! ________________________________________________________________________________ DiversyFund’s crowdfunding platform is dedicated to offering everyone the opportunity to diversify their portfolio. We are opening up what used to be exclusive wealth building opportunities to everyone. Crowdfunding allows us to aggregate dollars to purchase real estate, we develop it manage it, receive the cash flow, and then divide the profits. We combined our decades of real estate expertise with technology to make investing even more cost-effective for people like you. Now, you don’t need to be a millionaire or an expert to invest in real estate. Multi-million dollar investment opportunities can be shared for as little as $5,000, and everyone can join in.

Are you always looking for ways to make extra money through smart investments? Have you ever considered real estate? Recent stock market volatility has caused many investors to reevaluate their portfolios. Markets have been especially frustrating for investors seeking passive income who have been limited by the lack of satisfactory choices in today’s low return environment. The S&P 500 yields around 2%, investment grade bonds yield a little over 3% and even high yield bonds, often referred to as junk bonds, earn under 7% and can carry significant risk. With choices like these, it’s no surprise investors are looking elsewhere for different ways to make extra money. If this sounds like you, maybe you should consider investing in real estate. While real estate investing may not be for everyone, it can be very lucrative. Many people have made millions investing in real estate. If you’re looking for ways to make extra money, here are 4 ways to make extra money with real estate investments. 1. Invest in REITs One way is through investment vehicles, such as Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs). Similar to mutual funds, REITs pool the money of many investors to buy a portfolio of properties or mortgages and are required by law to pay most of their income out in the form of cash dividends. REITs can be publicly traded or non-traded. While REITs are a convenient and easy way to own real estate, this convenience comes at a cost. REITs, especially the non-traded ones, can have high fees, and public REITs can experience the same price volatility as any other stock. Real estate limited partnerships offer a variety of investment opportunities for high net worth individuals, but fees can be high and investment terms are often lengthy. Investors in real estate limited partnerships are relying on the expertise and professional management of the general partner for a successful outcome, so take your time and perform your due diligence before investing. 2. Own real estate At the other end of the spectrum is direct ownership in real estate. It requires a lot more time and effort than the investments discussed above, but the payoff can be significant. Be sure to do a comprehensive and realistic analysis of the property and its potential before purchasing. Is the property in good condition or does it need work? Is it currently occupied and if so, is the rent at current fair market rates? If it’s vacant, what is the average occupancy rate in that submarket and how long will it realistically take to rent the property? Do you have time to manage the property or can you afford to hire a management company to handle day-to-day operations for you? These are just a few of the questions to consider before signing that purchase contract. 3. Invest in a real estate focused company There are many companies that own and manage real estate without operating as a REIT. Companies that are real estate focused can include hotels, resort operators, timeshare companies, and commercial real estate developers, for example. Make sure to conduct due diligence before you buy stock in individual companies, but this option can be a good one if you want exposure to a specific type of real estate investment and have time to research historical data, company history, and other details.  4. Invest in real estate online The above used to be the only ways to make extra money by investing in real estate, but in recent years, an alternative has emerged in the form of crowdfunding. Real estate crowdfunding allows investors to start with small amounts of money, as little as $500 on some platforms, and investments range from funds to individual properties, spanning all the major categories, including office, multifamily, single family and commercial properties. Some deals offer long-term growth while others are designed for current income. These investments are not traded, but investment terms vary so you can find one with a length that’s right for you. Many crowdfunding real estate sites appeared in the last few years and not all have survived. When considering this option, look for an experienced team that knows real estate and understands the markets they operate in. Understand the terms of the deal you’re considering, especially the fees. Fees can cut into investment returns, so don’t pay more than you need to. As with any investment, it pays to take the time to choose the right crowdfunding site for you. For today’s investor, crowdfunding can be a great way to invest in real estate and generate income. ________________________________________________________________________________ DiversyFund’s crowdfunding platform is dedicated to offering everyone the opportunity to diversify their portfolio. We are opening up what used to be exclusive wealth building opportunities to everyone. Crowdfunding allows us to aggregate dollars to purchase real estate, we develop it manage it, receive the cash flow, and then divide the profits. We combined our decades of real estate expertise with technology to make investing even more cost-effective for people like you. Now, you don’t need to be a millionaire or an expert to invest in real estate. Multi-million dollar investment opportunities can be shared for as little as $5,000, and everyone can join in.

Goshen is being rented! Goshen Investment Update - May 2018 We’re currently renting out the 3 unit as short-term vacation rentals, which is the highest rent per square foot given their location and the time of year. Once the rent roll is established, after about two months of rentals, we will begin marketing the property for sale as an investment property. Additionally, since the property is very close to University of San Diego, we will be renting it out as 9-month student housing beginning in September. It should be an attractive investment property for the right buyer, but to keep our options open, we have begun the condo mapping process with the city, which would give us the option to sell each of the 3 units separately if we cannot find a buyer for the whole property. The condo mapping process takes about 6 months. We are exploring these different options in hopes of getting the best sales price for the property and will keep investors apprised of the situation as it unfolds. Projected completion: Done.  Cash flowing.

Costebelle is getting ready for market! Costebelle - Investment Update We’re interviewing realtors and expect to list this beautiful property in June to take advantage of the strong summer selling season in La Jolla. Projected completion: Imminent  

Pre-construction work is progressing at Park Blvd. Park Blvd Investment Update May 2018 The permitting process is moving along and if all goes well we could be breaking ground by late summer.  

Felspar is going on the market! Felspar Investment Update May 2018 We’re wrapping up some minor landscaping items required by the city and expect to pass final inspection next week.  The Realtor is chomping at the bit to list the property. Projected completion: Imminent Felspar Investment Property Update - May 2018 from DiversyFund Please visit our Real Estate investments page to learn more about new and alternative investment opportunities to diversify your portfolio. Happy Investing!

Site work continues at Granito! Granito Investment Update May 2018 Construction began in April. Workers began site grading and are now drilling piles for foundation caissons. This is no small job - 31 holes will be drilled 75 feet deep into the bedrock! This part of the project doesn’t provide many photo ops, but arguably it is the most important step in the process. Please visit our Real Estate investments page to learn more about new and alternative investment opportunities to diversify your portfolio. Happy Investing!

Diversification is just a fancy name for the saying: “don't put all of your eggs in one basket.” Diversification is when you invest in many securities, and most investment professionals agree that diversification is the most important component of reaching long-range financial goals while minimizing risk. What is a portfolio? Investors refer to a person’s collection of investments as a “portfolio.” If you own stocks, bonds, and rental properties, that's what your portfolio consists of. Your portfolio might be further divided into sub-asset classes like large-cap stocks, mid-cap stocks, small-cap stocks and international stocks. Ideally, a portfolio should hold a variety of investments, not all of which are highly correlated to each other. Why is diversification important? Many factors that change in real-time affect the price of stocks, bonds, and alternative assets: individual company events, industry trends, world occurrences, government actions, among others. This is why diversification is a powerful weapon against risk. By allocating investments among various financial instruments, industries, and other categories, it helps maximize return in different areas that would each react differently to the same event. There are different forms of diversification; you can diversify both among and within different asset classes. When you diversify within asset classes, you divide the money you've allocated to a particular asset class among various categories of investments that belong to that asset class. Stocks are one asset class, bonds are another, and real estate is another. This form of diversification is common among the wealthy-- but you don’t have to be wealthy to diversify. The benefit of Investing in different asset classes is best demonstrated by the Yale Endowment. The Yale Fund has boasted one of the most successful institutional track records over the last 20 years. In 1985, 80% of its endowment dollars were in stocks, bonds, and cash; and over time the fund dropped that down to 10% of the portfolio Today, 90% of the endowment is now in non-traditional asset classes that are illiquid resulting in pricing that does not fluctuate with the stock market and leads to higher expected returns. The Yale fund made a conscious decision to minimize the role of stocks and bonds in its portfolio and diversified into alternatives like real estate and private equity investments. David Swensen, the manager of Yale University’s $27 billion endowment fund, strongly supports the concept of portfolio diversification. Real estate is one asset class Swensen recommends investors allocate anywhere between 15 and 20% of a portfolio into. Since real estate responds to different market forces than stocks or bonds, this insulates a portion of your portfolio from market corrections and crashes. In his book “Unconventional Success,” Swensen states that real estate risks and returns fall somewhere between those of bonds and equities. Diversification in Real Estate Owning real estate investments remains one of the most effective means of growing wealth. Unlike traditional investment vehicles such as stocks, real estate is not tied to the stock market or the market fluctuations in major financial centers. Real estate is also the world’s oldest asset class. For centuries, real estate ownership has been the hallmark of the wealthy and elite in most societies. Stocks weren’t even invented until 1602 by the Dutch East India Company and to this day, real estate continues to make large numbers of millionaires, perhaps more than any other asset class. Since real estate is a tangible investment asset, it is more dependent on the local market. Therefore, in many areas, when the value of stocks and other traditional assets decline, the value of real estate investments may actually rise. In fact, if you look over the last 30 years, you can see that real estate has beaten the stock market by a significant margin. If there is one thing that remains the top priority for all investors, it's having a well-diversified portfolio. Real estate investment can play a vital role in optimizing portfolios.   ________________________________________________________________________________ DiversyFund’s crowdfunding platform is dedicated to offering everyone the opportunity to diversify their portfolio. We are opening up what used to be exclusive wealth building opportunities to everyone. Crowdfunding allows us to aggregate dollars to purchase real estate, we develop it manage it, receive the cash flow, and then divide the profits. We combined our decades of real estate expertise with technology to make investing even more cost-effective for people like you. Now, you don’t need to be a millionaire or an expert to invest in real estate. Multi-million dollar investment opportunities can be shared for as little as $5,000, and everyone can join in.

Do you want to make more money, build wealth, and live comfortably? If your answer is yes, read on. While many of us have jobs, freelance, or started businesses, a lot of us are also still living paycheck to paycheck and are figuring out how to take things to the next level and start to build wealth. Income is not wealth If you need to “work” to meet your financial needs, I’ve got bad news-- you’re not wealthy. Don’t get me wrong, I'm not suggesting that working hard is a bad thing.  Let's just draw the distinction between working hard at trading dollars for hours, verses making your hard earned money work for you. Don’t worry, being wealthy is not impossible. Most people believe the key to building wealth is getting a high-paying job. And so most of us tirelessly work long hours to amass more skills and climb the corporate ladder. While “income” and “wealth” go hand in hand, using the terms interchangeably is misleading. The most wealthy individuals don’t necessarily draw the highest levels of income. For example, top executives, celebrities, doctors, or professional athletes may have high salaries, but a lot of them cannot sustain their lifestyles without their careers. Many wealthy individuals, on the other hand, have never earned an exceptionally large paycheck. Being wealthy means you own things that generate your income for you. The income from your investments alone is enough to cover all your expenses and you do not have to trade your time for money. Wealth means you have freedom. Having income, on the other hand, simply means you earn compensation for performing a service, selling goods, or property. Passive income is also included, which would include income earned from financial investments. Wealth does not mean high income. Wealth means that you can walk out of your job right now and survive. So how do you build wealth? It’s simple and it takes commitment, but it sure beats having to rely on a paycheck all your life. Investopedia gives a simple 3-step way to generate wealth: make enough money, save it, and then invest it. Make enough money This may seem basic, but the most fundamental step before you can begin to save or invest to build wealth, is having a long-term source of income that covers your needs and have some left over. Save enough of it You make enough to pay for a nice apartment, pay off student loans, cover your credit card payments, get groceries, eat out when you want, travel occasionally, and buy the things you want. You live well and still have a little saved for a rainy day--but not enough. Sound familiar? There's only one reason why this occurs: your wants exceed your budget. You may think you don’t have enough to save, but chances are, you do. The most important step is to distinguish between what you really need and what you merely want. Get serious about your long term goals, put together a realistic budget, and stick to it. Before you know it, you can start making those savings work for you. Invest it Congratulations, you’re now making enough and saving enough and are ready to build wealth. You don’t have to be a genius to invest your money. All you need is a few basics, a plan, and the patience to stick to it. There is no guarantee that you’ll make money from investments you make. But if you get the facts about saving and investing and follow through with an intelligent plan, you should be able to gain financial security over the years and enjoy the benefits of managing your money. There are many different ways you can go about investing, including putting money into stocks, bonds, mutual funds, ETFs, real estate (and other alternative investment vehicles), among others. Every investment vehicle has its positives and negatives, and understanding how different types of investment vehicles work is critical to your success. How you choose to invest your money depends on your values, risk tolerance, and time horizon. And you need to ask the right questions. For example, what does a mutual fund invest in? Who is managing the fund? What are the fees and expenses? Are there any costs or penalties for accessing your money? These are all questions that should be answered before making an investment. When starting on your path to building wealth, take to heart the steps outlined above. If you’re ready to learn more, sign up to get access to our online training session and learn how to invest like the 1% by passively growing your wealth from Investment Expert, Alan Lewis. Visit our current investment options page to learn more about the latest offerings we have available for you. Happy Investing!

Site work has begun at Granito! Granito Investment Update April 2018 We are thrilled to report that we’ve broken ground on Granito. Site work and grading began in early April. Meanwhile, the local market remains incredibly strong. A nearby project just sold for a record $3,400/sf, which is great news for the neighborhood. Please visit our Real Estate investments page to learn more about new and alternative investment opportunities to diversify your portfolio. Happy Investing!

Pre-construction work is progressing at Park Blvd. Park Blvd Investment Update - April 2018 The permitting process is continuing as the city reviews the parking podium plans we’ve submitted. We’ve narrowed the list of General Contractors to three and will continue the selection process to make sure we get the best team for this job. Watch the brief video below to see what an exciting project Park Blvd will be. Please visit our Real Estate investments page to learn more about new and alternative investment opportunities to diversify your portfolio. Happy Investing!  

Construction is progressing at Monterey! Monterey Investment Update - April 2018 The roof is fully loaded with tile, tile is being installed and the final rough grading work is happening now. Rains delayed the work but the weather has cleared and work has resumed. The original plans were grandfathered in under an old fire code and after the recent forest fires in the Bay area, the City is requiring us to update to the new code, so we’re working through those revisions. In our last update we mentioned an interested buyer for the property, but unfortunately, we were unable to reach an agreement. The property will be listed in the next 30 days to attract any buyers looking for new product. Projected completion: September 2018 Please visit our Real Estate investments page to learn more about new and alternative investment opportunities to diversify your portfolio. Happy Investing!

Goshen is being rented! Goshen- Investment Update April 2018 We’ve rented out one unit and have listed the other units for rent. We are renting the units as short-term vacation rentals for the summer and plan to bring in long-term renters in the fall, in order to position the property for the most profitable exit. The property is attracting strong interest from potential renters. Once we’ve established the rent roll, we’ll be able to market the property. Projected completion: Done. Please visit our Real Estate investments page to learn more about new and alternative investment opportunities to diversify your portfolio. Happy Investing!

Felspar is going on the market! Felspar Investment Update April 2018 We’ve selected the realtor and the property is being pre-marketed. Finishes are being installed in preparation for listing the property for sale in May. Projected completion: Imminent Please visit our Real Estate investments page to learn more about new and alternative investment opportunities to diversify your portfolio. Happy Investing!

Costebelle is getting ready for market! Costebelle Investment Update - April 2018 Custom cabinets have been installed in the bathrooms and kitchen cabinet installation should be finished soon. Roman James is putting the finishing touches on the property so we can get final inspection and go to market in May. A similar off-the-water property in La Jolla, 921 Muirlands, recently went into escrow in the high 9 million range (was listed for 10.9M), which is great news for the project. Projected completion:  Imminent   Please visit our Real Estate investments page to learn more about new and alternative investment opportunities to diversify your portfolio. Happy Investing!

Have you ever wondered how long it would take to double your money? The timeframe could be anywhere from a few years to most of your lifetime, depending on the rate of return you’re earning. That brings us to the “Rule of 72.” What is the Rule of 72? The rule of 72 is a quick and easy way to estimate how long it will take to double your money at a given compound annual interest rate. Compound interest means that the interest you earn each period (month, quarter, etc.) is added to your principal and in turn, earns interest in future periods. This interest on interest allows your total balance to grow at an increasing rate as the amount of interest earned increases each period, even if you add nothing else to the account. For example, assume you deposit $5,000 in an account that earns 2%, compounded annually. In the first year you would earn $100 interest ($5,000 * 2%), in the second year you would earn $102 interest ($5,100 * 2%) and by the third year, you would earn $104 ($5,202 * 2%). Over time, compounding will allow your account to grow faster and faster, eventually doubling your money. The rule of 72 is used to estimate just how long this will take. How do you use the Rule of 72? To use the rule of 72, divide 72 by the annual rate of return you expect to earn on your investment. For example, if you put your money into an account earning 2% compounded annually, it would take 36 years to double (72/2). If your money earned 6%, it would double in just 12 years (72/6). Knowing this can help you make a plan to reach your goals. You’ll be able to estimate how much you need to save and what return that money will need to earn. You’ll find tips like this and other free planning tools on the US Securities and Exchange Commission information site: https://www.investor.gov/ How to make the Rule of 72 double your money faster One way to double your money faster is to put a portion of your portfolio into investments expected to earn a higher return. For example, the DiversyFund Income Fund pays quarterly distributions and has returned 11.5% annualized in its 5-year history. It targets annualized returns of 9-11%. Assuming it earns just the minimum target of 9%, using the rule of 72, you could expect to double your money in 8 years (assuming reinvestment of distributions). It’s important to remember that investment returns vary from year to year, but when planning for a long-term goal, the rule of 72 is a convenient way to estimate where you could be a few years down the road.   Who discovered the Rule of 72? This rule of thumb may be brilliant, but contrary to popular belief, it was not Albert Einstein who came up with it. The calculation has been around for hundreds of years and was first published in the late 1400s by Luca Pacioli, an Italian friar, and mathematician who helped develop modern accounting. (Source: Wall Street Journal, Saturday-Sunday June 17-18, 2017)

In this webinar, DiversyFund Co-Founder & Chief Investment Officer, Alan Lewis will teach you how to invest like a VC. He shares insider tips from his Wall Street career as both a corporate lawyer and an investment banker working for clients like Goldman Sachs and top VC firms. He uncovers the ONE core strategy you can use to invest like a Venture Capital firm WITHOUT taking on all the RISK associated with VC investments, plus: Why you don’t need Millions to invest like a VC How you can dramatically reduce investment risk with this little known Wall Street structuring secret 3 simple things VCs look for in a 10X investment    https://vimeo.com/265475880

Our CEO, Craig Cecilio, on the disrupting force of crowdfunding that is democratizing traditional real estate investing. An interview with the Entrepreneur Podcast Network, EPN. Click here to listen to this interview. You’re listening to EPN, the e-Podcast Network. Welcome to Enterprise Radio, the signature show of EPN, the Entrepreneur Podcast Network – your channel for exclusive interviews with entrepreneurs, small-business owners and some of the world’s top executives, who share business strategies and insights that can all help you build your business, leading to your business success. And now, broadcasting from anywhere between Brazil, South America to Los Angeles, California, it is your host, Eric Dye (ED). ED: This is Eric Dye and once again, welcome to Enterprise Radio, part of the EPN, the Entrepreneur Podcast Network. Today, we are speaking with Mr. Craig Cecilio, the CEO and Founder of DiversyFund, an online real estate crowdfunding platform, disrupting traditional real estate investing, based in San Diego, California. Mr. Cecilio, a pleasure to have you with us today on Enterprise Radio. CC: Great, thanks for having me on the show today! ED: You are welcome, our pleasure! So, tell us how your career began for starters and what has been your most rewarding professional experience so far. CC: Gosh! My career started a long, long time ago. I could always say that I was a serial entrepreneur, since I was a little kid, doing various jobs: having various newspapers, raking lawns when I lived on the east coast, owning a landscaping business at 14 years old. So, I always had the entrepreneurial spirit. When I went to college, I had various jobs there, where I was in some type of either sales or trading something, with that entrepreneurial kind of background. When I eventually moved out to California in 1997, I came up with an idea to just be an entrepreneur and I didn’t even know what that word actually was. It was just, kind of, to start my own business, and always be the guy in control, and always to run my own businesses. Along the way, I was able to meet a couple of people who introduced me to doing real estate syndication, and I kind of became a little obsessive about it and got involved in the real estate field. I’d say over the last 15 years, I’ve dedicated most of my time to real estate syndication and as I saw crowdfunding become popular with the JOBS Act and some of the laws and regulations that got enacted in 2013 and 2015, and I think a few of them were last year in 2016, I started venturing over into the crowdfunding field, which was combining real estate with technology. It got me really excited. Basically, at the end of the day, what we do today with the real estate crowdfunding is something that has been around for a long period of time, which is real estate syndication, but it’s using technology to aggregate more people, so you can accumulate more funds for projects. ED: Describe your investment platform and how that works, when we are talking about DiversyFund there. CC: Yeah, the platform itself is a vertically integrated real estate crowdfunding platform. What I mean by that is that all the projects that you see on our platform are owned by DiversyFund. So that means, when you come to invest with us, you actually own ownership in part of those projects. Other platforms are, what we call, lend-money-to-other-parties, which is more…those parties are considered sponsors in the real estate crowdfunding world; basically, you’re lending money to people to finance their real estate projects. ED: Now, from the start, in creating DiversyFund, what was your mission from the onset there? CC: Well, the vision with DiversyFund was to create a platform to give the customer, in this case, the investor, a unique experience by providing transparency, great reporting, and actually a great asset for them to invest in. With our experience - with my experience in being in real estate for over 20 years - we thought that the only way we could provide all of that was actually to create a vertically integrated platform to have control over the projects ourselves. In this manner, we could give the investors real-time updates, we could actually get them to see how the project’s being performed, how it’s being done, and actually allow us to have the quality control in place, just in case something was off the target, the plan for the investment. We also realized that by doing it this way, we could spend more of our time selecting better projects based on our experience of being in the real estate industry, the leadership team here, for over 20 years. We selectively choose the best projects in real estate throughout the country. ED: Today, we are speaking with Mr. Craig Cecilio, the CEO and Founder of DiversyFund, an online real estate crowdfunding platform, disrupting traditional real estate investing, based in San Diego, California, here on Enterprise Radio, a part of the Entrepreneur Podcast Network. Now, shifting gears a little bit back to entrepreneurship, were you ever influenced by other entrepreneurs along the way? CC: Yeah. My path crossed with a lot of people over the years; a lot of different people I had the fortune to meet. Definitely, I had the chance to study underneath them, to talk to them, to ask questions about them. But more importantly, I think, the biggest thing that I learned was how energetic they were, how much passion they had for what they were doing, how much confidence they had. Just generally, I was, kind of, attracted to them. They had that kind of “it” factor, I’d like to say, there’s almost that…you’re attracted to these individuals. They just had this, kind of, aura about them. It was, really, a great experience to share some of their experiences with myself. Just to listen to them, and to be able to pick their brain about things, and start studying some habits that they talked about, and to start to execute those things, and read the same books that they’ve read, and learn about some of their experiences; that was very, very fortunate experience to have. ED: Certainly, appreciate your sharing that. Now, back to DiversyFund, what differentiates you from other real estate crowdfunding companies in the market? CC: Well I think, first and foremost, we, the leaders of the company, the two principles of the company, myself and Alan Lewis, have been in the real estate field for about 20 years each. We’re not new to real estate investing. Secondly, we’ve owned companies before. It’s not our first go-around, starting a company and building the company out, building the infrastructure of a company and being entrepreneurs. It’s not the first time we’ve started a company as well. The other thing, I thought, was very unique about us is the vertically integrated platform. Along the way, we’ve had a fortunate set of circumstances happen, which we were able to not only invest in real estate but more social, impactful projects. What I mean by that is that if you look at some of the projects that we’re investing in, these projects have some type of impact upon society. Whether it’s revitalizing a blighted property and building a mixed-use, commercial property or partnering up with, I would say, one of the more innovative, well-known designers out there in the country. Taking the concept that’s in someone’s mind and put that and execute that and have that going towards real estate. Very, very fortunate for that to happen. Not only are our investors allowed to invest in real estate, they’re investing in real estate that has an impact upon society as well. ED: And what is the typical range of investment amounts that you receive and is there a minimum investment level required? CC: Well, right now, our minimum investment amount is about $5,000 dollars. As of…we are in the process of setting up a special fund, where we’ll take that investment dollar down to about $500 dollars. That should be launched in around April 2018; so, just a few months away from doing that. The barrier to entry is very low. Typically, these investments… the barrier to entry is a very high dollar amount. Most of our projects require about $5 to $10 million worth of funds; and traditionally, these funds were provided through hedge funds, large family offices or very, very wealthy people. But now, since we are able to aggregate investors through technology, we are actually allowing the average person to invest in these types of investments. Whereas in the past, they wouldn’t have a chance to do this. There’s no way that somebody was going to go out and recruit or solicit a low-dollar amount investor in these projects. It was very time-intensive. At the same time, a lot of brokers and broker-dealers out there are very motivated about their commissions. They’re going to spend their time more talking to someone who has a million dollars or five million dollars. They’re not going to spend their time talking to someone with $500 dollars or $1,000 dollars. So, our technology is allowing us to democratize the process, allowing an individual investor no matter what economic background they come from to participate in these investment opportunities. ED: Lastly, Mr. Cecilio, what advice would you give to someone looking to get started in investing via crowdfunding? Certainly, look forward to hearing your response in these regards. CC: Yeah, I mean, if you’re going to invest in our platform or somebody else’s, I would say, join up today, participate! Get out there, start with a low-dollar amount, get used to it. Definitely, participation is key here. The more people that participate in crowdfunding, especially real estate crowdfunding, we’ll see more change happen in the real estate environment. It’s a very low-dollar barrier to entry. We’re not asking for a hundred thousand dollars; we are asking today for as low as $5,000, tomorrow as low as $500. It’s great to have an alternative investment vehicle in your portfolio. I would say, if you haven’t tried it out, try it out! Participate! Help us help you. Help us, kind of, get this really going out there, get crowdfunding going so we make can make a difference; so we can change things and the way real estate is done in this country. ED: Mr. Cecilio, we certainly wish you continued success through DiversyFund. Thanks so much for spending a moment with us here today. Where can listeners get all the details on DiversyFund? CC: Very easy, go to www.diversyfund.com. There is a bunch of information on our website, as well as our social media. You can view our projects. View a bit more about our company and about our team as well. It would be great to have you join the team. ED: Again, thanks so much for your time and have a great and prosperous 2018. Thanks so much for joining us here today on Enterprise Radio. CC: Great, thanks for having me on the show; appreciate it! ED: You’re more than welcome! We have been speaking with Mr. Craig Cecilio, the CEO and Founder of DiversyFund, an online real estate crowdfunding platform, disrupting traditional real estate investing, based in San Diego, California. And for the details, visit diversyfund.com. And this is Eric Dye, and you’ve been listening to Enterprise Radio, a part of EPN, the Entrepreneur Podcast Network. Check out our new live location, as we are now streaming live 24/7 around the world at epodcastnetwork.com/live with a new app coming soon to accompany our live streaming in the coming weeks. You can also find our live stream on iTunes Radio and TuneIn Radio. As well as TuneIn Radio app for your listening convenience. And as always, we thank you for your support and for tuning in.  

Who says perfection is unattainable? Costebelle Investment Property Update March 2018 Issues with the custom cabinetry have delayed completion of the project. We expect to have the matter resolved in the next few weeks, at which time we will be able to clear the punch list items and finally list the house for sale. All furniture is in place and the Roman James team is adding final art pieces Projected completion: Imminent Please visit our Real Estate investments page to learn more about new and alternative investment opportunities to diversify your portfolio. Happy Investing!

Our Monterey property is getting noticed! Monterey Investment Property Update - March 2018 Approximately 80% of rough plumbing is in, venting and ductwork are in process and rain gutters are being installed on the roof, which has been fully loaded with roofing material. We have been approached by a possible buyer for the property and are currently in negotiations, but no contract has been signed as of this writing. Will keep everyone posted. Projected completion: August 2018 Please visit our Real Estate investments page to learn more about new and alternative investment opportunities to diversify your portfolio. Happy Investing!

Felspar nears the finish line! Felspar Investment Update March 2018 Electricity is live and the kitchen cabinets are being installed. The exterior finishes are almost complete. We are planning for final inspection by the end of April and are interviewing realtors for listing the project on the market. Projected completion: Spring 2018 Please visit our Real Estate investments page to learn more about new and alternative investment opportunities to diversify your portfolio. Happy Investing!

Goshen is just about ready for renters! Goshen Investment Property Update - March 2018 Great news! We passed our Final Inspection with the City and are clearing the remaining punch list items. We have engaged a leasing company to stage the property for rent and expect to begin marketing it soon. Our plan is to stabilize the project with renters prior to sale in order to maximize value. Projected completion: Done.   Please visit our Real Estate investments page to learn more about new and alternative investment opportunities to diversify your portfolio. Happy Investing!

Welcome to The Real Estate Way to Wealth and Freedom podcast, with Jacob Ayers. Providing actionable content to help you along your journey to financial freedom through real estate investing. As the premier asset class, real estate has helped ordinary people just like you amass fortunes. The benefits of passive income from real estate investing will allow you to live a life you want. And now, your host, entrepreneur, real estate investor, and apartment deal syndicator, Jacob Ayers. JA: Hi, and welcome to The Real Estate Way to Wealth and Freedom, episode 73. I’m your host, Jacob Ayers. Thanks so much for tuning in for yet another episode. Today’s topic is going to steam around the subject of technology. You see, technology is changing the way we do things in this life. From online dating to banking and even, the new craze, cryptocurrencies. Today we are going to talk about how technology is changing the way we invest in real estate. Our guest is Craig Cecilio. Craig is a principal at DiversyFund, Inc. and the founder and CEO of the California Coastal Funding Group. He has worked in the real estate industry for nearly 20 years. Over the course of his career, he’s participated in the development of over 1000 single-family residences in California. Craig also owns a California Licensed Real Estate lending business for residential renovations and ground up construction, a loan servicing business and a real estate crowdfunding website known as DiversyFund. Since 1997, Craig has financed nearly 1 Billion Dollars in real estate assets... having raised over 100 million dollars for debt or equity for real estate transactions in the last 3 years. He has developed and managed over 25 million dollars of residential property. Without further ado, let’s jump into today’s episode. All right, today we welcome to the show, Craig Cecilio. Craig, thanks for joining us. CC: Thanks, Jacob. Thanks for having me on the show today. AJ: It’s our pleasure Craig. Craig, can you tell our audience a little bit about yourself and how you started investing in real estate? CC: Well, the Real Estate goes way back, to even my childhood. I’ve always been one to venture off, kind of like an entrepreneur, and even as a young kid I was always doing lemonade stands, and doing landscaping, mowing lawns, all that type of stuff. As I entered the workforce, after attending school, it was kind of natural for me to gravitate towards real estate. I was raised in Connecticut and went to school in Colorado. Then I moved to California. Moved out here in 1997. I had a couple odd jobs. I was able to meet a couple of people who were very active in real estate investing and real estate syndication. They took me under their wings and taught me a few things. The rest is history. From there, since I got a little curious at an early age, I was kind of OCD about it and I dove deep into real estate syndication. With that being said, I took every job there was in real estate. Then I first started with my first companies in 2004. It was definitely within the technology environment. I was always a big advocate of technology. As I saw things progress over the years with my background in real estate syndication, I heard about crowdfunding. It was a natural fit for myself to get involved with that. I started DiversyFund in 2014, and by 2016 we had built out our platform to take online investments. At this point, we’ve got over $100 Million of assets under our management. AJ: Awesome, Craig. Craig, today we are going to focus our conversation around crowdfunding. Could you start by telling us what is crowdfunding and how does it work? CC: I think crowdfunding has been around for a long long time, but in the real estate field, it’s really real estate syndication leveraged by technology. So real estate syndication is when you get a group of people that gather to finance or fund a project. Crowdfunding is using technology to aggregate people, in this case, the crowd, to come together and to fund a particular project. In our case, we are able to take investors anywhere across the US, at very low dollar amounts, where we can leverage the technology to do a high dollar amount investing figure. For instance, if we want to do a raise of 5 million dollars. You get 10 thousand dollars, from… I think it comes to… if I’m doing my math correct, from 500 people to finance that transaction. Whereas, in the past, you were funding deals...you might do it, but you were just doing syndication to find 5 guys each with 1 million dollars to fund the project. So that’s the difference, using technology to add more people to get involved with a project. AJ: Craig, you really mention a couple of things on technology. It has really changed the way people invest today. How have you seen that technology has changed the way people are transitioning from syndication to crowdfunding in today’s environment? CC: It’s decreasing the barriers to entry. The guy with 100,000 dollars is probably not going to be called by the broker who is going to get a commission for 5 million dollars. He is not going to be motivated to call the guy with $10,000 dollars or $5,000 dollars or $500 dollars. Therefore, by that reason alone, most of the good high-quality investments go to people who are already wealthy, go to family officers, go to hedge funds, and go to institutions. The people who find the deals don’t want to spend time doing that. Through technology, we are able to have that segment of the population able to participate. AJ: Yes. Well, Craig, when you are reaching out to these people to develop this crowdfunding on, there are really 2 different ways you are funding these deals, that is through debt and equity, right? Could you explain to the audience the difference between debt and equity raising? CC: Well, DiversyFund is a vertically integrated platform. That means that we are, we actually aren’t the broker, we are not financing somebody else’s transaction. We actually own the real estate, we develop the real estate that you invest in, we offer equity participation and our investments function as debt in some form or manner. The reason we do this, and I’ll go ahead and tell you the difference here, is that we are a very good balance sheet because I used to own an investment firm before, and my partner came from the investment world as well. We are able to leverage the equity with the institutional and bank’s money. To us, that is a safer investment. Then, if you are doing debt, lending to somebody else, the bank said not to and that they had to get money through crowdfunding and that return to the people, to the investors, it’s going to be a double-digit return. You have to ask yourself, why are you investing in somebody who can’t get a bank loan? That’s a risk to your transaction. That is why we are more equity base. Debt base would be lending the money to somebody. Getting some monthly payments back, quarterly payments or deferred payments. Whereas equity is where you participate in these projects and most of the time you get paid when the project pays off. AJ: Yes, so it comes down to the risks in your profile from DiversyFund’s standpoint. From the investors' standpoint, is there a difference in preference you see for the investors whether they want to be debt or equity partners? CC: I would say there is an education process with the investors. We are focused on institutional quality. Using institutions to fund some of our transactions. With the debt piece and our entire account. I know some people go towards the debt instrument and they put all their money into that debt instrument because it is debt and it functions a little bit differently. The risk profile for us is that we believe ours is less risky than some of the debt instruments offered out there. The reason is that those people have not been qualified and approved by institutions. Therefore, there goes their credit scores and lack of experience. In that case, the chances of the project going south are much greater than we do on our platform itself. We have players’ experience. I have 20 years of experience. My partner has 15 years of experience. We have a great track record. Perfect track record with that being said. AJ: That leads up to the next question very well Craig. We are seeing a lot of crowdfunding platforms popping up all over - Realty Shares, Realty Mogul. All these different types of companies popping up. What sets aside DiversyFund? What are you guys doing differently? CC: First and foremost, we are a vertically integrated platform. That means, again, that we own the title of the property. That you have the ownership interest in the property. That is the biggest differentiator for us than everybody else. The second large differentiator, I believe is, it was founded by myself and Alan Lewis and both of us are real estate guys. Both of us were partners in previous investment firms. I’ve owned a real estate investment firm since 2004, been in real estate since 1998. Alan has been in real estate his entire career after he got out of Columbia Law School. He worked in corporate securities in Wall Street, and you have a couple of guys who not only have experience in real estate but at the same time, you have guys who actually have experience running companies and running this platform. The other platforms’ leadership, it may be the first time running a company and it’s also the first time for then running a company that is in real estate. Those are 3 major differences I would say. AJ: It’s not like you have a couple of tech guys who are just trying to figure out this real estate game. You guys really do have backgrounds in real estate and are bringing the technology piece to that. CC: Without a doubt. We have the battle scars to show that. AJ: Craig, so how are you and DiversyFund finding those deals and what kind of markets? CC: That’s a great question. This question, we get quite often, and I think that’s a very important question to ask. I don’t want to discourage people from getting involved in real estate and that is one thing I never want to tell someone, to not do something. At the end of the day, it does require experience to be successful at this. When my phone rings and it’s a guy who I’ve known for 20 years and is offering me an off-market deal. We established those connections going back in the day and having those relationships with those who also came out from the downturn. You know they are going to call someone where the deals are done, and they can make money with that person. That holds a lot of leverage for us getting our deals. We’ve been networking throughout the US. Very heavily in California right now. We have a great pipeline. We did 100 Million in 1 year. Right now, I have a pipeline of half a billion dollars just for California itself. We can take that same blueprint and put it across the whole US, but I think we might have to stop and do a little bit of internal searches. We have to look at other markets, but right now we are pretty well networked and a great pipeline going just because of having those relationships in place. Granted you have those relationships, you still have to do your underwriting and due diligence. We are able to pick projects that not only we believe are less risky, we are also choosing projects that have a social impact. In addition, we are doing projects with a world-renowned designer right now. There are a couple in Beverly Hills. We are building here in San Diego a 58-apartment unit, which we are trying to make as green as possible. Making it all to be able to hook up electric cars. Have all the spots hooked up to that because Teslas are really taking off now. There’s been an increase in electric cars out there. We are able to do stuff like that. AJ: Okay. Is there any one type of asset class Craig where you guys are focusing right now? Single-family developments, commercial? CC: That’s a great question as well. Our backgrounds are in both, so, based on the market we are choosing our investments wisely. I love the mixed-use commercial space. One of the projects we have, the one with the 58 units, I’ll probably get a couple more going like that this year. As far as doing the single-family estates, I really want something that pops well. We have a couple of projects up in the San Francisco Bay area, some locally here in San Diego, some in Orange County, in LA county… We are specifically targeting specific properties on that base. It’s a mixture of both. To answer your question directly, I would like to see a portfolio mixed with 80% commercial by the end of next year. AJ: Okay. Craig, is there a type of investors for whom these types of investments are best suited for? CC: I would say, everybody. I would say, anybody. Anyone who is not into alternative investment, anyone who is not into real estate, they should get their feet wet. They should go for a lower dollar amount. $1000 dollars, $2,000 dollars, $5,000 collars. Someone who wants to learn about real estate because we have full transparency. We get investors monthly updates on all our projects. They can participate as well. We have a lot of older people. Retirees who want to build wealth and have passive income. They invest as well. Everybody from anywhere. We have people who invest just because they want to say, “Hey, I own that project. I own that.” We are building a house right now in Beverly Hills that is pretty cool looking. Some people want to say, “Hey, I was part of that. I am part owner of that project.” For that sense of pride and awareness of doing something like that. AJ: Not just with the novelty of things, but I’m sure that being able to be a passive investor in these higher-end gives something of value to those types of folks as well. CC: Yes, without a doubt. In the past, like I was saying before, the very first entry was high. No one was going to call you on a 5 million dollar equity transaction if you have $10,000, $5,000 or even $50,000. You were shut out of that whole community. How do you ever engage in that? How do you learn about it? We are offering that opportunity now to everybody. AJ: Yes. Craig, let’s maybe take an example. Let’s do a bit of role play here. Let’s say you have an investor that calls you and he is looking to invest, let’s say a small amount of $10,000. What is that initial process going to look like for them and how are you going to place them on a bill of any kind? What will they pick? Is it all in a general fund? Or, do they invest in a certain property? How does all that look? CC: It’s all automated right now. It’s all on the website, www.DiversyFund.com. You go there, you can hover over to offerings. We have single assets to participate in, we have a couple of alternative assets up there, and we have a fund up there as well. The fund is collateralized against all the assets. You can pick and choose what you like. You go in, you click on it and it will ask you series of questions, get a user and a login. Then, you can go in, log in. We have all the material, all the underwriting back on the website. All the equity to read and look at. Hopefully, it has all your questions answered. That’s what we are learning. When a customer comes and asks us a question, we make sure the next offering is updated to include those questions. That is all automated and saved automatically into an account for you. You have your own user account. Then you’ll get a couple of emails after that. Your investment goes live after the qualification stage. Then you can start looking at your portfolio and the interest that you are earning on your money. It’s all on the backend of the website. AJ: Okay, now Craig. This deal that maybe the investors are going to decide to invest in, is it already fully funded, and you are just placing people in there to place capital there? Or, is it not even technically bought yet? CC: It’s a little bit of both. In some cases, we might pre-fund to close a transaction. In some cases, its a long-term escrow. It’s a combination of both. AJ: Okay. Craig, I noticed you said a lot of your investors preferred equity investments. Can you talk about what that is? CC: Preferred equity return, and how we define it (we know a lot of us define things in different ways) is that you receive the money when the asset is disposed of. An asset is disposed of in many ways. One is, for example, we are building a new house. Let’s say, when the home sells, you receive your principal plus your interest earned at that time. On another hand, if we decided at that point in time to refinance that asset, go to a bank and get a refinance loan, at that point in time, you get your principal back plus interest as well. There’s a couple of exit strategies to get your capital back in that form. What also happens is that preferred equity situation is, the way it works for us is, that we are the developer of these transactions. We don’t get paid until you get paid first. You get your principal, your interest, and we keep whatever is left over. Our interests are very aligned for us to fulfill offerings, make sure that we are completing those projects. We only benefit financially in the end. After you benefit. AJ: That’s really reassuring for the investor to know that they have to get paid first before DiversyFund does. So, you know, you aren’t just going to run off with their money. You have your interest ahead of the investors. CC: Yeah. At the end of the day, you have to have interests that are aligned with yourself and your investors. It has to be a win-win situation for both parties. It can’t be a win-lose situation. AJ: Craig, talking about the regulatory environments. What should the investor know going in about the regulatory compliances that they have to follow? Is there any responsibility on the investor to do any of those types of things? CC: It depends on the offering type. What’s great about the JOBS Act and with crowdfunding today is that we do a Title 2C offering. We are going to have a Reg A+ offering on our site hopefully sometime in February or March. Those types of offerings work differently. In one of them, we can do general solicitations to anyone to invest at any point in time. This wasn’t true up until 2015. You had to either know someone ahead of time or had to be a friend of a friend. That’s how you were referred, by established relationships. This is the first time ever that this is available to the general public. With that being said, a Title 2C offering means that you have to be verified as an accredited investor and that is all automated with the process on the website. It is going to send you some forms from our 3rd parties. They are going to ask you for some forms to fill out. Where the Reg A+ offering is something that is open to anybody regardless of economic status or income status. That is something that we have actively processed through the SEC today and since they gave us approval that will open up to the general public and that one will have an entry level as low as $500. You go through a process of, you basically say, you don’t have to disclose your income at all to do that. What I always recommend everybody is that, “hey, this an alternative investment vehicle, make sure you have a very well-balanced portfolio and that you understand a little bit about alternative investments. How they work and don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Diversify. AJ: What do you mean exactly by alternative investments, Craig? CC: Traditional investments are stocks, bonds, and cash. Anything outside of that is considered an alternative investment. Real estate is considered an alternative investment. Oil and gas are alternative investments. Most people, the common person hasn’t really heard about alternative investments, hasn’t had a chance to participate and invest in real estate. Unless you are a doctor or an attorney or a professor, you might have financial advisors. Someone who has your money in stocks, bonds, money market accounts, etc. In a nice one, you get 3 or 4% return. You aren’t really getting these double-digit returns on your money. You are not diversifying your portfolio into your other categories. We are providing a way for you to diversify your portfolio with a very low dollar amount. Traditionally you would have to stick 1 Million Dollars or a couple hundred thousand dollars in something to participate in these. Now at the very end, it’s lower from $500 to $1000 to $5,000. AJ: Okay, really good. Craig, what are some of the benefits to an investor investing in a crowdfunding platform such as DiversyFund vs going out and doing their own investments, per se, buying a duplex or a complex or something of that nature? CC: It’s like having a second job. If you are going to do that, you have to become an expert in another field. I think most of us don’t want to become experts. We want to have our regular job and do what we are doing. We want to have our money grow passively as well, so we don’t have the education or even more so the time to do that. A lot of people are in stocks and bonds like I was talking about before. They are online doing this. Now, imagine doing that same thing online with real estate. That’s what crowdfunding provides. AJ: Okay. Are there any benefits for the investor not going to see and invest in a crowdfund whereas if they are investing alone themselves such as tax benefits? The power of leverage? All of those types of things? CC: There are a lot of differences, I would say. I would say, this is more of a passive income than an active income stream for somebody. It’s not for someone to go out and go back to re-school themselves on things. With that being said, the time that it takes to educate yourself about real estate, to develop the relationships in real estate, to go in and learn your lessons in real estate, that takes some time. You are going to have some loss of opportunity right there. I think, before anything, everybody should go out and do whatever they would like. I don’t want to take that away from them. If everyone wants to go out and buy a duplex or buy apartments, but there is a learning curve to do it, and some people just don’t want to do that. They want to have the benefits of making money, need a little bit less money, so they can do it this way passively instead of actively. AJ: Some find out the hard way, Craig, that there is not a passive investment when you are going out and buying these things. I know personally because that is what I do. You are right. There is definitely a curve of learning what real estate really is, how to invest in it, being certain of these deals… buying them, managing them, attending them. There’s a lot of stuff that goes into investing in real estate that people, I think, have this misunderstanding that investors are sitting on a beach, drinking mojitos. The fact is that they are actually being a very active investor. CC: Yes, if you are getting into duplexes and triplexes and that type of stuff, your phone rings and you have to manage that property with all sorts of issues. It’s very time-consuming. At the same time, you are not just managing real estate. You have to manage people. You can rent it yourself. There are a lot of moving parts. AJ: Yes, definitely. Craig, for the investor out there who is considering investing in crowdfunding opportunities, what are some of the things those types of people should be looking for? CC: I always start with the operators. Look who is running the platform first. After that, look to see who is running the project. In our case, we are doing both at the same time. We run the platform and we run the projects. Take your time to do the due diligence. Then look at the particular assets. Is it something that you feel comfortable investing in at the end of the day. If you do and you want to give it a shot, I would say, start out with a small percentage first and see how you like it. See how you like the customer experience, see how you like the company you are working with, and see how you like the asset you are in. I think this is something here to stay. It’s a good thing to get involved. We are in the first stages with everything. Out of all the companies out there, there probably are less than ten, I would say are crowdfunding platforms in real estate. There is not a lot out there. There are a lot of new ones out there. Be patient, do your due diligence, ask the right questions and hopefully people participate, because with the participation we are going to see some great things happen. We are going to see things change in the whole dynamic of raising money in developments and real estate. I want us to be at the forefront of that. We are going to see many things throughout the whole country in this. AJ: There is such optimism there, Craig. I think these are really exciting times with looking at it and the way technology is opening up new opportunities in different ways to invest in these large deals for every-day investors. Really exciting stuff and I’m glad you guys are making opportunities like that available to investors. CC: I appreciate it. It’s great. It’s exciting, and it’s big goals for us. At the end of the day, when I’m staring out the window in my office in San Diego, and someone approaches us and says, “Hey, Craig, we want to redevelop the waterfront area, but the numbers don’t make sense with the banks to get it done. Do you guys want to crowdfund that?” We throw it on our platform and people participate to improve actually the city here. Those are some of the things we are going to see evolve with time. Where people are more going into these projects just not for monetary reasons but to improve areas. Just think about that, and how we can change just the infrastructure of our country with that. It is just at the beginning stages right now. AJ: Yes, definitely. It’s really exciting and I’m looking forward to seeing how that changes the landscape of investing going forward. Craig, as we are wrapping up here, we got a lightning round. It’s a series of 5 questions we would like to fire in action for you to answer from the hip. How does that sound? CC: Sure, go ahead. AJ: All right. Craig, what was your biggest hurdle getting started in real estate and how did you overcome it? CC: I don’t know if I really had any hurdles with it in light of everything. You know, your first time, you are in voraciously raising capital, it’s the same as everybody else’s. It’s all your experience in doing it. The first time doing it and getting someone to believe in you. That comes down to your character and what you have done in your past. Whatever you are doing in the past, what you are doing currently and what you want to get involved with it. You need to do it well because people are not going to go with you, having a good work ethic and then go back to you. AJ: Okay, awesome. Craig, do you have a personal habit that contributes to your success? CC: I am always forward thinking. I am always solution based. I never go into a situation with a, “oh, I have an issue here.” I go in with a, “here are 3 ways to solve that”. AJ: Yes, okay, good. Craig, do you have an online resource you find valuable? CC: You know, not recently. Just watch the news. I don’t have anything online that I really find that I am learning from as much. I think in the past, I was fortunate enough to surround myself with some great people. Maybe I listened to them a little bit on things. But no, I don’t have a resource online that is the end-to all online right now. Investopedia, just for definitions. AJ: I like it. It’s really hard to replace that face-to-face value that you get on the personal level of networking. Next question is, what book would you recommend to our listeners and why? CC: I love books. I have a really old version of Napoleon Hill’s Laws of Success. It’s a hardback, brown cover, it’s a very thick book, it’s 1500 pages. I’ve read it 10 times. It goes into there and goes over all the characteristics that you need to have to be successful. He says you need to have 20 for 20. You need to have them all. You can’t just have 1. He gives examples of people who maybe had 18 out of 20 or 19 out of 20. And there are some people that you would recognize in there who are successful but not really successful. Some very bad people. That’s one of my favorite books. I would say it’s great. It’s a great read. AJ: Okay, great. Craig, if you were to give any advice to your 20-year-old self to get started investing in real estate, what would it be? CC: I would have bought more real estate back then. AJ: That’s what everyone says: start sooner, do more. It’s like every real estate investor wishes they would have done more sooner. CC: Well, I like where I am today. I would say to anyone else starting, I would say just do it. Get out there and do it. A balance of preparing and taking action. You need a balance of both. You need to actually read some stuff, learn some stuff, and take action. Sometimes you just have to take action. AJ: Right. Well, Craig is there any parting piece of advice you would like to leave for our audience before we wrap up? CC: If you are not involved with crowdfunding, I’d love for you to get involved. Either try our platform or someone else’s. The more people that participate in it, the more we’ll see change happen in real estate environments. AJ: Awesome. Craig, thanks so much for all this information today. You’ve really given us some insight around crowdfunding and the ins and outs of that. Where can our audience find more about you and investments if they have any questions? CC: There is a lot about me on the website, www.DiversyFund.com. That is connected to all our social media outlets as well. You can easily follow us there as well. Or myself, personally you can follow me on Instagram or Twitter as well. AJ: Awesome. We’ll link all those links in the show notes Craig. Thank you for your time today. CC: Thanks, Jacob. I appreciate it. AJ: Thank you!

Investor and Company Growth In 2017, DiversyFund had many successes and achievements. We surpassed $100 million in completed value in commercial and residential real estate developments. Additionally, the public and media continue to recognize our unique approach to alternative investing. For example, our CEO & Founder, Craig Cecilio, was featured on the New York Stock Exchange's Cheddar TV, Bloomberg Radio and US News & World Report. As we continue to establish ourselves as a leader and disruptor in the real estate development industry, we are also seeing impressive investor growth. With investor growth comes staff growth to manage increases in investments and demand. Recently, we hired two new Account Representatives, Adriana Escobedo, and Abraham Karr. Additionally, we hired a Director of Marketing, Vanessa Allen. To learn more about them, please read on. New Account Representatives Adriana Escobedo Sales Experience: Prior to working at DiversyFund, I worked in the medical tourism industry. Our company had people from the U.S. and Canada travel to Mexico with board-certified surgeons. I also worked as a sales associate at J. Crew during my time in college. What do you like so far: I like that there is a strong sense of teamwork within the company as well as upper management. I am definitely learning a lot from everyone here. It's also exciting to be part of something so innovative and disruptive. What excites you about talking to our investors about DiversyFund? The fact that we're making investments in real estate a possibility for everyone. Something that was previously not within reach of the everyday investor. Additionally, we are doing it in such an innovative and unique manner, it has been a pretty awesome experience so far working here. Do you have previous Investing Experience? Prior to working here, I have had no experience working in real estate or investing. However, I am definitely learning a lot from everyone in the office as well as upper management. Our Director of Sales, Sean has also been a great mentor to learn more about how I can improve our investor's experience. Goals here at DiversyFund: To learn from everyone on the team and help grow and scale the company to eventually become the Amazon of real estate crowdfunding. Hobbies: I love spending time with my family. I also enjoy a delightful book and a nice cup of tea Hometown: Tijuana, Mexico. What's one thing about you that surprises people? When I was 20, my best friend and I won a contest for a Mexican airline called Volaris. We won unlimited free flights all over Mexico and the U.S. for a year. To say it was an awesome experience to be able to travel the US and Mexico for free for an entire year. Favorite place to travel to? Anywhere new. Favorite book? Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell Anything that you are excited about coming in 2018? Started a new job at here at DiversyFund! Abraham Karr  Sales Experience: Previously, I was an Account Rep for Mortgage Service Products. Similar to my position here at DiversyFund I would add value to the broker client base thorough knowledge of our products, services and underwriting guidelines. I would answer any client questions and respond to loan status inquiries during processing. What do you like so far: I enjoy being able to help our investors with answering any questions or concerns that they might have. I also like describing some of our investment offerings to them because of the fact that they are so exciting and modern. I can't wait till later this year when I can invest in our offerings my self as well as see the maturity of some of our investments. What excites you about talking to our investors about DiversyFund? I enjoy again answering any questions or concerns as well as learning about their investment background. Listening to their stories and experiences have also helped me learn as well on how to improve our investor experience. Do you have previous Investing Experience?: I have experience in real estate as I was previously an Account Rep selling Mortgage Service Products. Goals here at DiversyFund: To increase the number of investors in Park and Granito. My goal is to also ensure that every one of our investors has the best investing experience with us at DiversyFund Hobbies: I enjoy being outdoors, exercising and just being active overall in general. Hometown: Houston, Texas Favorite place to travel to? Europe Favorite book? The Law of Success by Napoleon Hill Anything that you are excited about coming in 2018? Getting to see the completion of the Costebelle home and achieve my goals here with DiversyFund. Vanessa Allen, Director of Marketing Previous Experience if Relevant: I’ve worked for companies in many different industries, from sporting goods to window treatments, office supplies to gourmet food gifts, international travel programs to SaaS technology platforms. In all of these roles, I headed up marketing programs that grew awareness about the company and its products or services and fostered engagement and loyalty with customers. I enjoy creating marketing programs that enlighten consumers about a solution to a problem, or a new way to achieve something that matters to them. Sales Experience: When marketing and sales teams work in tandem, we’re more effective at engaging our customers for the benefit of all - especially for creating a positive customer experience. It’s a relationship I always strive to develop. What do you like so far: I like contributing to something big! I’m lucky to be joining a team that already has momentum and now we have the opportunity to really scale up our reach and impact. What excites you about talking to our investors about DiversyFund? On the marketing side of the team, I won’t often talk directly to our investors, but I get to “listen” to them through our social media channels, seeing what they like and respond to. It’s great to have channels for immediate feedback. Real Estate/Investing Experience?: I’m a homeowner, and that’s the biggest real estate investment I’ve made so far, and I’m glad I did! Goals here at DiversyFund: My goals include reaching out to as many potential investors as possible and to help convince them to trust DiversyFund with their investment dollars. Hobbies: I try to be active and I practice yoga, swim, and hike. I also love to read and have recently started to listen to audiobooks on my hikes - two birds with one stone! Hometown: La Mesa, CA. What's one thing about you that surprises people? Gingerbread cookies. It’s not Christmas without them! I bake them every year, and my friends and family look forward to them. Whenever I meet someone who thinks gingerbread is icky, I try to convince them to try a bite of one of my cookies. I love it when they are pleasantly surprised at how good they are. I use a recipe that’s been handed down through many generations of my family. Favorite place to travel to? Haiti. I visited Haiti in 2000 with friends and in support of a non-profit organization that provides education and development in a rural town on the southern peninsula. I’ve traveled there as often as possible ever since, and it’s become a second home. I’ve made wonderful friends there who are like family now - and I still support the same organization, as well as others. Favorite book? The one I just finished. Seriously, there’s too many to pick one. But a recent standout: The Woman Who Lost Her Soul, by Bob Shacochis. (Don’t worry, it’s fiction, not instruction!) I’d read it again if I didn’t have a stack of new books to tackle. Anything that you are excited about coming in 2018? Our Reg A+ investment offering!        

David Swensen, the manager of Yale University’s $27 billion endowment fund, is regarded as one of the greatest investors in history and for good reason, as the fund has averaged a 12.5% per annum return for thirty years (source). His strategy in building the esteemed university’s fund is predicated around simple, common-sense investing. He detailed this strategy in the 2005 book “Unconventional Success,” which translates his theory of building an investment portfolio for an Ivy League University into something anyone can understand. Throughout the book, Swensen stresses two points that he believes are essential for any investor: Maintain a 20% portfolio allocation to real estate Choose to invest only in low fee opportunities Why real estate? Swensen strongly supports the concept of portfolio diversification. His reasoning for this is simple and harkens back to the old saying “don’t put all your eggs in one basket.” Spreading a portfolio across an array of asset classes reduces risk while allowing for increased returns. Real estate is one asset class Swensen recommends investors allocate anywhere between 15 and 20% of a portfolio into. Since real estate responds to different market forces than stocks or bonds, this insulates a portion of your portfolio from market corrections and crashes. In “Uncommon Success,” Swensen states that real estate risks and returns fall somewhere between those of bonds and equities. But his book was written in 2005, years before crowdfunding platforms like DiversyFund made it easy for the everyday person to participate in real estate investments. In 2005, the easiest way for the typical investor to have portfolio exposure to real estate was through REITs, which are largely publicly traded stocks that have some degree of correlation to traditional equities. Today, DiversyFund is making it easy to invest like Swensen through their online platform. Technology and the power of crowdfunding have made real estate investing for the typical investor simple. It’s never been easier to add real estate and diversification, to your portfolio. And just like Swensen our [caption id="attachment_16278" align="alignright" width="309"] Yale University[/caption] real estate projects are all vetted by our professional team of experts. We bring top-quality real estate investments to your portfolio and you don’t need millions of dollars to get started anymore.     No fees In addition to an in-depth discussion of his allocation strategies, Swensen stressed the damages he claims actively-managed mutual funds have caused average investors. These funds typically charge high fees in exchange for management expertise that allows an investment to “beat the market.” However, these funds frequently fail to do just that. DiversyFund goes beyond the low-fee approach to investing by charging users no fees for using its platform. Our team takes our profits only after our investors get their share first. This differs from the actively-managed mutual funds that Swensen criticizes. And it also differs from other real estate crowdfunding platforms, which routinely charge fees to users for access. David Swensen became a legend by maintaining a stellar track record as the head portfolio manager for Yale’s endowment fund using his tried and true strategy of keeping at least 20% of the portfolio in alternative assets. At DiversyFund, we’re offering everyday investors a chance to follow in Swensen’s footsteps by making real estate investing and diversification accessible to all investors. You now have your own chance to invest like a legend. Visit our investments page by clicking here and learn more about our latest offerings. Happy Investing!  

The Average Joe, Where to Begin? If you wanted to start investing in real estate, how would you do it? Would you drive around your local neighborhoods looking for homes to flip? Would you call a financial advisor to lock away a lump sum in a REIT? Chances are you probably don’t know where to start, and that’s because the typical investor has never had a straightforward way to participate in real estate investments. Craig Cecilio and Alan Lewis have almost 40 years of combined real estate experience. With backgrounds in residential real estate and investment banking, respectively, they bring with them the knowledge needed to be successful in the real estate world. Throughout their careers, they both realized that the dilemma of getting started in real estate investing is commonplace among the retail investor, as there has never been an easy way to gain access to quality alternative asset investments.   Breaking Down Barriers For too long, the archaic process of real estate investing was limited only to the well-connected and privileged few. Getting in on a good real estate deal required overhearing a whisper at a cocktail party or playing with the right foursome on a golf course. It required a seven-figure bank account and a Rolodex of lawyers, architects, developers, and brokers. Beyond that, without the patience and expertise of a seasoned veteran to parse through markets, the chances of finding a profitable deal were slim to none. Craig and Alan both agreed on access to these investments needed to change, as all investors should have access to quality real estate investments. From this belief, they built DiversyFund. DiversyFund’s online crowdfunding platform gives the Average Joe the opportunity to participate in the same high-caliber investments as the wealthy and well-connected -- all from an online platform that brings the investments to you.   DiversyFund's Team of Experts Craig, Alan and the DiversyFund team have leveraged their expertise in the real estate industry to change the real estate investing world. Each project is vetted by our experienced team and managed in-house, giving investors transparency from start to finish. DiversyFund also works with trusted and proven architects to design the project and oversee its construction, and selects top-quality brokers to see the project through final sale. Other real estate crowdfunding platforms act as a middle-man. They take investors’ money, give it to a developer and charge you a fee for investing. Other options like REITs involve high fees and low transparency. Not DiversyFund. The company does not make a dime until its investors do. And with low minimums, no-fee opportunities, access to real estate investments has never been easier. Craig and Alan both wanted to give the Average Joe the opportunity to invest. They wanted to change the world of real estate.   That change has come.

The Felspar Investment Property Update for this month includes great progress! Felspar Investment Property Update February 2018 Stucco color coat, roof, and drywall are complete, and interior walls have been primed. Tile work started this month and the kitchen cabinets have been ordered. The water line was connected to the water meter and the concrete crew is ready to start grading, pending a green light from the inspector. In these pictures, you can see our team working in both the interior and exterior. The last few pictures show some of the tile selections that are coming to the property as well. Projected completion: Spring 2018 Felspar Investment Property Update February 2018 from DiversyFund Follow this link and learn about the latest investment opportunities we are offering. Happy investing!

The Goshen Investment Property Update for February 2018 brings very exciting news! Goshen Investment Property Update February 2018 SDG&E has connected gas and electric meters, and rough and finish cleaning is completed. The contractor is finishing the punch list items and we are awaiting final certificates of occupancy from the city. We are evaluating property managers in anticipation of leasing the property. Projected completion: Imminent Please enjoy the pictures below including the latest view of the Kitchen/Entertainment area. This property is almost ready! Goshen Investment Property Update - February 2018 from DiversyFund Follow this link and visit the latest options for investments at DiversyFund. Happy Investing!

The Monterey Investment Property Update is here! Monterey Investment Property Update February 2018 In the last month, batts for roof tile were installed, improvements were made to soils at the driveway area (per soils engineer recommendation), and the fire line was installed, as required by the fire department. The design team is working on giving us at least 2 options for each trade so we can make the design selections. Projected completion: Summer 2018. Monterey Investment Property Update - February 2018 from DiversyFund We invite you to visit our investments page and learn more about our current investment options. Happy Investing!

The Costebelle Investment Property Update brings you a closer look at the final touches in this property! Costebelle Investment Property Update February 2018 As you can see in this month's pictures, a great selection of furniture and fixtures gives this house a modern and clean look. Roman James and his team are putting the final touches on the property so it can go on the market. Projected completion: Imminent Costebelle Investment Property Update February 2018 from DiversyFund Finally, we are inviting all our investors to Follow this link and learn more about our current investment options. Happy Investing!

A father doesn’t always know best when it comes to investing. Your parents have likely told you about the importance of saving and investing. Starting at an early age and they’re right.   Your parents may have even told you about the importance of diversifying investments, they’re right about that, too. But they likely associate diversification with investing across various equity stocks, mutual funds, and bonds. And while those are certainly beneficial there are other ways to elevate your portfolio beyond the old-school strategies. Consider alternative assets for example. “Alternative asset” is a broad term that simply refers to an investment other than stocks, bonds or cash. Futures, commodities, precious metals and real estate all fall under the alternative category. Alternative assets can help diversify any investment portfolio. This is because they tend to have a low correlation to the stock market. Meaning large swings in the stock market won’t necessarily coincide with large swings in the prices of alternative assets. For investors, diversifying with alternative assets could reduce exposure to the whims of a volatile stock market. Easily, that can shoot up 30% in a year, only to come crashing down a few days later. Take real estate for example. Real estate offers a buffer against volatility. Property values do not respond to the same forces that move the prices of stocks and bonds. Thus, the value of real estate investments does not typically follow wild swings in the stock market. Any number of items – from location, number of bathrooms in a home, the reputation of the local school district – can move the price of real estate. So if real estate is important, why didn’t mom and dad invest in it? For one, the traditional ways of real estate investing are expensive and require days of labor to fix and flip a single property. Even more, the best real estate deals tend to be exclusive to only the wealthy and well-connected. But the investment world is ever-changing and the introduction of technology has opened up a range of investment options never available to your parents. Now through the power of crowdfunding and online technology, the next generation of investors can gain the diversification and capital appreciation that mom and dad never had. You don’t need millions of dollars and Wall Street connections to add real estate to your portfolio anymore.You don’t need to spend hours fixing up that old property you can’t wait to be rid of. Dramatic sell-offs on Wall Street have likely damaged your parents’ portfolios in the past, but you don’t have to go down the same path. Instead, you can allocate a portion of your invested cash into real estate and see the rewards of a truly diversified portfolio. After all, father doesn’t always know best.

Being that security is a top concern for our investors, we make it our top priority at all times. Developing an online platform that involves personal data and financial information is a challenge in many ways. While the participation process must be flawless for the user, the user’s private information must also remain secure. At DiversyFund, we knew this from the moment we decided to create a vertically integrated platform for real estate crowdfunding investments. We knew that customers’ personal and financial information needed the right set of security tools to try to avoid the data breaches that seem to be very common in this day and age. This is why we have integrated a number of security measures into our platform, which strives to protect our investors' confidential information. What systems are in place to keep my information secure? To start, our platform is fully encrypted with an SSL (secure sockets layer) certificate issued by Avast Security. Just look in the top left-hand corner, you will see a green lock showing you the SSL is installed and working properly on our platform. Furthermore, the platform undergoes a daily check for any malicious behavior and will automatically block suspicious activity. DiversyFund has partnered with VerifyInvestor and FundAmerica to provide top-notch security to investors throughout the entire investment process. FundAmerica has been in business since 1987 and VerifyInvestor since 2013, and both are leading providers for investors and their investments. Now that you have a general idea of how we are keeping your information secure, let’s go into greater detail on how each system specifically works to keep your personal information secure at all times. WP Engine Upon visiting our website, you are already secure likely without even realizing it. Through WPEngine, our hosting and security provider, our platform undergoes numerous daily checks to ensure your information remains secure on our platform. From entering your information into our registration form all the way to your investment and everything in between, your personal information remains fully encrypted. Additionally, through their security measures, it means our platform is PCI compliant. With WPEngine blocking more than 150 million attacks on a monthly basis, you can rest easy knowing your information is secure. But, how are they really protecting my personal information? Threat detection and blocking. Their platform dynamically inspects traffic, looking for new kinds of attacks, or patterns of requests from certain locations that indicate nefarious activity, and they block many of those attacks automatically. Their rules evolve constantly to match the ever-evolving hackers' tactics. Blocking web application attacks. Their systems proactively block numerous web attacks and flaws at both the NGINX layer, as well as within WordPress itself. Proactive security maintenance. Their engineers perform maintenance regularly where they develop custom plugins to further protect your information when vulnerabilities are uncovered. Furthermore, their system checks for corrupted or insecure files, which are automatically disabled. Disk write protection and limitation. Hackers are creative, which means we have to be too. For this reason, there is a detailed log kept of each time the disk is accessed. Additionally, they are protected by limiting what can be written to the disk, so malicious code or vulnerabilities cannot be exploited easily. Through these meticulous security measures taken by WP Engine, we are able to provide investors with peace of mind knowing their information is safe on our real estate crowdfunding platform. VerifyInvestor Now that you’ve registered on the website and feel safe browsing through our investments, you may be wondering how we continue to keep your information safe throughout the life of the investment and we don’t blame you! Upon choosing an investment to invest in on our platform, you will need to verify your accredited investor status. This process is carried out by a third-party company called VerifyInvestor, which has been in business since 2013 and has never experienced a data breach. How does VerifyInvestor protect my personal information? Their security measures extend four levels, which include: 128/256-bit data encryption, Extended Validation SSL, daily vulnerability/malware scanning, and a system of firewalls. Each level of security provides comprehensive protection for all of your information and here’s how: Encryption is a series of approaches that privatizes personal information in their databases and while it travels to and from their servers. 128/256-bit scrambles your data and ensures it is secure to the point where it's inaccessible to hackers without a uniquely generated key. The Extended Validation Secure Socket Layer (SSL) certificates are the most trusted option for SSL in modern browsing. EV SSL is a system of validation that requires extensive certification and testing on their end to certify that investors are who they claim to be. Their EV SSL provider is VeriSign, the most trusted provider in this field. Moreover, Symantec gives power to this tool, which is known for providing security solutions to 100% of the Fortune 500 companies. Symantec performs daily vulnerability assessment and malware scanning of the VerifyInvestor platform. Finally, VerifyInvestor's firewalls restrict access from external networks and even between internal connections. By default, they deny access to everyone and they only ever allow it upon request. During maintenance, they allow partial access which they are meticulously analyzing during this time. Even with this level of security, VerifyInvestor takes it one step further when it’s time to enter your information into their system. They protect investor’s information with the following 3 steps: Robust security protocols described above. The site provides investors with the ability to hide the personally identifiable information on the documentation they upload. This helps ensure that even the reviewers will not see the investor’s highly sensitive information. Of course, from time to time, reviewers need part of the information from the redaction for verification. In that case, the reviewer may ask the investor to modify the redaction or for an explanation. A licensed attorney conducts all reviews, and they are bound by ethical duties and professional responsibilities to keep the information confidential. Want to know more about VerifyInvestor’s security measures? Click here to learn more. FundAmerica Finally, when you are ready to make an investment in one of our available opportunities, FundAmerica will come into the picture. FundAmerica is the software system that enables us to legally and efficiently fund our investment opportunities. Their system offers easy-to-implement tools for some of the most complicated back-office pieces of the fundraising process. Using FundAmerica allows us to have access to: escrow accounts, obtain electronically signed and store investors’ subscription agreements, complete background checks for anti-money laundering and PATRIOT Act compliance, and implementation of payment processes. How does FundAmerica implement investor security? FundAmerica uses Prime Trust, a system that safeguards personal information through its physical, electronic and operational policies and practices. Data can only be read or written through defined service access points, the use of which is password-protected. Physical Security of Data Additionally, the physical security of the data is achieved through a combination of network firewalls (there is no direct communication allowed amid the database server and the Internet). Moreover, their servers are equipped with hardened operating systems and are all housed in a secured facility. Access to the system, both physical and electronic, is under tight control and limits access to only those employees or third parties who have a need to know. They do not allow visibility of the users’ Social Security numbers, bank account information, or credit card information via the site. Data Encryption Furthermore, they also equip their servers with Secure Socket Layer (SSL) certificate technology. Such technology ensures that when you connect to our site you are actually on our site. SSL enters all data into the Site under an encrypted format. To verify SSL is in use, look for the key or green padlock icon on your browser. For further encryption protection, they use a 128-bit encryption for logins and transactions. PCI Compliance Lastly, they use major, industry-leading and PCI compliant data centers and technology partners that host and backup all data. Learn more about FundAmerica’ s SEC-compliant tools for technology-driven finance and crowdfunding offering. Can I take measures to protect my personal information further? Absolutely! There are actually a number of things you can do to ensure you keep your information secure as well. Close Your Browser Window For starters, never leave your browser unattended while you are using any platform housing your personal information. If you’re taking a break, simply log out. This will ensure no one else can access your data. Create a Strong Password Secondly, you should be using a strong password for any platform housing your confidential information. While some cyber attacks are simply beyond your control, you can control how strong your password is on these platforms. Take a look at the chart below to see just how quickly hackers can crack your current password: Tips to create a strong password: Take a sentence and turn it into a password. The longer the password, the harder it is to crack. Make the sentence something memorable for you. Thereafter, combine the words with lower and uppercase, abbreviate where you can and include a symbol or two. Create a password with 12 characters. Make them random, abbreviate and mix it up as well. When placed into a password checker, a 12-character passphrase shows that it would take about 238,378,158,171,207 quadragintillion years for a brute force attack to crack it. The PAO method. Person-Action-Object (PAO). You must select a place of interest, select a familiar or famous person, and imagine a random action along with a random object. The visualization of the place of interest, famous person and random actions will help you remember the sentence. Once again, abbreviate and mix it up. You’ll end up with passwords between 15-18 characters. It would take even longer to crack a password like this. Phonetic Muscle Memory. You can use your phonetic muscle to remember how a password would sound but it would differ from the way you write it. For example,  drEnaba5Et (doctor enaba 5 E.T.) or BragUtheV5 (brag you the V5). Mixing characters, including numbers and symbols and making it something memorable are essential for any of these 4 methods. The stronger your password, the better security for your account, so choose wisely. Don’t Share Personal Information Online Lastly, you will want to be sure not to share personal information with others online. While this may seem very obvious, you’d be surprised what personal information hackers are using to crack your passwords. More personal quizzes and “get to know me” questionnaires are popping up on social media, and the fact is that hackers are creating those. And they’re creating them to find out what your passwords are. But how does a simple quiz on social media give a hacker the data they need? To start, many people set their passwords to something they can easily remember. This may be their pet's name, favorite food, sports team, color or another little fact about you. What you don’t realize is even though that information is “harmless” on its own, when put in the hands of a hacker, it becomes exactly what they need to easily crack your password. Even more so, some of those links have malicious code hidden directly in them, so without you even knowing it a hacker could be right on your mobile phone, simply because you clicked on a link within your social profile. Check out this news story by NBC News for more information on how hackers are using Facebook to steal your personal information. At DiversyFund, we take investor security very seriously. A great number of prospective investors inquire about the security measures we are taking on our platform. With so much news about online data breaches, we understand this precaution. That’s why we made sure to gather the best software and security tools available to keep your information safe and secure. We are proud of the tools that we have developed over the years as we build a safe environment for you to explore real estate crowdfunding investment opportunities for all and we will continue to evolve our security measures as technology changes.

Stunning Projects & Value Growth DiversyFund, a crowdfunding real estate investment platform, continues to establish itself as a leader and disruptor in the real estate development industry. Now that 2018 is well underway, we are eager to recap 2017. To start off, all of our projects that are under development and near completion have a completed value of over $100 million. Furthermore, we are witnessing an impressive investor growth. Most notably, DiversyFund will celebrate the 5-year anniversary of The Income Fund, a Multi-Property Investment Opportunity in March. Are you interested in learning more about our investment opportunities? Read below to learn more in detail. A Recap of 2017 In 2017, DiversyFund surpassed a $100 million in completed value in commercial and residential real estate developments. DiversyFund’s team of in-house experts successfully manage 3 developments. Balboa located in Coronado, CA, Costebelle in La Jolla, CA and Goshen located near the University of San Diego. Developments included the $12.5 million Roman James Design Build, Costebelle. Strong Series A funding primes DiversyFund for future growth heading into 2018. Most noteworthy, $1 million raised in December 2017, and another $1 million raised in January 2018. Funding started for Series A in mid-November 2017. “We set the bar high for 2017. These accomplishments highlight the success we achieved this year. Not only have we completed incredible real estate developments through crowdfunding, we’ve earned our investors great returns with zero principal loss" says Craig Cecilio, CEO & Founder of DiversyFund. “Our easy-to-use platform and the experienced in-house team is ready to provide even greater service to our rapidly growing investor base in 2018.” 2018 Investment Forecast DiversyFund's Income Fund ended 2017 with an excellent rate of return. Currently, we are looking ahead to the end of quarter one in 2018 with an expectation that the annualized returns will be just as strong. Coincidentally, March 2018 brings the 5-year anniversary of the Income Fund Multi-Property Income Fund Investment Opportunity. The Income Fund is a NO FEE real estate debt fund. Debt investments are defined as when the investor becomes the lender to the entity sponsoring the real estate deal. Furthermore, each investor receives a fixed rate of return. DiversyFund calculates this via the interest rate on the loan and how much the investor invests in the project. Overall, this type of investment leaves the investor with priority when it comes to obtaining a payout from the deal.The Fund pays quarterly distributions to investors. Income Fund's Historical Success Since the Income Fund's launch in 2013, through the end of December 2017, the Fund has returned 11.5%, annualized. This might meet your needs if you’re looking for high current income and can commit the money for at least 24 months. The Fund invests in properties on DiveresyFund's platform. This means that the investments are carefully analyzed to meet our strict underwriting standards. Additionally, the loans are secured by the underlying real estate. The Fund has been around for almost 5 years and has never lost any investor principal. "DiversyFund has made great strides in 2017 as leaders in the crowdfunding space” states Alan Lewis, CIO at DiversyFund. “We are well positioned heading into 2018 and are looking forward to making real estate investing even more accessible. Everyone can reap the benefits of investing in alternative assets.” The Future for DiversyFund To conclude, it was an exciting and prosperous year in 2017 for DiversyFund and the Income Fund. In case you need a recap, DiversyFund is a real estate crowdfunding platform, that allows investors to directly fund the development of commercial and residential real estate projects. DiversyFund seeks to deliver returns via its self-managed real estate developments, overseen by a veteran team of real estate professionals. Currently, DiversyFund has a completed value of over a $100 million in its projects. Furthermore, DiversyFund’s offerings are open to anyone who can meet the required minimum investment. To date, DiversyFund has yet to lose any investor principal and 65% of investors choose to reinvest. For more information, please visit DiversyFund.com.

[audio mp3="https://diversyfund.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Craig-Cecilio_Bloomberg-Interview_-Jan-17.mp3"][/audio] CEO, Craig Cecilio, gets interviewed by Carol Massar and Cory Johnson at Bloomberg Markets. Massar and Johnson ask Craig what is different about DiversyFund. They go over the pillars that make DiversyFund a platform that is different than the rest. Now offering new ways to invest in Real Estate for Accredited and Non-Accredited Investors. Listen to and audio recording of this interview, above, and the following is a full-recap as well. Carol Massar (CM) Cory Johnson (CJ) Craig Cecilio (CC) Announcer:        You are listening to Bloomberg Markets with Carol Massar and Cory Johnson on Bloomberg Radio. CM: Yes, indeed, everybody! Bloomberg Markets on this Wednesday Afternoon. Crowdfunding for Real Estate investing and how about we throw something else into it with the social impact. Craig Cecilio is CEO and Founder of DiversyFund based in San Diego. In our New York studio here on this Wednesday. Nice to have you here.  We’ve been talking back and forth, because he said, “Wait a minute, we do something different,” but we’ve talked to a few people who do crowdfunding in real estate. What is different about it, because you tend to know all the players in this world. What is different about what you guys are doing? And welcome. CC: Thank you for having me on the show. We are a 100% vertically integrated platform. So that means that we are not only the developer in management of the asset but our constituents, our investors, own part of the asset as well. So that is a major difference. CM:       So, you own the projects? CC:         We own the projects. We own the property. CJ:          So, you are also managing the property, you are also managing the tenants and all that heavy lifting? CC:         Yes. CM:       Why? Why do you think that…? CM:       Exactly! There is a lot of risk in that. CJ:          There is a reason why people don’t want to manage that. CC:        I would say there is more transparency. There is better quality control. When you are using other people’s money to fund projects you would like to be able to have as much quality control as possible. CM:       So, you’ll never sell that project? Will you ever sell that property? CC:         In some cases we will for returns, we’ll sell some properties. Some properties we’ll want to hang onto. The income producing properties. We have a mixture of both types of properties in our portfolio. CJ:          So, we had these guys, last week and they talk about a similar notion of allowing some investors who aren’t so flush into these real estate deals and I wonder if there was something. If the fact that you guys are getting into this track, they are getting into it, I wonder if there was some kind of tax law changes or investments in the JOBS ACT and a law that allows these kinds of vehicles to be available to accredited investors. CC:         We got active with the vertically integrated platform in November 2016. It was the first time we took money across our platform or our website. We’ve been in the process right now of opening up to non-accredited investors which is a 9-12-month process. So, since we just started in November of 2016, we’ll probably be activated right around April of 2018. A pretty good period of time. That would open it up to non-accredited investors for as little as $500 dollars. CM:       Wow. That would open it up to non-accredited investors? Wow! That’s a really… Why do you want to do that? CC:         Why not? It’s opening up alternative investments to people who otherwise didn’t have that opportunity. So the average Joe has a chance to make money in real estate who otherwise would never have a shot at it. Nobody is going to call that person up to do their project. CM:       And these big projects you are talking about? CC:         Large projects. We are talking about 20-million-dollar plus projects. So it made sense to do that. CJ:          You are based in San Diego, but where are the deals? CC:         Throughout California and the western US. CJ:          And how do you source the deals? How do you find them? Because I’m telling you, if you want to invest, I’ve got a bridge to sell. There are a lot of deals out there. So how do you find the good ones? CC:         I’ve been in Real Estate since 1997, so I’ve formed the relationships. I came out of the market downturn with my relationships intact, so that means that all the brokers and everyone in the real estate industry knew who I was beforehand. There was a percentage of better deals upfront. It was kind of real relationship building over a long period of time. So that is actually our strength. It’s very easy for us to source deals. CM:       It’s interesting, so tell me what you guys are seeing in the Real Estate market at this point? What's it look like? CC:         It’s a really healthy market out here with a limited supply of land to develop out here, as well as, if you are into commercial, we are very heavily invested in the mixed-use with commercial markets as well. Local areas and sub-markets, we kind of know the zoning and the ordinance in those areas. So, we have a lot opportunity to build multi-units. Just for us, it’s like the perfect storm for us. CM:       Do you want to stay in California? Or are you looking to spread? CC:         We are looking to spread just based on the markets at that point in time when we get there. Our pipeline is pretty big right now. We did 100 million the first year. This year we have up to half billion dollars pipeline. Probably could build that up to a little over a billion dollars just within the state itself. CJ:          And, as you work on these deals, give me a sense, you mentioned commercial, but what do they look like? In what kind of deals are you seeing the best value right now? CC:         The commercial deals. I love mixed-use commercial in blighted neighborhoods. Something that has a lack of inventory of housing. CJ:          Blighted neighborhoods such as? CC:         Blighted is something that is kind of transitioning into gentrification. So, it’s an older property, that maybe it’s been upzoned in the specific submarket. Where maybe traditionally you can build 20 apartments, today you can build 60 apartments. A lot of communities are like that are in California, their local governments are passing these ordinances and those zonings to allow more housing in it because of the lack of land and lack of supply of housing, so there is a lot of opportunities there. CM:       Yeah, I was just looking. That’s interesting. I mean, what, give me the breakdown of the kind of properties? What’s the majority of your properties that you are developing? CC:         I would say it’s a mixture of both. It depends on the deal that’s presented at that point in time. We do have some great relationships with the single families, but it’s got to be the right transaction. It has to be the right… everything has to come together. It has to be the right property, it has to have the right returns, and it has to have the right team involved with it. As well as the mix-use stuff  -that stuff, that pipeline has grown exponentially recently. So we are going to kind of let the foot off the gas in the single families in a little bit with that. CM:       What’s been your return so far? You’ve got about a year in? CC:         Yes. CM:       And what have been your returns? CC:         The majority of returns are double digits to our investors. CM:       Double-digit teens? CC:         Double digit teens, correct. CM:       Because there is 99% and there is 15%. CC:         I always err on the side to like 10%. I always go low. I never like to say a thing like we are going to guarantee more than that and to even use that word. CM:       But you are anticipating that if you guys can lower it down to where investors can come in for under $1000 dollars, that you’ll get a lot more investors. Just got about 20 seconds. CC:         Yes, thru technology, yes. CM:       The technology makes it easy. Ready Cory? Ready to invest in a property? CJ:          Sure. Sign me up! And I’ll take a bridge too. They are nice to look at. CM:       Craig Cecilio, thank you so much for coming in and for letting us know how things are going. CC:         Thanks for having me.  

Our CEO, Craig Cecilio, takes the floor at the New York Stock Market with Cheddar News. Kristen Scholer & Tim Stonovec go over alternative investments for the Average Joe with Cecilio. They go over the current alternatives as well as the pipeline that is coming up. You can see the entire interview clicking here, and you can find it below as well. TS:          Real Estate may have an intimating price tag that keeps many from investing, but Crowdfunding platforms are making the asset class more approachable to investors with smaller budgets. Joining us now to discuss is Craig Cecilio, he is the CEO and Founder of DiversyFund. It’s an online Real Estate Crowdfunding platform. Thanks so much for joining us. It’s good to see you this morning. CC:         Thanks for having me here. TS:          The stock market is rewarding investors with significant gains. We’ve seen huge gains over the last 12 months largely outperforming, of course, the Real Estate sector over the past year, so why should investors allocate some of their investing budgets to Real Estate? CC:         Alternative investments are very important for people to invest in. With the advent of crowdfunding now its opened up to the general public. For the first time, we have online solicitation, and its opened up to the average investor. Most investors aren’t aware of alternative investments and of alternative investments in Real Estate as well. KS:         So, what are some of the major holdings here? What makes up this fund? CC:         Our fund is a mix of residential and commercial properties scatted throughout the US. What I’d like to get back to is the alternative investments for the average Joe. A lot of the assets that we are focused on, they are not going to be approached about. The real estate developers, the real estate hedge fund managers are always after the high ticketed item. The person with hundreds of thousands of dollars, as clients but through our platform, we can leverage technology and have the average investor invest as little as $500 dollars in these investments. KS:         But then obviously they still get diverse holding properties commercial and residential all across the US? Globally? CC:         Across the US. right now, we are focused primarily regionally in the western US. As we scale our company will be located throughout the whole nation. TS:          Craig, I was looking at your site earlier today, you have to be an accredited investor right now, which a vast majority of people who are ever looking to make their own investments aren’t, in order to participate. CC:         Currently, there are around 10 to 12 million accredited investors throughout the US. Currently, we are open to accredited investors, and we should be open for the average Joe, the non-accredited investors in the next 2 to 3 months. We recently had our paperwork filed, we are going to open that up to everybody. We are looking at is really improving our technology, so we can handle the flow of the non-accredited investors. KS:         What kind of focus is on the technology right now? What changes are you making to make sure that it goes seamlessly? CC:         With technology a lot of $500-dollar investors there is going to be a lot of paperwork involved, accounting and coding and we want to make sure that it is all perfect and ready to go when the website is opened up to the non-accredited investor. TS:          "Passive Income" is what you are talking about and it is sort of how you are selling it off on the website. What are the fees associated with it? How do you guys make money? CC:         We have a no-fee fund and what we have is a vertically integrated platform. We act as the developer and managers of the assets. Those assets aren’t owned by another party, they are owned by the company itself and by the investors. This way we are able to wave any fees that we charge the investors and we just collect our fees for management fees of the asset itself. KS:         Is there a reason why it is largely focused on the western side of the country for now? CC:         It is where we originated from. Myself and my partner in this, the other co-principal of the company. That is where we have over 20 years of relationships in Real Estate, and right now we are sourcing a lot of transaction throughout the west coast for that reason. TS:          I want to make sure how the fees-structure works. So, there is a management fee? CC:         No fee charged to the investor. There is a developers’ fee that we get for developing the project but that does not come out of the return to the investor. TS:          And what’s your pitch to developers? CC:         This is not opened up to developers because we are the developers of the asset itself. We are the developer and management of the asset. DiversyFund does that. Our pitch is more to the average Joe, the investor, “Hey come on board with us.” We own the asset, therefore, we are able to provide better transparency, reporting, quality control, we got the experience. It’s not like you are sticking your money into a new corporation with a new person in the industry. KS:         So, if an average investor wants to take advantage of this, how do they go about accessing the fund? CC:         Everything is located on the website. A couple of clicks to a button and it’s automated. The money transfers straight out of your bank account. KS:         And what is the demand that you have seen already? CC:         A lot of demand. A lot of demand. It’s quite impressive how many people across the whole country are investing in our platform. KS           How long has it been investible? CC:         Around November of 2016 is when we started the vertically integrated platform. That’s when we started taking the investments online through the platform itself. It does take some time to get it going, the website itself and the platform with all the coding and everything. And, within this past year, we came close to about 100 million dollars in assets under management. TS:          Craig, what areas of the country are you seeing as most attractive for Real Estate development right now? CC:         I would say pockets throughout the whole country. It’s really relationships at the end of the day. Having the experience of locating the correct investments, the right properties, the right projects. It really takes some experience to know that and the right relationships. We are finding stuff throughout the whole US. We have a huge pipeline, a billion-dollar pipeline of assets we could purchase. TS:          Are there no real specific regions that are hotter than others that you are seeing? CC:         I would say a lot of sub-markets within certain markets. For instance, in our case, we are located in California. We know some pockets in San Francisco, LA, and San Diego in which we find some opportunities. Not the whole area of each principality but more kind of the sub-markets in each area. KS:         Interesting. All right. We are going to have to be focusing on this. Of course, people can take advantage of it if they want to. TS:          Craig, thanks for joining us! That’s Craig Cecilio. He is the CEO and Founder of DiversyFund. Joining us live from the floor in the New York stock exchange.    

We are getting very close to completion in Costebelle! The Costebelle investment property is looking amazing and is almost there! With the elevator installation complete, we are ready for Roman James’ custom-made furniture and art to arrive the last week of the month. The landscape crew is working on their final touches and the cabinet drawer fronts are being put in place. Then the house will be ready for private showings! Projected completion: Imminent Costebelle Investment Property Update - Jan 2018 from DiversyFund  

The new year brings great news for the Goshen investment property! The Goshen investment property update for this month includes great news for all investors: construction is complete! We are now just tending to final touch-ups as we wait for SDG&E to connect the gas and electric meters so that we can pass our Final Inspection with the City. Then we will be able to lease the three units in preparation to sell the property. Projected completion: Imminent Goshen Investment Property Update - January 2018 from DiversyFund  

This month our Park Blvd property is making headway with final plans being prepared to submit to the city and more! First, the architects, consultants and engineers are pushing to finalize our submission package to the City for comments. Additionally, the architects sat down with us last week to provide a virtual tour of the building. We've got to say, we're very impressed with the overall design of the building and interior units thus far!

January brings to Monterey some exciting elements and an estimated completion date! The fireplaces are being installed in the great room, living room, master bedroom and outdoor and the septic tank is in.  The interior designer has selected a great color palette which fits perfectly with this mountain area. The trenching for gas, power, water, storm drain and others needed is starting along with site drainage.  The plumbing rough-in is moving forward as well. Finally, the hydronic pressure testing for the heating system is complete and the rough-in will start now. Projected completion: Summer 2018 Investment Property Update - Monterrey Jan 2018 from DiversyFund    

We are excited to announce the projected completion for our Felspar property is Spring 2018. This month, the exterior doors have been installed. Lath, along with scratch and brown coats on the exterior building and insulation are complete in both buildings and have passed their inspections. We have finished all the electrical underground work, as well as the electric panels and sub-panels in both units. Drywall is being installed and the roofing is about to get underway. Projected completion: Spring 2018

You may have read and heard a lot about Fintech recently. It is affecting many industries in one way or another. But what’s all the buzz about? What is fintech? Fintech Explained Fintech comes from a combination of the words "financial" and "technology." It relates to all of the new technology and innovation in the finance industry. The new Fintech tools work with traditional ones to provide improved financial services. For example, years ago, money transfers were only performed inside banks. Wait times can peak during certain hours making it even more of a hassle. Now, one can simply transfer money through an online checking account (e-checking) in seconds. The term FinTech was first introduced at the beginning of the 21st century. It originally referred to the technology used at the back-end of well-known financial institutions. Previously, access to financial services was considered a privilege. Now, banking and finance have merged to form a global platform. Hence, individuals have more control versus their financial institutions. In addition to financial institutions, fintech has transformed retail and online investments. Fintech in Business According to the 2017 report by EY, a global leader in knowledge management, FinTech is being used all over the world. Fintech business adoption rates range from 14% in Japan to 33% in the United States, to 69% in China, to mention a few. As a result, its popularity has also increased in the last 2 years and there is evidence of awareness going from 62% in 2015 to 84% in 2017. This is one of the reasons that there is so much buzz around fintech in the last couple of years. Industries Using Fintech There are three elements that make Fintech useful: its simplicity, transparency, and personalization. 1. Simplicity Sending money and payments are one of the most popular categories for fintech. The average online user transfers money weekly. Users feel more comfortable handling these transactions on a secure site that allows payments to be completed. Either with a credit card or with payment services such as PayPal. Services like PayPal provide almost immediate approval, and may even include a confirmation email sent in a matter of seconds. This feature makes transactions faster and easier. Businesses are able to keep better track of their transactions, bookkeeping and order processing. 2. Transparency Transparency means security and safety for the end user. Fintech allows investors to gain access to full business operations reports and financial statements with full disclosure.  Additionally, consistent updates also allow users to stay up to date on their investments. At DiversyFund, we are proud to provide these tools to our investors. We are always looking for ways to give our investors more transparency and security. Hence, as one of our investors, you are able to login to our platform and take a close look at your investment progress. Click here and watch our Chief Investment Officer, Alan Lewis, discuss how we are providing this level of transparency to our investors. 3. Personalization Fintech tools are smart enough to remember preferences. This makes it easier to log in, out and manage several accounts at once. The financial tools fintech offers are extremely easy to navigate, even for beginners. As fintech continues to evolve, more people are now gravitating toward these new financial services. Moreover, services such as online banking for personal and business accounts use fintech tools due to their transparency and accessibility. Managing Life with Fintech According to the 2017 EY study, 13% of consumers who use fintech use 5 or more of these services. If you are a business owner, you should be paying attention. Furthermore, these are the percentages of digitally active consumers who are using each product: Insurance: 24% of consumers use fintech tools while seeking car insurance, comparing online insurance premiums. Additionally, they monitor their activity-based health insurance. Savings and Investments: 20% of consumers are using fintech platforms to invest in stocks and rewards-based crowdfunding. Which support a for-profit business as well as non-profits. Rewards-based crowdfunding offers some form of incentive for participation. Financial Planning and Lending Money: 10% of consumers are using Fintech platforms to complete peer-to-peer borrowing, as well as online short-term loans. Many fintech tools are very user-friendly. This makes it easier to set a budget and actively use financial planning tools. Fintech in 2018 To conclude, it was an exciting and interesting year for fintech in 2017. Finally, InsurTech is also on the rise, there is an increase of fintech in the insurance industry. These offer a higher degree of customization in offerings backed by solid consumer data. This will help better predict consumer behavior. At DiversyFund, we are proud to be one of the real estate crowdfunding investment platforms that provide users with the best of fintech. Our real estate crowdfunding investment process is easy to access and easy to use. It is transparent at each and every step of our development and personalized for each investor. Interested in becoming an investor? Creating an account is easy and free with DiversyFund. Gain instant access and check out some of our current investment opportunities.

Starting the New Year with new Financial Resolutions? So are we! When January comes, we welcome the new year with feelings of hope and the anticipation of new adventures. We also establish goals to improve ourselves during the new year. Many people set goals for their fitness, eating habits and personal growth. Many of us also set financial resolutions and goals to achieve during the new year. Improving your financial habits includes several elements, including budgeting, building a strong savings account, paying off debt, investing for the future and planning for retirement. Investing for the future is one of the things we know best at DiversyFund, so we'd like to give you a hand with this new year's resolution. One way to improve your financial picture is by diversifying your investment portfolio through the addition of alternative investments such as real estate. Here are some tips to get you started: 1. Sign up with an investment platform Sounds like a simple step but it is more than that. At DiversyFund, when you sign up for our real estate crowdfunding platform, you are gaining exclusive access to all our investment opportunities. This way you are able to study an investment opportunity with all the proper information at hand. Moreover, you become part of our community and we'll make sure to keep you informed about everything that's going on. You will receive company news, details about new investment opportunities, and investment property updates. 2. Focus on 1 investment opportunity at a time We get it - there are many real estate crowdfunding platforms to choose from and multiple investment opportunities within these platforms. At DiversyFund, we invite you to consider one investment option at a time. Real estate crowdfunding allows you to build your investment portfolio with low dollar minimums. Select one investment opportunity, learn the process, and then invest in more. Starting small can yield bigger results. 3. Visit your investment platform on a regular basis At DiversyFund, not only do we provide you with great investment options to choose from, we also provide you with educational tools to learn more about real estate investing. On our website, you'll find articles, glossary terms, and frequently asked questions. Visiting the platform on a regular basis will also allow you to keep a close eye on your investment and you'll be able to utilize tools such as the investment calculator to see how much you could earn by investing in different opportunities. We are always improving our tools using the feedback we get from our users, so you'll always find something new to explore on our investment platform. 4. Get someone to invest with you We're happier when we are able to share great experiences with family and friends, so why not invest along with them? At DiversyFund, we offer our investors a fantastic referral program where you and your friends win, too. Once you create your account and complete the steps for verification, you'll find a referral program tool within your profile. Share this code with family, friends or colleagues and once they complete the verification process you'll each earn $100, automatically deposited into your DiversyFund account. 5. Remind yourself why you are setting financial resolutions in the first place Taking the first steps into better financial habits is not always enough to keep you working on achieving your goals. What happens later, when the new year's push is over? Remembering the reasons why you started in the first place can help keep you going.  So, why did you begin? Do you want to have money for your next vacation? Do you want to have a downpayment on your own property? Are you looking forward to having a larger retirement account? Thinking about why you want to improve your finances in the first place will inspire you to stick to your financial resolutions. As important as it is to have great health, your financial health is also very important. Put a plan in place to achieve your financial resolutions during the new year. The best day to start is today. May this new year bring you health, happiness, and prosperity. May all your personal financial resolutions become a permanent part of your future habits. Have a happy New Year, from your friends at DiversyFund.  

For this month's investment update, you'll see a lot taking place at the Monterey property. The General Contractor is working hard on interior designs for the project, picking out various finishes for the flooring, tile work, cabinets, and countertops. We've received newly proposed master bedroom and master bathroom floor plans and fireplace selections for all areas. The septic tank was installed and we are excited to start on insulation and installing roofing material. Monterey Investment Property - December 2017. Diversyfund

We are wrapping up the year with a great Investment Update for our Costebelle Property. During the last month, the General Contractor worked hard on the exterior of the house: site drainage, concrete flatwork, and BBQ area. HVAC equipment was installed, the tile was grouted and SDG&E is working on the paperwork for the gas meter. Wood flooring and baseboards are now installed throughout the house and countertops are fully complete. Cabinet drawers and hardware will go in next week. The garage elevator should be finished next week and we expect the house elevator’s cab to finally arrive so that installation can be completed before the New Year! Completion of this beautiful home is just around the corner.  

This month we’ve been putting the finishing touches on the Goshen property. This month we've been putting the finishing touches on the existing house, including garage door installation, framing the master bedroom balcony railing, and grass installation. Utilities were processed this month with SDG&E and the City of San Diego public utilities. We’re now waiting for SDG&E to connect meters and backfill and for the subcontractor to connect water from the property to the street. This includes a re-do of the sidewalks, street and driveway. We are almost there!    

This month's Granito investment update brings you good news about the high-end market in Los Angeles. Right now, we are waiting on the final pledged dollars to come through, so we can begin excavation work in January. We look forward to sharing photos with you in the coming months so you can watch this remarkable home take shape. Recently, we had a market update call with Josh Altman from Bravo TV’s “Million Dollar Listing” television show. During the call, he said the high-end market in Los Angeles continues to perform well, especially for new construction like Granito due to the lack of supply of new high-end product.  

This month's Park Blvd. investment update brings you a full set of plans and renderings. First, we’re on schedule to submit a full set of plans to the City of San Diego by the end of this month. The architectural team along with the sub-consultants (civil and structural engineers, storm water, façade access, MEP, etc.) have been hard at work to meet this deadline. We are all eager to get the approval process started. With all of the hard work put in this last month, our team has prepared the initial renderings of this vibrant Hillcrest project. Please view them below.

For the month of December, our Felspar project brings many new updates, which are bringing it closer to the finish line. First of all, we just passed our framing and rough-in inspections! Moreover, the fire sprinklers are complete and ready for inspection. Since December typically brings a lot of rain, we papered all of the roof areas to protect them. The exterior stucco of the property will be starting soon. Finally, before we took off for the holiday, we did a preliminary walk through with the flooring company to make sure everything is ready for them when it’s time for their work to begin.

Did you get to wear your Ugly Christmas Sweater this year? Our office couldn't pass up the opportunity, so we held an Ugly Christmas Sweater party! Here is what we got to see! These two Santa's helpers had the perfect plan for this Ugly Christmas Sweater party. It was all their idea! We added some spice to the fun with a competition for the ugliest Ugly Christmas Sweater. Here are some of the candidates: #1: Inspired by his awesome kitty cat, Phil from our user experience department, poses for our Ugly Christmas Sweater celebration! #2: Inspired by a pretty cool sloth, Shayan from our investment analysis department: We think his Ugly Christmas Sweater was inspired by someone really close to him! #3: Inspired by her awesome new hubby, Rebecca from our online marketing department: Her hubby knew what he was doing when he picked this Ugly Christmas Sweater for our sweetheart! Wondering who won the Ugly Christmas Sweater contest? Click play to learn who: Congratulations Shayan! You definitely deserve the Ugly Christmas Sweater award!! You only scared us a little bit! Happy Holidays & Happy New Year! -DiversyFund

Top holiday safety tips to reduce the chance you’ll experience any misfortune this season. Adding one more thing to your holiday list may not be a welcome suggestion, but keeping these holiday safety tips in mind will help make sure you get through the busy season with your peace of mind, and wallet, intact. Whether you plan to stay home or travel, there’s something for you here on our “Nice list” of safety tips: Decorating your home? Check these items off your list: Keep paths clear: Secure cables and extension cords so they don’t end up in the middle of a walkway. This is especially important when you’re entertaining, or when the kids need to make a quick exit to see if that was really Santa on the roof! Keep your tree well-watered: If you’ve got a live Christmas tree, don’t let your lovely “Tannenbaum” become a fire hazard, and water it frequently. Hang delicate tree ornaments high: Make sure little hands and paws can’t reach your most precious and breakable ornaments. Place them strategically out of reach to avoid mishaps. Use a step ladder (or ladder): Whether you’re trying to reach a storage area or to decorate something difficult to reach, use the right tool. A step ladder or ladder will be much safer than chairs or other furniture. Be merry and bright: Adding holiday lights to your home, inside and out, is a beloved tradition, but don’t make the common mistake of overlooking safety precautions. Make sure plugs and sockets are in good working order and don’t overload outlets. Leaving your home alone? Here’s how to be prepared Enlist a trustworthy neighbor with your travel dates and share contact information so you can communicate with someone local in the event of an emergency. Don’t make it obvious that no one’s home: Consider leaving some lights on, even using a timer. Ask a close relative or friend to stop by now and then to check on things. Make a final round as you leave to be sure all doors and windows are securely locked, and if you decide to hide a key, get creative – don’t hide keys under doormats and plant pots or behind pictures in the entryway. Save the Facebook posts for your return: Don’t broadcast on social media that you’ll be out of town, much less that the entire family will be gone. ’tis the season for shopping – and keeping watch. Avoid last minute shopping, if possible. It just increases the potential for distractions that can put you and your money at risk. Don’t leave your purse or other purchases and belongings unattended – even in a dressing room when you’re trying on clothing. When you’re at the register to pay, don’t let your credit or debit card out of your sight, and if you see a cashier trying it out on different machines, don’t hesitate to intercede. If you shop online, try to schedule deliveries for days and times when you know someone will be home, and/or request a signature on delivery. Once delivered, don’t let boxes stay outside for long.   Holiday Party Time? Save room for these tips: If you’re going to enjoy a favorite holiday cocktail, first make plans for a designated driver, or schedule an Uber ride to get you home safely. Remember the Golden Rule: Alternate drinking 1 glass of water for every alcoholic drink you consume and you’ll stay hydrated, and feel better. Bundle up: When you’re attending more than one event or a party that extends from afternoon to evening, it’s easy to forget a coat or jacket. Keep something warm in your trunk, just in case. Keep an eye out for the safety of your friends and other guests. You might be the reason they make it home safely. Today it’s them, tomorrow it could be you. Regardless of your plans, we hope these top holiday safety tips help you and your loved ones stay safe and have an enjoyable holiday season. From all of us at DiversyFund, we wish you a wonderful holiday season, with prosperity and success in the coming New Year!

What to Consider Before Making a Real Estate Investment. Investing in real estate can be a great way to create a steady income stream and enjoy long-term growth. One of the first questions people wonder about when considering a real estate investment is whether to invest in a commercial or residential property. Both can be great investments, but there are significant differences between them that you should understand, so you can make a plan that best fits your needs. What is Residential Real Estate? Residential real estate refers to single-family homes, as well as multifamily properties of 4 units or less. Why Invest in Residential Properties? There are a few reasons why people choose to invest in residential real estate, including: Residential properties are usually less expensive than commercial properties, making it easier to get into the business. Rental properties provide a steady income stream and lease terms of one year or less allow landlords to increase rents quickly if market conditions are right. House flipping, that is, buying a property, renovating it and selling it quickly, can be lucrative for investors with the right know-how. What is Commercial Real Estate? Commercial real estate includes larger apartment complexes, office buildings, retail properties and warehouses, to name a few. Why Invest in Commercial Properties? Commercial properties are generally far more expensive than residential properties, but they have several advantages: Lease terms tend to be longer than for residential properties. Tenants are usually other businesses, so taking good care of their units is a smart move for them. Successful commercial properties have high income potential. Are you ready to be a landlord? Before you take the plunge, consider whether you really want to be a landlord. Residential landlords are responsible for any necessary repairs and things can break on weekends or holidays. Residential tenants don't always take good care of the property. Repairs to a commercial property must be done by a licensed person. Owners of large properties often hire professional property management companies to handle the day-to-day operations, but this can cost 5% or more of rental revenues, reducing overall investment return. An Easier Way to Invest in Real Estate If you’re like many people, you like the idea of investing in real estate, but find the reality daunting. You may not have the time or desire to be a landlord, or maybe you just don’t have enough money to buy a property on your own. If that’s you, you can explore real estate crowdfunding. Crowdfunding allows you to start investing in real estate with much less money than going it alone and you can benefit from the experience of real estate professionals who select, develop and manage properties. To explore more real estate crowdfunding investment options, click here.

Crowdfunding: The Future of Real Estate Investing Millennials may be under the impression that they can't invest in real estate without a lot of money or the right connections, but thanks to real estate crowdfunding, millennials can join thousands of other investors who have the same goals. Crowdfunding allows young investors to invest like seasoned investors do. Real estate crowdfunding is basically an online marketplace for real estate investments. Crowdfunding platforms offer a variety of investment options, from individual properties to funds. In fact, the choices can be overwhelming. Do you want to invest in apartment buildings, office complexes, retail properties? What part of the country do you want to invest in? Would you rather invest in a single property or in a fund? And perhaps the most important question of all, which crowdfunding platform should you trust with your money? Here are some important questions you should ask if you are a millennial thinking about investing in crowdfunded real estate. Questions Millennials Need To Ask When Investing in Crowdfunded Real Estate 1)  How much real estate experience does the company’s management have? Some real estate crowdfunding platforms are led by technology experts trying to learn the real estate business, but DiversyFund is different. Our senior management has decades of real estate experience and they’ve been through good and bad market cycles. The DiversyFund team performs a very careful and critical examination of each potential investment property and presents only the best opportunities to their investors. Our investors benefit from our experience and our deep knowledge of the Southern California real estate market. 2)  What investment options does the company offer? At DiversyFund, we know that some investors like to choose the specific properties they invest in, while others prefer the diversification of a fund, so we offer both. Hands-on investors can select from properties in some of Southern California’s most desirable markets. If you don't want to choose, consider our DiversyFund Income Fund, which invests in all the properties we are developing (7 properties at this time). 3) What kind of returns should I expect from my investment? It’s important to understand what the expected return on an investment is and to make sure it aligns with your investing goals. At DiversyFund, we know that people have different investing needs. Some people want cash flow from their investments, so for them we offer passive income investments. These deals pay quarterly distributions  and offer projected annualized returns ranging from 9-14%, depending on the investment. If you don’t need the extra cash, one of our growth investments might be right for you. These typically offer higher returns that accrue for the life of the investment and pay off when the property is completed and sold, usually about 2 years from the start. In exchange for deferring gains until maturity, investors can earn as much as 18% annualized returns. Take a moment to review our latest offerings and determine which one is best for you. 4) What fees do you charge? DiversyFund charges no origination or broker fees, no commissions and no platform fees, which means more of your money is working for you. Other crowdfunding platforms charge fees that can erode investment returns over time. At DiversyFund, we develop our own deals and aside from a standard developer fee, we earn our money only after our investors earn theirs. 5)  How do I get started? Take the time to read through the investment options to find the one that best meets your needs. Review the terms of the investment and read through the subscription documents to make sure you understand everything. If you have any questions, please contact us by phone or email. When you’re ready to invest, simply click on the Invest Now button and follow the easy steps to complete your investment. 6)  How can I check on my DiversyFund investments? DiversyFund investors can check their accounts at any time on any device. We also send out monthly construction updates and quarterly statements. Of course, you can always follow us on social media to get the latest DiversyFund news.

As the new year approaches, the time is coming for resolutions and plans for life change. What is your plan to improve your finances? One of the most common new year's resolutions that many people make is improving their personal finances. Personal finance resolutions can be a struggle for some people, given that personal finance isn't readily taught in high schools. This post will give you 6 great ideas for things you can do to improve your finances. 1. Create a Strong Monthly Budget Creating a budget may sound like simple advice for most people. However, did you know that the average American usually doesn't follow one? By developing your own budget, you can plan for expenses each month and set money back accordingly. This will help you avoid late fees with your bills, as well as learning how much money you have after your bills are paid. You can also see how financially fit you are by looking at your income-to-pay-out ratio. Create a new budget each month and tailor your budget to your individual needs. If you are married, make sure that you include your spouse in your planning process. If your spouse is not on the same page as you are, it can make your budget meaningless. A plan never followed is worthless and this is doubly true for budgets. 2. Eliminate Unnecessary Debt The second item on our list is eliminating debt. Using credit to buy big ticket items may seem like a good idea. Unfortunately, in the end, you end up paying more than what the item is worth. Financing cars and houses may require a loan, and that is understandable. However, smaller items such as televisions and home appliances can be bought after a few months of saving. By restraining yourself from impulsive buying habits, you can increase your net worth. This also allows you to keep more money each month for savings or investment. One of the best investments you can make is to eliminate debt. You should try to get off of the credit card mentality, and start looking at cash like it is king. 3. Build A Healthy Savings Account Creating a good savings account is imperative for financial health. By building a strong emergency fund, you can avoid getting  into debt to pay for unexpected items. Those items that you don't account for in your monthly budget are only the ones to pay for your emergency fund. When your car breaks down, it pays to have a strong savings account with an emergency fund. This money will allow you to stay out of unnecessary debt. It will also allow you to improve your finances in the coming year. A good savings account will have about six to twelve months of your household expenses. This means that if it takes 1,000 dollars each month to pay your bills, you should have anywhere between 6,000 and 12,000 dollars in a savings account. This may be more than most people would say you need, but it is always important to have money saved up in case of a job loss or unforeseen tragedy. 4. Lower Expenses and Cut Unneeded Spending Lowering your expenses each month is a great way to improve your finances in 2018. Cutting out wasteful spending each month can free up hundreds of dollars for you to utilize. The money that you were spending on frivolous things can now be put to good use in a savings account or in your investment portfolio. Keep track of items that are not necessary to purchase every month and eliminate them from your budget. If you still feel as though you need to lower your expenses, even more, look into trying to downgrade the products you buy. Look at off-brand clothes, hygiene products, and food. The pennies that you can save will add up in the long run. 5. Invest Money for the Future in Retirement Funds When you're out of debt and have lowered your expenditures enough, its time to make some money work for you. By taking your leftover money and investing it into a 401(k) or an IRA, you can build a nest egg for retirement. Most employers will also match 401(k) contributions, so it is important to take advantage of the opportunity early. The power of compounding interest will work in your favor, increasing your return on the initial investments that you make each month. After a few years, you will have a small fortune built. Talk with a financial planner and find out what the best retirement fund is for you. Everyone's situation is a little different, and there is not set in a stone plan when it comes to investing. 6. Diversifying You Investments with Crowdfunded Real Estate After you have begun to invest your money into traditional options, you should consider strengthening your finances with real estate investments. In the past, real estate investments were generally out of the average persons to reach, but in recent years crowdfunding has made real estate investment possible for virtually everyone. With crowdfunding, you distribute the cost of investment over a larger number of people who each have stock in the investment. Using this tool, you can invest your money into profitable real estate options that were previously out of your financial reach. This is a great way to diversify your portfolio, even more, giving you financial stability when markets slow down. By committing to improving your finances in 2018 now, you set your self up to be in a stronger position for the future. Following these 6 pieces of advice can make a world of difference to your finances. Starting early and staying committed will help you achieve your goals faster, and allow you to retire comfortably after your career has ended. If diversifying your investment portfolio is one of your goals for the new year, click here to learn more about the Real Estate crowdfunding options we have to offer.

As new industries emerge, new ways to disrupt traditional business models emerge as well. Many industries are able to develop disruptive business models.  A disruptive business model must create new markets and displace an existing business model. Let us go over some of the most remarkable details about industries that are currently disrupting traditional business models: 1. Real Estate Crowdfunding Commercial and residential real estate is one of the oldest industries in the world. It is littered with bloated fees and big players who are not ready to adapt to the new technology trends. However, this industry is ripe for disruption and has been for a long time. Crowdfunding is changing the face of commercial and residential real estate in a variety of ways: • Options When supply is not enough to meet market demand, there is an opportunity for someone to fill in the gap. Although the demand for real estate loans has been rising steadily, traditional lenders are still reluctant in lending money. The emergence of crowdfunding has provided borrowers with more lending options. As well as, more attainable investment options for investors with lower capital. • Access For a long time, only select and uber-rich investors have had the opportunity to access high-end investment properties. Crowdfundingprovides investors with numerous investment options.  Accreditation standards remain the same. However, many smaller and younger investors are getting access to more superior deals than they would have done before. Thanks to the power of crowdfunding options. • Savings If industries are unchallenged for a long time, inefficiencies are bound to arise. Hence, peer-to-peer lending and online crowdfunding platforms have fewer touch points and reduced overhead. They are, therefore, able to offer lower fee structures for their investors. 2. Streaming Live Sports Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime have already kickstarted the decline of cable TV. However, one major thing that has kept many people tethered to cable is live sports. It is next to impossible to legally watch a live sporting event online even if you would be willing to pay for it mostly due to the agreements made between TV networks and sports leagues. We expect this trend to change in the coming few years. According to The Wall Street Journal, Amazon has held talks about rights to stream games with some of the most prominent sports leagues in the United States. Before this, A.C. Milan, an Italian soccer club signed a deal with Sporcle, a Los Angeles-based sports streaming startup, giving the company rights to broadcast live video exclusively. 3. The Pyramid Business Model The pyramid model should not be confused with Ponzi schemes. It enables companies to generate significant portions of their revenue through the many resellers and affiliates. By significantly scaling up the businesses sales force, companies create what appears to be a community. They just sit at the top of the pyramid waiting for revenue to stream upwards without much effort. Many distributors are already using this pyramid model including Amazon, which has recruited many sellers and partners under its umbrella. Since the sellers and affiliates get paid through commissions, companies using this model can grow their revenue and build their business cost-effectively. 4. The Ecosystem Business Model Apple is the perfect example of a company that has successfully implemented the ecosystem model. It is one of the most effective, disruptive business models and it hooks customers like a drug. A company creates a universe of products and services where customers will get lost without even realizing it. The model only works if the company creates enough products and services to trigger a high level of dependence on the customer's part. The system limits a customer’s choice thus eliminating any competition. They have no choice but to keep on buying the products and services. If an iPhone breaks, for example, a customer will have to buy another one. 5. The Hypermarket Business Model The most effective way to disrupt is to offer products and services at a lower price. Big companies are using this model to crush their competitors. Amazon pioneered the model. The company will usually operate like a hyper store and offer numerous products and services. Thus, benefiting from massive economies of scale. When a company like Amazon offers products and services at a lower price, competitors usually have no other option than to exit the market. If they attempt to lower their costs to match that of the hyper store, they would be forced to operate at a loss since they don’t benefit from economies of scale. Other distributors using this model include Zalando and Coolblue. 6. Access Over Ownership This business model turns products into services. It allows customers access to a product without necessarily having to buy it first. Customers can now use expensive products that they wouldn’t typically afford. Thus, the business is still the actual owner of the products. The internet plays a vital role in the success of this business model. Zipcar, for example, is one company that successfully implemented it. The business owns a fleet of cars which it shares out to its members who pay a certain fee every year to enjoy the service. 7. Renewable Energy 86% of America’s energy consumption still relies on gas, coal and nuclear power plants. This dependence is expected to drop in the coming years. The cost of renewable energy has dipped significantly. The price of installing solar has been reduced by half since 2010 in the U.S. The World Economic Forum. They also report that the cost of wind and solar energy is now lower than that of fossil fuels in 30 countries. Big companies in the U.S. including Google, Apple, and Facebook will soon make a 100% shift to renewable energies. According to Michael Drexler, head of infrastructure and development investing at the WEF, renewable energy is now at its tipping point. Finally, apart from being a commercially viable option, it is also a compelling business opportunity that offers stable, long-term, inflation-protected returns. The business models outlined above are some of the most disruptive emerging business models with the potential to shake up their respective industries. Our industry, Crowdfunding Real Estate, continues to impress seasoned and young investors due to all the options available. Take a look at our latest offerings clicking here today.

We’re about to complete our final punch list items! Electrical fixtures, carpet, fence, gutters, downspouts and shower enclosures are now installed. Garage and parking areas are poured and SDG&E will install gas and electric meters this week. Finally, the three units are furnished with a rustic /contemporary look. Dive into our pictures to see what we are so excited about.  

Costebelle is almost ready for its market reveal! This month's Costebelle investment update brings you tile complete and the cabinets, garage door, baseboard, interior and exterior doors and tubs have been installed. On the exterior, we have poured the concrete in front of the garage area and the concrete stairs. We are working with SDG&E on the gas line and meter. The Roman James custom furniture and art will go in just before or after Thanksgiving. Take a look at this month’s pictures to see the house La Jolla will be talking about.

The new General Contractor team is doing an outstanding job on site. All of the framing and roofing issues needed to pass inspection are nearly complete. Roofing has been sheeted and roof materials have been ordered. Moreover, the interior design team is working on finalizing the interior design package. Windows and exterior doors are going to be installed soon. Finally, enjoy the following pictures showing progress on the Monterey Investment Property. We include a  sneak preview of the final rendering of this house:    

This project is starting to take shape! Unit A has rough-in plumbing at 70% and HVAC at 20%. Unit B rough-in plumbing and HVAC are done and we’ve begun electrical layout and locating electric and gas meters. Windows and exterior doors will be delivered and installed soon. Stucco is scheduled for later this month and roofing will begin by early December.

Today many investors don’t just want to make money, they want to have a positive impact on society and support causes important to them. Socially Responsible Investing Then and Now Socially responsible investing used to mean avoiding controversial firms. Generally, companies in industries such as tobacco, alcohol or firearms. Investors often paid a price for their convictions, through higher fees, lower returns, or both. Over time, the category has become known as Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Investing, to incorporate issues such as gender diversity, board accountability, and environmental degradation. As investor demand for ESG products has grown, portfolio managers are increasingly considering ESG issues when making investment decisions. Today’s investor can choose from among many mutual funds and ETFs that incorporate ESG guidelines in their stock selection. But did you know real estate investments can reflect your values, too? How to incorporate ESG investing into your portfolio with Real Estate: At DiversyFund, we understand the impact real estate can have on the community. Thus, we strive to develop investment properties that improve their surrounding areas. Consider our Park Blvd. project, for example. The parcel is located in Hillcrest, a diverse urban neighborhood of San Diego with an undersupply of housing. The existing structures on the site are tired and unattractive and don’t use the lot to its full potential. Roman James’s exciting design will add 58 apartment units to the neighborhood, 6 of which will be designated as affordable, to put them within reach of lower-income tenants. Along with the ground floor commercial space, this project will revitalize its block. Hillcrest is a high-density, walkable neighborhood with good access to public transportation. The neighborhood is ethnically diverse and LGBTQ friendly. DiversyFund’s Costebelle project had been abandoned by the previous developer and was an eyesore on an otherwise beautiful street. DiversyFund acquired the property at a significant discount and is completing construction of a stunning house that will be the envy of the neighborhood. Our Goshen project is a 3-unit property located within walking distance of the University of San Diego, making it potential off-campus student housing. No longer do investors have to sacrifice returns to find investments they can feel good about. Crowdfunding real estate gives you the best of both worlds: high returns and an investment you can be proud of. If you are interested in socially responsible investing, we invite you to explore our investment properties. DiversyFund is the platform where high returns and socially responsible investments meet.

Diversification is a way of spreading out your investments across various types of assets. By diversifying their portfolios, investors are able to reduce their overall risk, while increasing the return on their investments. Wouldn't you like to learn more about the best ways to diversify your portfolio for higher investment earnings? A major key to success in investing is balancing your risk level with your desired timeframe. This is why it’s important to ensure you are carrying just the right amount of risk versus reward. For example, You’re in your early 20’s and just starting a retirement account. In this situation, you wouldn’t want to be too conservative with your investments. If you are too conservative, then you may discover the growth of your investment is not keeping up with the rate of inflation. On another example, you’re reaching retirement age and add risky investments to your portfolio. This would not be good at that time of your life to start taking high-risk investments. You shouldn't leave yourself open to the volatility of the market. Therefore, to balance your risk and reward appropriately, it’s a smart idea to diversify your portfolio. By doing so, you can help eliminate both risk and volatility in your portfolio. Additionally, you can reduce the amount of stress you incur watching the numbers. Just remember, diversifying doesn’t guarantee you a larger profit or that there will be no losses. The Different Types of Investment Risks When making an investment, investors are faced with two primary types of risk: Undiversifiable: This type of risk is commonly referred to as “systematic risk.” It will be found with every company investors look to invest in. Since this risk is not specific to any industry, there is no way to get rid of or lessen it through diversification. To put it simply, it’s just a risk that must be accepted by investors. Some examples of Undiversifiable risk include inflation, war, interest rates, exchange rates and other factors out of investor’s and/or the company’s control. Diversifiable: This type of risk is commonly referred to as “unsystematic risk.” It is specific to an entity, such as a company, country or industry. Due to this being a risk that is specific to an entity, investors can lower their risk through diversification. Therefore, the goal here is to invest in multiple assets that are not all affected the same way by market changes. Why You Should Diversify Your Portfolio Ensuring your financial portfolio is diversified to protect you against market changes, is key to successful investing. Take a quick look at our example to see why it’s a good idea to ensure diversification within your portfolio. Let’s say your portfolio only had stocks from a coal company. If the government decided to start offering tax breaks to households using 100% renewable energy, your financial portfolio would likely take a hit. This is due to the coal company losing business as more households switch to renewable energy for the tax breaks. However, if you had diversified your portfolio with both the coal company and renewable energy company, only a portion of your portfolio would have taken a hit during the market change. And, your stocks in renewable energy would have likely seen an increase. Thus, balancing out your loss with the coal company. On the other hand, you could diversify even more. You would want to do this as both coal and renewable energy have a close relationship. This means they may face a downturn at the same time. Therefore, when practicing diversification, it’s important to not only choose a variety of companies but a variety of industries and asset classes. Diversify your Portfolio with These Components With a number of companies to invest in, your options as an investor truly are limitless when it comes where to invest your money. However, there are a number of components that make for a well-rounded financial portfolio, which include the following: Stocks: One of the most common investment options. Generally, stocks are more aggressive than most investments. And, they provide investors with a high growth opportunity over the long term. But, this also means a greater risk is being taken, especially when looking at the short term. Bonds: With bonds, there’s generally regular interest paid out to the investor. In addition to this, bonds are typically seen as a less risky investment. Many use bonds to balance out their stocks. This is due to stock and bonds not having a close relationship in the marketplace. Therefore, when the stock market tanks, bonds remain intact. While investors in bonds generally have to accept lower returns, they can find peace of mind knowing their returns will not waver as much as the stock market. Asset Allocation Funds: This type of investment is most commonly seen at your larger financial advisor offices. These include companies such as Edward Jones or Fidelity. Most often, investors with no time or the knowledge to build up a diverse portfolio, utilize asset allocation as a “single-fund” strategy. In this, investors allow a financial advisor to make decisions for them. These decisions are based on the financial goals discussed with the advisor. Real Estate: There are a number of ways to invest in real estate. Some of these include a traditional real estate fund or real estate investment trusts (REITs). Additionally, investors can choose to invest in crowdfunding real estate platforms. When investors diversify your portfolio into real estate, they are able to further protect their portfolio against any market changes. Plus, through crowdfunding real estate, investors can easily invest in a number of properties. This aids in lessening the risk of their investments even more. The Goal of a Diversification Strategy When are trying to diversify your portfolio, there are a number of factors you must take into account. First, remember that diversification is not about maximizing returns. It is about limiting the impact the market has on your portfolio. This is why it’s key to take your time and come up with the best possible diversification strategy. One must also remember that over time, your strategy will change as your risk tolerance and time horizon begin to change. For example, let’s say you started investing when you were in your early 20’s. At that time, you likely had a high-risk tolerance and over twenty years to build your portfolio up. Therefore, you were likely invested in some riskier stocks with a larger potential for growth. However, if you are nearing retirement age, you may consider moving some of the riskier investments into ones with less risk. This is due to needing the money in a shorter timeframe. Thus, you don’t want to risk everything you have when you need to cash out soon for retirement. Diversifying with Real Estate Real estate is a great way to diversify your financial portfolio and recently has become available to the average investor. Not long ago, only the uber-rich or individuals with the “right” connections could invest in private real estate deals. However, that’s simply not the case anymore. With the passing of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act in 2008, crowdfunding real estate platforms are now available. Even more so, they are allowing investors to easily start investing in real estate with low minimums. Simply browse the pre-vetted investments available on the platform. Then, review the details and find one that fits your needs to start investing. It really is that simple. At DiversyFund, our platform offers exclusive investment opportunities to investors. These are fully vetted and approved by our team that has more than two decades experience in real estate investments. By choosing to invest via a platform like ours, you are able to spread your investment dollars in a multitude of high-end income and growth offerings instead of just one. Thus, diversifying your real estate portfolio even more than was ever possible before. Check out our latest investment offerings here!

Known as “Americas Finest City” there is no doubt that San Diego truly lives up to its name. Year-round perfect weather, beautiful scenery and miles of sandy beaches. It is hard to not fall in love with San Diego. As one of the top most desirable cities to live in, the San Diego's real estate market is in high demand. This results in real estate investors and brokers participating in the city’s housing market. This is great news for current investors, realtors and potential investors who dream of investing in one of San Diego’s beautiful properties. Business Trends in San Diego Housing costs in San Diego are amongst one of the highest nationwide, office space rates are also at an all-time high. According to JLL Research, “Class A average monthly asking rental rates are now $3.25 per square foot Full Service Gross (FSG), having surpassed the previous peak at $3.23 FSG reached in 2007. Overall asking rates for Class A and B remain robust with 28 percent growth since the recession” [2 October 2017]. Downtown San Diego currently has the highest amount of executive office spaces to meet the needs of various companies. Thus, if you are looking to rent luxurious office spaces in close proximity to other executive suites, downtown is the best choice. Although it comes with a high price tag. Education Trends in San Diego San Diego is also a leader in the STEM field and college level degrees. STEM education brings science, technology, engineering and mathematics to the educational curriculum. Many colleges in San Diego offer a variety of Engineering and technology-based majors. For example, UCSD’s Jacobs School of Engineering, SDSU’s School of Engineering as well as many private universities offering STEM-based majors. Additionally, many elementary, junior and high schools within San Diego County have adopted the STEM approach to education. This trend in education and colleges is driving an increase in individuals moving to pursue their educational and professional careers. According to JLL Research, “San Diego has seen 36.5 percent growth in Biotechnology and Technology company’s employment in the last 10 years” [28 August 2017]. Being that many college graduates reside in San Diego, many tech firms are expanding to this city. “According to a new study conducted by real estate outfit Cushman & Wakefield, San Diego ranks No. 9 on the first top 25 lists of tech cities in the U.S.” (San Diego Union-Tribune [ 8 June 2017]). Some of the higher ranking companies range from Qualcomm to General Atomics. Emerging industries in San Diego Many Bay Area tech companies are planning on migrating to San Diego in the future. According to CBRE San Diego VP Andrew Ewald “If a business owner is able to reduce their operating costs, it simply makes the business more profitable.” Andrew states, “salaries are about 28% lower here than in the Bay Area. For instance, the average salary for an app developer is $102k annually in San Diego, compared to $141k in San Jose” [17 November 2016]. With advancing technology and science, math, technology, and engineering integrations into San Diego County’s education system, the increase in tech jobs continues to grow the housing demand. Why DiversyFund chooses the San Diego's Real Estate Market? As one of the top Real Estate Crowdfunding platforms in San Diego, we follow the new trends in our community. Being such desirable Real Estate market, it makes it easier for real estate investors to prefer our investment opportunities.  Finally, DiversyFund’s mission is to revolutionize and simplify the real estate and investment process. Our crowdfunding platform allows our investors to meet their short and long-term investment goals. We provide them with accountable, high-quality investment opportunities.

After weeks of planning and preparation, At DiversyFund, we celebrated our investors! We wanted the opportunity to show our appreciation to current and potential investors by holding an Investors Appreciation Evening.  Investors and guests enjoyed wine, cheese, conversation and were able to enjoy an exclusive preview of one of our current projects. In the midst of the mingling amongst attendees, our partner, architect Roman James, real estate agent, Seth O’Byrne, along with CEO, Craig Cecilio, and CIO, Alan Lewis, gave a full presentation of the Granito project. This property is located in the Hollywood Hills projected to be completed in a little over a year. A wonderful evening for our investors and our team! Around six in the evening, slowly but surely, guest started to arrive. Some traveling right after work, others from cities near and far. Soon after, guests were called in to gather in the conference room as the presentation started. Craig started the presentation with a brief intro. Introducing his business partners Roman James and Seth O'Byrne to go over some project aspects. “One of the things that I really enjoy about working with DiversyFund is that we are taking down amazing projects that we can all be really proud of because of the gorgeous architecture. Some of the best lofts in San Diego and Los Angeles and the returns are absolutely incredible. They are not returns that every-day people can typically get. The Summit House is a great example we are going to set a record with Summit House that La Jolla will remember for decades to come.” Said O’Byrne during the presentation, then going on to describing his partnership with DiversyFund in further detail. Architect, Roman James, joined us On another hand, Mr. Roman James said, “What’s exciting about Diversyfund is it really reaches out to the everyday investor that wants to be part of a huge project which is really exciting for guys like us because it allows us to reach out to a big group and involve them in what we are doing. It’s a big reach not just the crowd at the country club”. James touched on in the presentation what excites him about working with us. He also discussed how Craig and Alan have allowed him to reach a larger audience of investors. “One of the reasons that Diversyfund is disrupting the market is because we are having our investors invest in the high-end real estate with top end designers and architects. If your investing would you rather invest with a regular building or would you like to invest in a high-end designer’s real estate where your returns are the same, but at the end of the day you’re a part of something special”. Craig Cecilio went on to describe one of many benefits from investing with DiversyFund. “Your investment adds value to the area, makes the community better, and at the end of the day it will sell quickly so you can get your return faster and your money is more protected”.  

Crowdfunding Real Estate Business became Show Business during our recent interview at That Business Show. Our Co-Founder and Chief Investment Officer, Alan Lewis, was recently interviewed by Jamie Meloni from That Business Show podcast to go over everything related to Crowdfunding and the Real Estate market in California. Lewis goes from the very simple concept of crowdfunding to the latest data collected in the Real Estate market in the San Diego, California area. Meloni shares details about the current market in his area of expertise, Tampa, Florida. We get to learn important details that will help any investor in making a decision to start using Crowdfunding Real Estate investment on their investment portfolios. Enjoy this interview and you can find all these details in the transcript below:   Interview: Jamie Meloni (JM) Hey Welcome to the Real Estate edition of the That Business Show 2.0 I’m your host Jamie Meloni where real estate becomes Show Business. With new episodes each Thursday, 9:00 am. EST www.thatbuinessnetwork.com. Today we are going to be talking about crowdfunding with Alan Lewis, who is my guest. He is the Chief Investment Officer and co-founder of DiversyFund and has worked in the Real Estate industry for 15 years. Including heading up a real estate private equity division where he oversaw Class A, multifamily, and working on Wall Street as both, an investment banker, and a corporate attorney serving real estate investment clients. So, Alan, welcome to the program today. Alan Lewis (AL) Hey, thanks, Jaime, I appreciate you having me on. JM You know, crowdfunding is a term we are hearing more and more about in business, and I’ve talked about this on the program before. So, before we get into it, for people who aren’t familiar with what crowdfunding is, give us the overview. What Crowdfunding is? AL Sure. The term gets toss around quite a bit. There are some technical terms for crowdfunding, but essentially, when we, in the industry, talk about crowdfunding, it means, having a crowd of investors. Think about a group of investors spread across the country. From California to New York, and all the states in between, who are basically coming together, pulling their money to fund a particular transaction. Be it real estate, or we’ve all seen the startup companies that have crowdfunding like a Kickstarter. So basically, a crowd of investors putting their capital together to make some sort of investment or transaction happen. JM Now, why are we hearing about this more and more? Was there a recent change that allowed the average person to participate in crowdfunding? What’s the history on this? AL Sure, yes. It all stands back to the JOBS Act, and there are some different parts of it. You know, there is Title II, which is where most of our deals fall under. Which allows people for the first time to advertise potential transactions. Before that, you know, you had to have a prior relationship with someone. You couldn’t just advertise, and say, “Hey, we are raising money for this project, or this transaction.” So now we can do that as long as those investors, at the end of the day, are all accredited. It’s the new 506C exemption for securities laws. The new thing that everyone is talking about is the new Title III, which is crowdfunding, where startup companies can raise up to 1 million dollars. It definitely has a big limit on it, and there are some limitations as to how much an investor can put in, based on their net worth and their income. So that’s the new thing that just came on online, and became active about a year ago. So that’s been the big buzz in the news. You know, the older 506C has been around for a couple of years. JM Great. So, what is DiversyFund? What are you investing in? AL We are an online crowdfunding platform, and what we’ve done is, we invest in Real Estate. We looked at the market and what we saw was that as crowdfunding sites started popping up, there was this huge amount of real estate, right? Because if someone is going to invest, it is beneficial to have a hard asset, you know, backing your dollars. Instead of when you are investing in a startup company you are rolling the dice, at the end of the day. So, what we looked at was that all the competitors out there were functioning as a broker, right? They were matching investors to various 3rd party real estate developers and real estate sponsors, and we had some problems with that model because you have no quality control, right? I mean, you are going to have some great sponsors, some not so great sponsors, and you are not going to know the difference until it is too late, and the investor's’ capital is at risk. So, with my career and having come from a real estate development background, my partner having done real estate development for his 20-year career, we said hey, let’s just do something totally different. Let’s go vertically integrated where all the offerings that we put on our platform that our investors can look at, we are the developers on all of those. So, we have this quality control, we have a general contractor and a construction management team licensed that’s on board in-house, and it’s just been a huge switch in business models that make it better for our investors at the end of the day. JM Okay, so you are developer behind all the projects that are in the fund. So, you are not buying 3rd party assets and putting them into the fund or becoming involved in those? AL That’s right. Exactly. So, it is better for both sides, right? We have… If I’m doing a project, you know, it is here in my backyard, in San Diego, we can visit them on a weekly or monthly basis, and the minute it’s off schedule or over budget we know, and we can jump in and fix it, rather than relying on someone else to hopefully tell you that something is not working out. JM What type of assets are you developing right now? Commercial assets? Or are you doing residential? Single-family homes? What’s doing well in California where you are investing? AL We have two main product lines that we like right now. We are always looking at market metrics to see where the trends are heading. You know, what’s happening with sale prices, rental rates, and vacancy. So right now, we have single-family residential products that we are building. We are building these high-end homes in places like Coronado and La Jolla, and there is just such a healthy profit margin on those that’s worked out really well for our investors. JM What keeps values so high in California? We know Silicon Valley and the tech industry are out there. Is that still what’s keeping value so high in California? AL A lot of it is, you know if you come and visit you see that you can’t beat the weather, and many people just want to live here. So, we always have population growth and job growth. Down in San Diego, we are benefiting from a lot of venture capital, type of startups, who are always looking for a cheaper place to live, and it is still a desirable location for young professionals. JM California is a very expensive market, but a very desirable one, no doubt. I was just in San Diego a couple of years ago, and I think the starting price for a home was like a half a million. I mean, I’m in Tampa, a major metro and you can still get a starting home for 100,000. It just amazes me the differences in prices across the metrics. I guess it comes down to the weather out there. I mean, we got heat, but we got that humidity. You don’t have that humidity out there. AL Yeah, we don’t have the humidity, which is nice. It’s just an appealing place to live that people are steadily coming here. JM Tell me how is this different from the electronic real estate investment trust? And REIT, for instance. Also, how would one who wants to invest be able to invest. Do they have to under an accredited investor, as we know the term? AL Sure. For our platform, right now, all our investments are targeted for accredited investors. Our minimum investment is as low as $10,000 USD. We are trying to make it very easy for someone to get started. The e-REITs, the electronic real estate investment trusts that we are seeing out there are similar to what we do with our passive income fund. What that means is that you are basically creating a fund, and that fund invests over a large number of real estate assets so you have the benefit of diversification. So, if one particular project doesn’t work out, instead of just being in dire straits with your capital, you have this pool of investments to kind of spread that risk out. So, it is a very easy way for, specially, new investors, into the real estate space to get started. Our passive income fund, similar to a REIT, distributes out, each quarter, all of the income interest it earns. So, we’ve been basically hitting about 11.4% average return net to investors, since we started that fund about 4 years ago. So, there is a pretty established track record. People basically just put their money in, and each quarter they get a check, and after their initial 2 years they can pull their money out, whenever they want. JM How has real estate been performing out in California?  In Florida, for instance, we had a great run right up until 2006, and we had that terrible crash. We lost about 50% value across the board between 2006 and 2008. And really, we didn’t start to recover until 2012. We’ve probably picked up about 30% of that loss value back, on average. How has the California real estate market performed? And that’s the residential market. AL We didn’t take quite as deep of a crash as you saw in Vegas, in Florida, Miami, where you had a lot of speculation. Pricing is pretty much on par and it is fully recovered right now. Where we are seeing great year over year price increase. I think it went from 6 to 10% depending on the price point here. But even then, if you look at the sales volume, I was just pulling statistics, in fact, back in the peak in 2004, your monthly sales volume down in San Diego was 76,000 homes trading per month, and in the low point back in 2008, was 19,000. It drops from 76,000 down to 19,000 per month, and right now, we are currently in about a 46,000. We are somewhere in the middle. We are still not even hitting the same volume, which is good, because we don’t have that much speculation going on, but pricing has pretty much recovered. JM Hold that point there, I got to take a quick break. Currently talking with Alan Lewis, Chief Investment Officer, with DiversyFund, using crowdfunding to get you into the real estate business with a professional group that understands how to invest in the real estate market. For more, www.diversyfund.com. We got more when we come back from the break on That Business Show 2.0, the real estate edition. I’m Jamie Meloni where business becomes show business. Break JM And we are back to That Business Show 2.0, the real estate edition, where real estate becomes show business, with new episodes each Thursday morning, 9:00 am, EST, at www.thatbusinessnetwork.com. Today my guest is Alan Lewis, Chief Investment Officer with DiversyFund, where they are using crowdfunding to invest in real estate assets. So, if you are an accredited investor and want to get into the real estate business, a nice tangible product that protects your investment, visit www.diversyfund.com for more information. So, Alan, how are the residential market and the commercial market? Are they connected, when one goes up, one goes down, or do they both go up or down? What I’m getting at here is, how is the exposure? Or, how is my money risk when I’m investing in, you know, just real estate assets that are in California? AL In general, if you have an appreciation, or softening in the real estate market, it washes over most asset classes. However, different product types within real estate are affected differently. For example, when we had a big crash, in a way, with residential, multi-family actually wasn’t hit as hard because you have a lot of people getting foreclose, so now they become renters. We are also seeing this perpetual renter mentality among the millennials who just reject the home buying story, and they don’t want to be tied down to a mortgage. They like to be able to pick up and leave if they want on a yearly basis. So, multifamily surprisingly didn’t have as many foreclosures as the residential side. So, that’s why it is always good to try to diversify yourself in over a couple of different product types within the real estate asset classes. JM How is the profit margin on rentals? In 2012, in Tampa Bay market, we were setting on, you know, a record-low value and a record-high rents, and we had this surge of investment groups that came into our market, the hedge funds, the Blackstone, progress residential, which was Free of Florida, which is a Goldman Sachs-based fund. They just centered up in our market and they gobbled up every short sale in sight. Really, that’s what led our market to today having a very low inventory supply because this stuff is tied up in rental housing, which normally becomes an on and off the market through normal life events, like divorce, and job change. We are having a hard time finding anything to sell to anybody right now because of this. Did you have a similar experience in California? Or, what is the rental market like out there? In terms of profitability. AL Because we had less, there surely was speculation here in southern California, but because it wasn’t as extreme as in your neck of the woods, we didn’t have quite that opportunity. In 2010, 2011, there certainly were a lot of institutions sniffing around and pulling up assets for really attractive cap rates. Now what we are seeing is, especially in San Diego, our backyard, where we also do multifamily investments in addition to our single-family product, so we have a couple of factors that we are really excited about. First, the rent increase is right about 8% year over year. Which is very high, and we like that. Vacancies are down to 2-3% depending on who you are talking to. I think that what’s driving that, if you go around, and drive around some of the neighborhoods, you will see a ton of multi-family construction. So, your initial reaction is, okay, this is getting over-built and over-heated. But we are big data guys, and when you go to the data behind it, the economic forecasters are showing this huge 30,000 to 50,000 undersupply. The deficit of multi-family apartment units that the city needs, based on populations and job growth, and we are only putting about 5,000 units online per year. So, a huge delta between, 30,000, and only supplying 5,000 units. So that is going to keep a rental increase and the vacancy rates where they are. They may level off a little bit, but, I think, we’ll still have a very attractive outlook for multi-family here. JM One of the things that I loved about San Diego was the Downtown. The Gaslamp district, the Petco Park that’s down there. So, to what degree does the Downtown-vibrant city life drive the surrounding communities? I ask that because Downtown Tampa is dull, it’s doldrum of the development. We got some stuff on the horizon, with a new developer in Tampa that’s really supposed to bring back the nightlife, and the sass of the area. But, to what degree does a solid-fun Downtown help to prop up real estate values? AL The bay, which you are referring to, is becoming a big driver behind making rentals in the downtown area. What’s attractive, is what we call walkability, right? People are increasingly active and they like the fact that they can go from the front door of their apartment building to their dry cleaner, their deli, a good grocery store like whole foods, and restaurants and trendy bars, and have all that just within a few blocks. So, where downtowns have been forward thinking, and have a zone and the time is correct to allow for that, they are really seeing that come to play. San Diego has done a great job in being forward thinking in a lot of these areas. The Gaslamp is more catered towards convention visitors that come stay in hotels in the area, so local residents tend to avoid the guests. It’s kind of like Time Square in Manhattan, where I used to live. It’s certainly that walkability. That is a huge factor. JM It’s that live, work and play mentality. Like, Downtown Tampa shuts down at 5 or 6 o’clock in the evening. There is no night-life in downtown Tampa. But we got an investor names Jeff Vinik, is his name, and we got this district called the Channel Side District which is supposed to be a very vibrant area which has been done poorly over the last 10, 20 years or more, that it’s been in existence. He is wiping it all out, it’s a waterfront community. He is building a brand-new development so that everybody is all about Downtown Tampa right now. So, we are very excited about what’s coming to the area. But one thing that we are also very excited about the potential to get the Tampa Bay Rays Stadium over to the Downtown, and you have Petco Park Downtown. When that came to Downtown, was there a notable increase in activity in Downtown? AL Yes, certainly. You got a lot of folks coming in from surrounding suburbs for those games, so you have an up taken in retail for the area surrounding the Park. We are seeing that local residents aren’t too happy with the parking and the crowding that comes in, but, you know, it is just a great luxury to have. You know, the ballpark is just a few blocks away, and you can go visit, especially if you are a baseball fan. JM How do you see DiversyFund expanding? Do you plan to stay within the California market? Do you have plans to enter other real estate markets and develop this crowdfunding platform? AL Since we are the developers in all of our projects, we prefer to do deals in markets where we understand the trends and what’s driving the growth and other factors. So, California is an easy one for us because it’s right here in our backyard. But, that said, we are certainly looking right now at other markets. I spent some time in Salt Lake City area where I headed up a private equity division, with a lot of similar markets. So, we are looking in other areas where we really like what the market is doing. JM How are you attracting investors to your fund? How do you those people? AL We do a lot of digital advertising, on Google, Bing, Facebook, social media, etc. A big thing for us is educating people. The average is doing what my parents and grandparents did, which is to put all their money in stock market, stock and bonds because that’s what they’ve been told to do. So, they don’t even realize that their investment portfolio is missing real estate, private real estate. So, we have to educate people to help them understand that a good 20 to 30% of your portfolio should be in alternative assets. Which basically means that any asset class that is alternative to investing in stocks, of course, the biggest one, is real estate. So, as we go through that process, it takes a few touches, through advertising for people to finally get the message of, “I need to start moving some of my money out of stocks and into real estate.” JM I was coached, as a young investor, buy a home as soon as you can, buy as much real estate as you can by my father. Because that’s the road to wealth. Then we had this financial crisis that hit through the mid-2000s, so the millennials have a different viewpoint, because of what they’ve seen happened to their parents and grandparents. Do you find that it is a different discussion when you are talking to millennials about the value of investing in real estate vs. the baby boomers and people who have seen such good years in real estate? AL Absolutely. Yes, the baby boomers, they understand. They had a nasty downturn, but they’ve also seen and gone through several cycles and have seen the wealth that is generated through real estate and seen that it is a great place to allocate some of your portfolios. With millennials, in general, we are seeing two different groups. We are seeing those who have read "The Rich Dad", one of Robert Kiyosaki's books, and understand that real estate is a key driver for wealth generation. But we have a lot of millennials who saving for retirement is not on their radar. It’s the Instagram generation. They are just big on experiences, they are not buying assets, they don’t necessarily want the shiny car and the house. They just want these experiences. At the end of the day, we are trying to help them see how, if you like being able to travel and having this freedom, starting to invest in early age certainly will help you maintain that ability and increase your ability to do what you want and have that financial freedom. JM But, on the flip side, you are reaching the millennials because you are the developer, you are building these multi-family rentals and this housing to attract the millennials who are all about the experience, so now on the flip side, you are catering to them as a product provider. How are you developing your product, or, are you developing your products to reach the millennials? AL I think a big part of that is that our real estate assets are the same regardless of who our investors are, but a big part of that goes back to educating through our marketing process. So, when we have people who come to our website to set up for free an account, and then they can start talking to us on the phone, to go through questions they have, just about an asset in particular. Our folks start with basic questions such as “tell me how real estate investing works.” So, we spend a lot of time with basic concepts that you are familiar with, like passive income, what does that mean. Some people just have to figure out for the first time that investing in real estate is sort of a cash flow and then they collect quarterly payments. That’s new to a lot of people. JM You’ve been involved in investing, in real estate business for some time now. Crowdfunding a fairly new concept in business. How has it enabled you to grow as a business? What has crowdfunding done for you as a fund? AL Crowdfunding has been a complete game changer. We are a forefront of this industry that is innovating two things. The way capital is raised in the financial industry. And, The way that real estate development is getting done. In the past, unless you knew some guy, some broker in wall street, and had enough money to get his attention, and write a couple million dollars, or be best friends with the real estate developer, people just didn’t have access to this kind of vetted, institutional quality, private real estate deals. With crowdfunding, what we’ve done is, we’ve changed the whole spacing, give, someone in Ohio, who would never have an opportunity otherwise, we give them access. So, we talk about democratizing access to these wealth-generating opportunities, so that’s really what we are doing. As a company, we are very proud to be changing and growing an entire industry and system, and doing it in a way that spreads the way people can generate wealth and who can generate wealth. Now it’s open to everyone. JM I’m thinking of the analogy, that crowdfunding is to the average investor, kind of what podcasting is vs. the media. Podcasting is giving a voice to so many average people who’ve built up tremendous audiences and is kind of the thorn on this side of traditional media out there; which doesn’t give a voice to a lot of the average ordinary people. Crowdfunding in your business is giving a chance for the average person with average money to get involved in investments that otherwise would be held off for the multi-millionaires up on wall street. Is that a good association? AL Yes, to the same point, you talk about being a thorn in the side of an established industry, and with our income fund, that’s been around for a while, we’ve put it on the website for the first time for new investors to come in. And, what we did is, in our marketing we talk about declaring the war on fees, declaring a war on the asset management fee, the performance fee, that these wall street funds typically charge. We can do that because we make our money on the development side, so it’s very easy for us to completely eliminate fees so the investor if the fund is making 11%, the investor keeps 11%. That, certainly, has people in the established financial industry not happy that fees are going away. They like their fee checks, but that’s what happens with industry innovation, and when you vertically integrate, you have that savings, so you can pass it along to the consumer, which in our case is our investors. JM Is there a minimum investment to get involved with DiversyFund? AL Yes, we’ll go as low as $5,000 USD, but it depends on the particular project. The ones on our website right now are all $10,000 USD, so the big one, that people start with is our Income Fund. It’s the easiest one. It has a 4-year-track record, and you just part the money and collect your quarterly checks. We are averaging 10.1% based on our last quarter payments. So, it is a great place to start. JM So, if someone wants to put their money in DiversyFund, how would they get started? What would you advise them to do? AL You just go to the website, www.diversyfund.com, go to the sign up for a free account, look at what we have there, If you want to talk to one of us, we’ll answer any questions, and then the process is completely online, it’s fully automated, you sign your docs online, and ACH your capital and then just collect the checks. JM Alright sounds good. It’s been a great discussion. Alan Lewis, co-founder and Chief Investment Officer of the DiversyFund. Thank you so much for being with me on this edition of The Real Estate Show. AL My pleasure Jamie. Visit www.diversyfund.com for more information. Stay tuned. We’ll be back.  

Framing is coming to a close & New team members! Now that framing is coming to a close, we have switched general contractors to a local builder with over 20 years of experience in Monterey. The new general contractor identified some framing errors from the previous builder and is in the process of correcting them before calling for a framing inspection. Approval of the roof design took longer than expected due to the strict HOA guidelines. Construction has begun on the retaining wall on the southeast side of the property, where the driveway will be. Although we have lost some time on this project due to last winter’s heavy rains and the more recent framing corrections and HOA issues, we expect to make up some of this time in the months ahead. The local real estate market continues to show strong buyer demand and pricing remains firm. Approval of the roof design took longer than expected due to the strict HOA guidelines. Construction began on the retaining wall on the southeast side of the property, where the driveway will be. Although we lost some time on this project due to last winter’s heavy rains and the more recent framing corrections and HOA issues, we expect to make up some of this time in the months ahead. The local real estate market continues to show strong buyer demand and pricing remains firm.  

We are getting close to the finish line! This amazing project in La Jolla is starting to become more and more real. Large slabs of materials are installed in the bathroom walls and flooring is nearly completed. Countertops and cabinets will be installed soon. Outside improvements have been started and they are looking fabulous! Take a look at this month’s pictures and get inspired.  

Countertops are complete, bathroom accessories and interior handrails are installed and all hardwood floor areas are done. The existing retaining wall was waterproofed. The landscape drainage and new retaining wall between existing house and Unit 1 are now finished. Concrete forms on the garages and common areas are ready to be poured. We purchased furniture for this house and expect delivery later this month. Certificates of occupancy should be issued shortly thereafter. Our sales strategy is to furnish and rent the property. Thereafter,  we will sell it as a cash-flowing investment property, the highest and best use of the property. This strategy is in place to command the maximum sales price.

This month's investment update regarding Park Boulevard covers many meetings. These meetings were with the engineers and design consultants, so the team can finalize their plans including: structural, mechanical, shoring, civil, general contractor, and more. Additionally, architect Roman James is completing the schematics for the building. Finally, we are set to submit a full set of plans to the city by December 18, in accordance with our original schedule.

This month’s investment update for our project at 2112 Felspar Street reports that frames are almost done in Unit B. With the first and second floor finished and trusses installed, it is about 90% of the way done. Then in Unit A, the first floor is completely framed and 95% of the second floor is complete. Additionally, sheathing roof deck floor is being done to create a slope. Now, our team is scheduling all rough plumbing, electric and HVAC to begin soon. We have also selected all finishes to truly give this property a charming look. This way we are working together with subcontractors to make final decisions to ensure we stay on schedule.

Technology continues to be ever changing. When used correctly, it is possible to lower costs and create greater efficiency in any industry. Real estate is one such case in point. One Oxford study suggests that technology in real estate will make real estate agents obsolete in the next ten years. In the last few years, technology changed the way real estate transactions happen in many ways. From researching to financing to purchasing a property, technology has streamlined the process. This cuts down on the time it takes to transact business. As technology evolves, those left in its wake can either evolve with it or be left behind. If you don't want to be left behind, then there are a few things you should know about the ways technology is changing real estate. Here are some ways that the real estate industry continues to adapt to technology. Clients can do their own research. In the past, when a client was looking for a home, they would contact a real estate agent to discuss what they were looking for. Then, set up a time to go and see properties that had potential. These days, clients can go online to visit large MLS sites. They simply type in search criteria like location, number of bedrooms and bathrooms and the price they are willing to spend. The website then sets them up with a list of places they can look at online. Most people still prefer to see potential properties in person, but the online search can allow them to rule out all but the top contenders. They can also visit things like county auditors' websites to look up the history of the home, appraisal value and property taxes. When it comes to real estate investments, investors are also able to research investment options, properties and platforms to plan out their investments. Research is a great tool and all who want to enter the real estate industry can benefit from it. Long Distance Purchase & Investments Sometimes a client may buy a house without even visiting it. Current real estate technology allows clients to take 3D virtual tours which make it possible for a client to view a property without a physical visitation. If a client is moving a long distance, traveling simply to visit the property may not be possible. Virtual tours make the selection process easier and help in narrowing down the options. The same concept applies to real estate investors, especially for those looking into crowdfunding. Crowdfunding real estate platforms allow you to invest virtually from anywhere you are located. For example, you can live in Miami, Florida, and invest in a luxury property in San Diego, California. Great deals are always available on our platform, and as an accredited investor, you can invest with us while being anywhere. Never worry about collecting rent again. In the past, a risky tenant would be turned away. Now, there is technology that can have rent money directly removed from the tenant's paycheck. The landlord knows he will get paid and can thus lease the apartment. The technology that removes the payment directly from his paycheck also informs the credit bureau of his timely payment, thus improving his credit score. In the same sense, with passive income opportunities available on our platform, you do not have to worry about collecting rent, managing the properties or any of the other day-to-day tasks at hand. With DiversyFund as the developer and project lead, we handle all of these things for you from start to finish. All you have to do is simply invest and watch it grow. Of course, we will always send you updates and you can always check your investment’s status within your online dashboard. Buyers & investors can be approved quickly. Real estate technology is not the only thing moving forward. Financial technology is advancing all the time. Thanks to online lending sites and banking, a person who is in the market for a home may be able to get financing by filling out an online form. With the new Fintech, the potential lender has the ability to check credit scores, work history and savings almost instantaneously. The potential homeowner can find out in a matter of minutes if they are approved for a loan. This can speed the home purchasing process up exponentially. Moreover, investors are also able to complete the process to become an accredited investor online. The process is fast and you can complete it right on our platform as well. Paperwork has become nearly obsolete. Once upon a time, real estate agents drew up contracts and had things printed. They would have to set up meetings for clients to come into the office to sign paperwork. These days agents do not even have to be in the same room as their clients. They can send documents via such services as Dropbox. Clients can print them or in some cases even sign them virtually and return them. In fact, it's not only real estate. Fintech is also cutting down on the paperwork in favor of online forms. As for real estate crowdfunding paperwork, you get access to all forms and applications online, confirmations, contracts, as well as tax paperwork is produced virtually for safekeeping of all investors. Mobile devices make things even easier. With mobile devices, real estate technology can go, literally, anywhere. Clients can search listings and sign documents all while waiting for the bus. With the new Fintech, they can apply for loans and complete real estate transactions on their lunch breaks. There is, very little, these days, that you cannot do on a mobile device. Crowdfunding properties are also listed online with mobile access from anywhere. Our platform has full access from all mobile devices. As an investor, you can see how your money grows from your fingertips anytime you need to see how your investment portfolio is doing. Sell property without a real estate agent. Who says you need a real estate agent to sell your property. Agents take a cut of the sale. What if you could sell your property and only spend $400 to $1000 instead of the $10,000 or so your agent could take for commission? There are now online real estate brokerages that get rid of the middleman entirely. A seller can pay a flat fee and receive an MLS listing, a verification of a buyer's funds and a calendar for showings. For an additional fee, they get local agent support, professionally written descriptions, and sales contracts. In the same way, you don't need a financial expert to learn and access new real estate investments opportunities. You are in charge of your investment's destiny. Real estate investing simplified. With crowdfunding technology, investors can now diversify their portfolios with real estate investments. Using the ideas behind crowdfunding, investors can join other investors to fund high-return real estate projects. Without even visiting a property they can earn a higher return on their investments and even spread their investment fund out over multiple projects.   Technology in real estate continues shaping the way we finish up real estate. Everything from searching for a property to financing or investing in it is should be up to date with the latest in technology. Anyone who is not keeping up will likely be left behind. Find out what Fintech can do for you and your portfolio today, sign up for a free investor account with DiversyFund.  

Real estate investment funds have been around for a few years now, yet they are becoming a great alternative for investors. Hence, to answer this question, we would like to go over a full review about investment funds, what they are, how they work, and how you may benefit from them. What Is an Investment Fund? An investment fund is a source of capital that belongs to multiple investors. It gets used to buy securities together while each investor holds proprietorship and control of their own shares. An investment fund delivers a bigger range of investment prospects, expert supervision, and fewer investment fees, or none in some cases. Different types of investment funds include, but are not limited to: mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, money market funds, and hedge funds. Having such a vehicle that allows you to bring together related and unrelated investors, allows you to raise capital in a way that some investors could not do alone. There are many ways in which an investment fund is set up and functional for its investors. However, the common goal is set from the beginning and remains throughout the term of your investment. Can Investors Control the Investment Fund? Although you have control over your shares, you cannot make decisions about how the fund's assets are distributed for investment. Investors choose a fund based on its objectives, risks, fees and other aspects. With a fund, a fund manager oversees everything related to the fund and selects which securities it should hold, in what capacities and when they should buy or sell said securities. An investment fund can be broad-based, such as an index fund that tracks the Standard & Poor’s (S&P) 500 index, or it can be strictly focused, such as an ETF (exchange-traded fund) that invests only in small technology stocks. Fund managers use their knowledge, experience, and research to help your money grow and grant you investment income in some cases. These managers go deeper to find the most reliable investment options for you. How Do You Price a Fund? The funds’ shares are usually priced each business day. A typical dealing point is at midday. However, this can be different with each fund management company and type of asset. How Many People Can Join an Investment Fund? The number of investors in an investment fund is not fixed. Shares can be added to a fund, or sold in agreement by the parties. Some funds are originally designed to have a specific number of investors, and some are open-ended depending on the investment goal. Open-End Vs. Closed-End Most investment fund assets are part of open-end funds. These funds produce new shares as investors bring money to the pool, and withdraw shares as investors cash out. There are no restrictions on the number of shares that can be issued. These funds are typically priced just once at the end of the trading day. For example, most mutual funds are open-end funds. As an investor, you won't need a lot of money to enter into an open-end fund, making this type of investment an easy way to start investing. You will also have little to no fees in some cases. Closed-end funds exchange in a way more like stocks do than open-end funds. Closed-end funds are controlled investment funds that produce a fixed number of shares, and trade on an exchange. While a net asset value (NAV) of the fund is calculated, the fund trades based on investor supply and demand. Therefore, a closed-end fund may trade at a premium or a discount to its NAV. Unlike the open-end funds, closed-end funds have a limited number of shares that can be sold in an open market. Closed-end funds are not required to have cash reserves to meet redemptions. Therefore, these funds are able to invest in illiquid stocks, securities or markets such as real estate. While these funds may provide lower securities for investors, they often grant higher returns to its investors. Investment Funds & Real Estate Since closed-end funds provide a platform for real estate investments, companies such as DiversyFund developed a real estate investment fund to fit investors needs. This fund is a real estate debt fund targeting risk-adjusted passive income returns for its investors. We are able to do this by making secured loan investments for a diverse array of ground-up commercial, multi-family, mixed used and residential development projects. In our case, all of the fund’s loans are completed with its developer affiliate, DiversyFund. Thereafter, we are able to provide consistent quality control and transparency and better aligning economic goals between the fund and the developer. It used to be that putting your investment money into an insured savings account could earn you great amounts of interest, but that's not that case anymore. The newer way to invest and expect high returns are real-estate investment trusts (also known as REITs). That’s why our real estate investment fund is able to have such a success record. Why Choose DiversyFund’s Fund? The following are a few reasons why you should pick our fund over other funds: The experts who control our fund have over 20 years of experience in stock trading, real estate law and real estate development. Moreover, they have first-hand knowledge of the location of investment. Many companies offering funds, offer funds in areas that are not familiar to them. Some even obey to international laws, such as European Laws. Our fund averages an 11.4% (net) returns since its inception in 2013. Minimum investment of $10K and only locking up your investment for 2 years. After searching for detailed information on other funds, we were not able to find clear information on track record, investment terms, and clear targeted returns with other companies. Being that DiversyFund focuses its market research in California, we are creating a steady flow of real estate opportunities including many off-market and below-market transactions. Being on-site at all times allows keeping better quality control on all our investment opportunities. Offering our investors, the best opportunities is what we always aim to do. We are there from start-to-finish. If you ever come to our office, we might not be there. You’ll find us at one of our construction sites or studying the ground for a new investment development. That is what we do, and we are proud to share it with you. What about Fees? Our fund has NO FEES! Being one of the first funds to offer no fees seemed like the right thing to offer our investors. We believe in our investors and we believe in our investment properties. That’s why we guarantee no fee payment, only earnings at the end of your 2-year lock up period. To learn more about our fund and other investment opportunities, click here to register and stay in the know of current and new investment opportunities.

With all mechanical inspections passed last month, we’ve been able to make great headway on the transformation to finishes and beautification. Progress Continues on Costebelle Way With drywall and stucco now complete, we have begun to install tile in bathrooms and are prepping for cabinets. The completion of stucco means that we can begin to remove scaffolding and focus on the exterior improvements on this large hillside lot. 7930 Costebelle Way is starting to feel more like a home every day. Check out some of the large slab materials in the photos that are going to be used for shower walls. Costebelle Investment Update - Sept 2017 

Park Blvd. Investment Update for September 2017 This month’s investment update for Park Blvd reports our first design concepts brought to you by highly regarded Roman James Design team. Architecture and space planning are progressing nicely as we prepare to send architectural plans to some of the best engineers and design consultants in Southern California to work up and design the details. We hope you enjoy the following images that include blue print designs overview, as well as rendering images showing you the prospective end result of our construction. Park Blvd - September 2017 update 

This month’s investment update for Felspar reports foundation work complete. The framers are in full swing with first floors complete and are beginning to move up to the next level. We’ve had the majority of the utilities installed underground and accepted by the local authorities to ensure smooth installations and connections to the units for power, water and gas. The site is looking good and we are excited to see these homes continue to take shape through framing. We continue to make progress on selecting and purchasing so there is no gap in production as we wrap up framing and move into the finer details. Felspar Investment Property - Sept 2017 update   

August reports a light at the end of the tunnel. Through the month of August, we have installed interior doors and trim packages, painted interiors, installed cabinetry, and started bathroom tile and flooring. Concrete and landscape crews are prepped and moving onto the site to begin to button up the exterior improvements. Guardrails for the large roof-decks and balconies have been pre-manufactured off-site and will be installed. Now final measurements can be made for countertops and shower glass. The finish line is just around the corner! As we move toward a completed project, we are selecting furniture packages and artwork to make these units “turn-key” and will soon list each unit for rent on the open market.

This month’s Monterey investment update reports the framing as complete. This month’s investment update for Monterey brings the framing and roof sheathing to near complete. The house has truly taken shape on the gorgeous lot nestled in the hills above the Monterey peninsula. Progress Continues at 7835 Monterra Oaks Road. The massive and intricate roof structure is finally complete and final sheathing is being nailed down. We lost a few weeks off our projected schedule since the roof framing took longer than projected but hope to make up some time on finishes. A framing inspection will occur as soon as the last nail is set allowing us to start with mechanical trades (plumbing, electrical, HVAC). Windows and doors are now onsite and preparation has begun for installation. We are in final negotiations for finish packages with various high-end contractors in the local area. Simultaneously with the door and window installations, rough trades will continue and run all piping and wiring throughout the structure to accommodate its vast living spaces. Take a look at the pictures for this month’s investment update and notice all the details that are in place for this amazing house. Our team is excited about all the progress we are making every day at this property.

Millennials currently make up one-third of the United State’s population. As they shift into their professional careers, they continue to rapidly change the way we conduct business every day. Growing-up millennials quickly had more information at their fingertips than the previous generation ever imagined possible. After all, this generation is the first to not recall a time before the Internet. Since technology has always been a part of their lives, many rely heavily on it for just about everything. While research shows that millennials still hold many of the same values as previous generations, it also shows that most are holding off until later on. From getting married to purchasing a home, millennials just aren’t ready yet. In a time where millennials watched the unemployment rate continue to grow and wages sit at a standstill, most defer major life decisions until feeling fully comfortable. But, what about investments? Well, research continues to show that millennial investors prefer to save their money where they know it is safe. However, they become willing to invest after carefully researching the opportunity. Changing the Investment Game With the economic crash, millennials learned how to save, share and ultimately transform the business model. They created many new business models that never existed before along the way. From Uber to Airbnb, millennials made due with the resources available via technology. This is especially true when looking at the investment community. Whether it's stocks or real estate, millennial investors quickly reshaped the way this community does business. What was once “hush hush” on the golf course is now chatter on social media, a popular finance blog or some other news platform. Millennial investors aren't doing things the way they've always been done. Instead, they look for the quickest and smartest way to achieve the end result. With new apps launching daily to assist individuals in saving, managing and investing their money, many millennial investors don't meet with financial advisors. Instead, they find the best investment options on their own. By educating and researching investment options on their way to work or before their next meeting, millennials cut out the middleman. They find exactly what they want, ask the experts online and figure out how to obtain it. High Mobility, High Tech Millennial Investors Companies are taking notice! As you continue to see, new mobile applications roll out with immediate support being offered via social media. Industry leaders also provide their most insightful advice through the world wide web. These investment companies realize millennial investors have vastly different needs from previous generations and continue to adapt. From stock options as low as $5 to crowdfunding real estate investments with $1,000 minimums, the investment community swiftly changed to a high tech and high mobility atmosphere. Ultimately, to meet the many needs of millennial investors. In fact, many investment opportunities available in today’s market simply didn't exist ten or even five years ago. A prime example of this is crowdfunding real estate investments. Prior to its existence, you had to have quite the financial profile and real estate know-how to see a return on your investment. A New Era of Real Estate Investing Today, that is simply not the case. With a demand for easy, safe and convenient investment opportunities, the real estate investment community transformed. Now allowing all types of investors to easily expand their portfolio into real estate. By combining years of investing and real estate development experience, crowdfunding real estate investment platforms make it simple to start investing in real estate today. With the power of the crowd and technology, these platforms rapidly opened up new doors of opportunity. Through these platforms, millennials can easily browse new investment opportunities at their convenience. Thus, allowing them to choose an opportunity that suits their needs best. While there are a wide array of crowdfunding real estate investment platforms available, you must remember that not all platforms are the same. Of course, millennials already know this and will undoubtedly find the most reliable and transparent company to invest with. Just in case, though, make sure you do your research. Crowdfunding Real Estate Investing At Its Finest There are plenty of options to choose from when it comes to investing in real estate via crowdfunding. From minimums as low as $1,000 to allowing non-accredited investors take part in the profit shares, the opportunities are plentiful. However, be careful, as we mentioned before. Many of these companies seem appealing at first, outsource the majority of their work. Even more so, they likely never see the job site. It’s essential that you know what companies are in it for the long haul alongside you and which are not. Here at DiversyFund, our investment and development teams remain involved throughout the entire investment. Additionally, you are always kept up to date with images, videos and more. To get started, simply sign up for a free account and find your next investment today.

Are you feeling shut out of the housing market? Like you just can’t seem to qualify for that loan or find a home worth purchasing for the cost? Well, here is an alternative investment option that gets you into the action quickly and easily. Simply start your search for crowdfunding real estate investments. Then, discover that you don’t need to enter the housing market the traditional way. Instead, you can quickly enter the housing market in an entirely new way. So, what has happened to the housing market? No one actually knows when the housing market will settle or come back down. Neither do we know whether or not it will continue with shutting out many first time homebuyers. Fortunately, there are crowdfunding real estate investments. These allow you to invest in real estate at a fraction of the cost required to own a home. In recent times, the housing market has been virtually shunning first-time buyers from making their first purchase. Averaged at about 1.5 million new homeowners a year, which is below the historical average. The housing market is missing out on the opportunity to gain long-term homeowners ready to buy a home. This leaves a major, and vital, portion of the U.S. population at a loss to ever entering the real estate market. Where crowdfunding comes into the picture If you have not been introduced to this most talked-about and fast growing real estate sector, then here is your opportunity. It's time to understand how crowdfunding real estate works and get involved. For example, on our platform, we search, analyze and scout out locations for the best real estate investment opportunities available. Once we find the perfect investment and properly vet it, our team will make this offer available to investors. Of course, we will ensure it passes all legal and financial analysis too. At that time, investors can begin investing with as little as $5,000 until the offer is fulfilled. After that, investors can sit back and relax while our team constructs the home and lists it for sale. *Assuming single family home with 24-month terms in above example Currently, there are many platforms offering attractive opportunities for investors. And, with such a simplified process to start investing, investors are finding it easier than ever to enter the real estate market. To start, create an account, browse available investments and start investing when you find one that fits your financial goals. That doesn’t sound too hard, does it? And, with millions of first-time buyers looking forward to buying homes and finding it impossible to do so presently, this method of investing allows you to easily enter the market. Plus, you get to make a profit without all the work! Crowdfunding benefits investors of all shapes and sizes Luckily enough, not everyone is turning a blind eye towards these first-time buyers. DiversyFund and other platforms like ours are welcoming these buyers* to invest in the housing market instead. This way you can get into the real estate market. Plus, you can start building the long-term trust you need as a first-time investor. Since the passing of the JOBS Act, crowdfunding real estate investment platforms can now bring these exclusive real estate deals to investors of all types. With us doing all the work, all you need to do is find an investment that fits your needs. As an alternative to waiting years and years to buy your first home, crowdfunding at DiversyFund allows you to easily enter the housing market. And, you don't even have to be a homeowner! With the housing market likely to keep you waiting on your toes for awhile, our opportunities are simple to start investing in. *Currently, DiversyFund can only accept accredited investors, but our Reg A+ Offerings are coming soon to ALL investors. It’s a safe bet Real estate continues to prove time and time again to be a quality investment to have in your portfolio. Even more so, crowdfunding real estate allows you to easily add even more properties to it. By having the ability to invest funds across a number of properties, you can lessen the amount of risk involved. A number of investors, just like you, take these type of investments on. So, whether you are a first-time investor or a seasoned investor, you won’t be alone. Not only will you have other investors alongside you, our team of real estate and financial experts are always available to assist you. Don’t be discouraged as the housing market shuts out first-time buyers and millions of others. Instead, focus on the opportunities available to you today. Start investing and get the results you’re looking for with our premium real estate investment options.

With nearly half of 2017 gone already, the alternative investment market continues to see new investors enter the market. While financials have slowly been rising back to levels that we haven’t seen in years, many are not running back to the once trusted avenues for investing. Instead, these investors are turning to alternative investments and for good reason - higher returns and lower risks. Top Alternative Investment Markets There are a number of alternative investments to choose from. And, as investors discover the many alternative investment opportunities, they're discovering they provide substantially higher payouts. Even more so, that they have much less risk involved. Some of the top performing alternative investment markets include: Peer-to-Peer Lending Real Assets Private Equity Direct Investments in Private Companies or Startups Crowdfunding Real Estate Continuing Growth in the Alternative Market With a wide variety of investments to choose from, many investors are finding out that alternative investments produce more than just the returns they’re looking for. They also provide the right amount of diversification. For example, when investors invest in crowdfunding real estate opportunities through our platform, they gain the ability to not be invested in just one asset, but many. Therefore, providing investors with the diversification they are looking for, as well as the results. With the 2008 financial crisis still fresh in everyone’s memory, investors aren’t only seeking diversification, they’re looking to protect their assets from downturns in the market too. This desire coupled with the need to diversify one’s portfolio has allowed the alternative investment market to grow substantially. Crowdfunding Real Estate Experiences Substantial Growth with Market Even more so, the crowdfunding real estate sector of alternative investments continues to see new investors enter the market daily. Furthermore, in 2016, the crowdfunding real estate market nearly exceeded $3.5 billion. With the ability to provide investors with expert knowledge in both investments and real estate, as well as pre-vetted investments, investors are receiving exactly what they’re looking for. And, that is investments they can trust. Benefits of Crowdfunding Real Estate as an Alternative Investment This new way of investing in real estate provides investors with the freedom to easily diversify their portfolio into real estate. Moreover, investors are able to easily track their investments, reinvest with ease and much more via these innovative crowdfunding platforms. While there are a number of benefits to having real estate in your investment portfolio, here are just a few benefits to having this great alternative investment in your portfolio: Invest in deals that were not previously accessible. Through crowdfunding real estate, investors can now access real estate deals that were not always available to the general public. These are exclusive private real estate investments. One's where you would have needed to know the "right" people to invest in previously, but not anymore. Low investment minimums. With the passing of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act, investors can start investing with as little as $5,000 on our platform. Prior to the SEC filing, one would need at least $50,000 or more to invest in a private real estate deal.  Modern user experience. Crowdfunding real estate platforms provide a simple to use interface for investors. This allows the modern investor to easily invest, check their investment and much more from anywhere in the world.  Diversification. Since there are low minimums to invest on these platforms, investors are able to invest in a multitude of properties instead of just one. This allows for greater diversification within your portfolio, which is we all know is a great thing to have! With so many benefits to alternative investments, it's no wonder they continue to grow at rapid rates. As investors realize the benefits of higher returns and lower risks that many of these alternative investment options have, we expect this growth to continue well into the future. Are you ready to explore alternative investments? Sign up Today

This month’s Felspar investment update reports foundation work nearing completion. With unit B’s foundation 100% complete and Unit A's scheduled to pour next week. We had to use some creative thinking to stabilize the existing foundation. This is due to being required to undermine the entire existing foundation for the new larger footings. Now, it can be poured around it in preparation for the addition of a second floor. With the existing foundation held up by custom built pins, the crew can work on it. This allows them to tie the rebar and properly set forms for the new concrete. Progress Continues on Felspar Street As we finish the concrete work, our frame developers have started to lay out the hardware and order materials required to build the new structures. The site is shaping up as plumbers and electricians prep for their infrastructure. Additionally, the new retaining wall is complete, which will split the lot, as well as create a grade for each unit.   Finally, we would like to remind you that during the month of July we are offering an exclusive 1% bump in yield for new investments. Click here to learn all about this limited-time offer. Happy investing!

This month’s Balboa investment update brings the framing to completion. Additionally, installation of all mechanical trades has started. Also, the HVAC is already nearing completion. Currently being installed is the impressive door and window package. In addition to this, the roofer is scheduled to start next week. Progress Continues at 730 Balboa Avenue The selection of the interior finishes is complete. These include: a Thermador appliance package, a high-end plumbing package, and a craftsman style wood trim package. Also, selections and accommodations for the exterior finishes are complete. With this, there will be five different materials coming together, which will enhance the beauty of this 4,000+ square foot, modern beach cottage on Coronado Island. We hope you enjoyed this month's update for the beautiful property in Balboa. Remember that we have an exclusive offer this month to increase your earnings. Click here get 1% yield bump on all new investments this month. 

This month’s Costebelle investment update brings the mechanical trades to substantial completeness! This is a huge step closer to closing up the walls with drywall and moving into the finish stage. Progress Continues on Costebelle Way Mechanical trades are 95% complete for the project. Plumbing HVAC and Electrical are all complete in the main house. Additionally, the accessory structures are also close to the last steps. Windows and doors were all delivered and installation is beginning on windows, as well as the large door frames. Moreover, we loaded the drywall into the house with a crane (video below). We are staging it for installation as soon as we obtain approval after the combo framing inspection. Our team is truly excited for the transition of this project into the finishing stage. We also ordered the elegant custom furniture package. At this point, it is all hands on deck as we race toward the finish line. Talking about decks, the decks were weatherproofed, shower pans were hot-mopped and metal flashing is being applied to the exterior walls as we prep for the house to take its seductive shape. Take a look at these magnificent pictures to see every detail that is now in place at this amazing property. Costebelle Investment Update: July 2017 from Karol Mendez-Moore Finally, take a quick look at this video showing you more details on the progress of this development. Costebelle Investment Update: Drywall Preparation from DiversyFund on Vimeo. We hope you enjoyed this update and invite you to take advantage of our summer special. Click here to learn more about how you could obtain 1% bump yield on all new investments. Happy investing!

The Goshen Property Investment Update for July includes the achievement of another exciting milestone for this project. For this month's property investment update, we bring you the progress from the past few weeks. In the past few weeks, we were able to complete the stucco, start to install exterior siding, insulate the walls and hang drywall. A new milestone! The drywall nailing was inspected and signed off by the city. The workers began installing corner beads and taping the seams. In a couple weeks’ time, the walls will be textured and interior finishes will begin to be installed. Concurrently with the interior finish, we will begin to run final utilities, install drainage, Concurrently with the interior finish, we will begin to run final utilities, install drainage, form driveways and walkways and install irrigation for landscaping. Take a look at how beautiful this property is looking now that we finished the stucco and hung the drywall. Goshen: Property Investment Update: July 2017  Finally, remember that this month we are offering a 1% yield bump on all your new investments. Click here to learn how to increase your returns on investments this month. Happy investing!  

This month’s Monterey investment update reports the framing as complete. This month we have completed all of the required structural components including hardware, shear panels, beams, rafters, and joists. Thus allowing us to install the final roof sheathing and focus on the interior and exterior details and layouts. Progress Continues at 7835 Monterra Oaks Road. The massive roof structure is complete and we are nailing down the final sheathing. A framing inspection is taking place as soon as the last nail is set. This last step allows us to start with mechanical trades. Windows and doors are now onsite and we are starting the preparation for installation. Finish packages are in final negotiations with various high-end contractors in the local area. Simultaneously, with the door and window installations, rough trades will continue and run all piping and wiring throughout the structure to accommodate its vast living spaces. Finally, we invite you to take a look at the pictures for this month’s investment update and take a close look at all the details that are in place for this amazing house. As you can see, our team is excited about all the progress we are accomplishing every day at this property. Monterey Investment Update: July 2017  We hope you enjoyed this month's update for the Monterey property. Remember that during the month of July we are having a 1% Bump yield on all your new investments. Click here to learn more and to diversify your portfolio even more.   

Did you know that in a world of experienced real estate investors you don't have to be an expert to invest? It is a known fact that most of the wealthy people are among Real Estate Investors. This is why everyone should invest in real estate due to the reliability of this industry. The good news is that in these times, you don't have to have tons of money or experience to become a real estate investor. There are various ways to become a real estate investor hassle-free and without any stress. Platforms such as Real Estate Crowdfunding by DiversyFund help you make this process easy and fun. The following are eight tips to keep in mind for all new real estate investors: 1. Find a good mortgage broker Or a bank in the area of interest if you are planning on financing. Contacting the National Association of Realtors is one of the first places to get you on the right path. 2. Check your credit report Even though you may have funds available in savings, more financing is required for some opportunities. Keep in mind that most lenders require 700 or higher FICO scores. They also look at your total debt to monthly income ratio; therefore, it should be low. Study your credit report and bring up your score if necessary. 3. Talk with experienced investors about your local real estate Join a real estate club within your area and network with other investors like yourself, lenders, brokers, etc. These experts will guide and help you stay on the right path. 4. Remember that real estate investment is a business It takes strategy, acquiring the right knowledge, staying focused, working hard, and remaining determined to achieve your real estate investment goals. Develop a good business plan to guide your way, set realistic goals and milestones to evaluate results and measure success. 5. Check various sources for buying properties As real estate investors, you must check more than the local Multiple Listing Service (MLS).  Make sure to check auction sites, foreclosure listings, and the real estate crowdfunding platform such as Diversyfund. 6. Find a good realtor to assist in locating properties A good recommendation from someone you trust can go a long way. However, make sure to check out the realtors' credentials through BBB, referral agencies, as well as other investors. 7. Determine which areas are best for investment properties This may require checking areas that are located a little further away from you. Think outside the box when it comes to picking the location of your interest. Online platforms allow you to expand your search, so you can go further than your local opportunities. 8. Learn from the best With Diversyfund on your side, you have access to pre-vetted real estate investment properties, chosen by experts in finding the right opportunities to invest. Our team has over two decades of experience in real estate investment and development. Moreover, we are one of the very few online real estate crowdfunding platforms that work directly on each project. Therefore, we are able to keep you up to date as the construction moves forward. You will be able to keep in the know how your investment project is performing while you sit back and relax and watch your investment grow. There are many ways to invest in the real estate industry. However, all successful real estate investors agree that finding the right partner was the base of their success. Register today for free and take a look at the current projects we have available. We are the right real estate investment partners for anyone who like to take advantage of our crowdfunding real estate investment opportunities.

The Goshen Investment Update for June includes the achievement of an exciting milestone for this project. In the last few weeks, we received approval from the city on the combination inspection! Conquering this milestone means we have the city's approval to continue onto the next phase of construction on the property. This inspection and its approval means that all framing, mechanical trades, windows, and doors were properly built and in accordance with approved. Having this approval allows us to close up the building's walls as you can see in these pictures. We are now ready to begin installing exterior and interior finishing materials. Next step is drywall installation. Take a look at how beautiful this property looks now that we closed up the building's walls. Goshen Investment Update: June 2017 from DiversyFund Moreover, remember that we have more and new investment properties available for investing. Visit our top deals page to continue growing your investment portfolio!

This month’s Balboa investment update brings the second floor all framed out including the lower roofs. With that, the framers are currently setting the upper roof beams and getting ready to complete the structure. Additionally, delivery of the doors and window will be before the end of June. The mechanical trades are prepared to start on the house as soon as the framers wrap up their work. Progress Continues at Balboa Final selections and pricing are being made for the interior finishes. These will include a Thermador appliance package, high-end plumbing package, and a craftsman style wood trim package. Also, selections and accommodations are being made for the exterior finishes. There will be 5 different materials coming together to enhance the beauty of this 4000 square foot, modern, beach cottage on Coronado Island. Balboa Investment Update: June 2017 from DiversyFund

This month's Monterey investment update is all about the details. This month we were able to reach some significant milestones for this project. We bring you the latest details on the installation of the final ridge beams, roof joints and completion of the massive roof structure. Progress Continues at Monterey. We are setting the final structural beams and have begun framing the massive roof structure. Windows and doors are now onsite and are ready for installation as soon as the roof sheathing nailed down. Finish packages are in final negotiations with various high-end contractors in the local area. Simultaneously, with the door and window installations, rough trades will continue and run all piping and wiring throughout the structure to accommodate its vast living spaces. Take a look at the pictures for this month's investment update and take a close look at all the details that are in place for this amazing house. As you can see, our team is excited about all the progress we are accomplishing every day at this property. Monterey Investment Update: June 2017 from DiversyFund We invite you to also visit our latest investments here and continue diversifying your portfolio today! Happy Investing!

The Costebelle investment update for June brings you a close look at a world-class construction team as Roman James' team works hard to create a beautiful home. Progress Continues in Costebelle Mechanical trades are close to 90% complete for the project. Installation of plumbing components is complete with rough-in shower and tub valves affixed to the walls. Additionally, the city set the new water meter and framing has moved on to the interiors of the accessory buildings. Next, electrical, HVAC and low voltage all have one more level to finish up in the main structure. Then, window and door openings will soon be prepped for the Fleetwood window and door installation. With the beams, joists, and hardware removed and reconfigured for the new open floor plan layout, it will better showcase the property’s stunning ocean views. The wine cellar has been measured for final install once drywall is hung. The courtyard continues to take shape with only the last lift of concrete stairs remaining. As we look ahead, drywall is scheduled to be loaded the week of June 5th with sheet metal work beginning to prep for door and window install as soon as drywall is loaded into the home. Scaffolding and staging will be set to start soon in preparation for the door and window install starting on June 26th. By the beginning of next month, we hope to be poised for framing and mechanical inspections allowing us to close-up the walls and move into installing finish. Costebelle Investment Update: June 2017 from DiversyFund

This month’s investment update for Felspar brings progress on the sub-grade and foundation preparation to completion. In addition to this, the grading and major utility work is complete, as well as the building pads certified to accept the new structures. Construction Continues at Felspar Progress on Felspar continues to move forward as the foundation contractor has begun work on the front unit. Surveyors will soon be out to establish building corners for the back unit. This will allow the foundation work to forward simultaneously on both units. There is also a masonry crew beginning to dig foundation for the retaining wall that splits the two building pads. Subcontractor pricing is coming in on target for the major trades and we will begin to make interior finish selections in the weeks to come. Felspar Investment Update: June 2017 from DiversyFund

The May 2017 Felspar investment update brings progress on the sub-grade and foundation preparation, as the sub-contractors prepare the site for vertical construction. With the grading contractor finding suitable soils 5’- 6’ below grade, the crew is building the pad back up. Of course, compacting as they go. Construction Continues at Felspar Progress on Felspar continues to move forward as the foundation contractor begins work on the front unit within the next 10 days. Even more so, subcontractor pricing is coming in on target for the major trades. This leaves us moving framers onsite before the end of spring. Felspar May 2017 Investment Update from DiversyFund

This month's Balboa investment update brings the first floor all framed out including the structural steel. Also, the frames are complete with the second-floor jousting and floor sheathing. Furthermore, next week the second-floor walls will go up. Then, we will soon be on to the roof structure and details. Progress Continues at Balboa Now that the doors and windows have been purchased and ordered, the installation is scheduled for the end of May.Additionally, other major trades, which are now under contract include, roofing, plumbing and electrical. Finally, in the next couple weeks, we will be making selections on the project's finish items. These include the cabinetry, tile, countertops and all other hard surface finishes, as well as the flooring. Balboa May 2017 Investment Update from DiversyFund

This month's Costebelle investment update brings you a close look at a world-class construction team. The sub-contractors are all working hard keeping the project schedule on time and delivering under budget. Progress Continues in Costebelle Window and door openings have been opened up for the newly specified Fleetwood window and door package. Beams, joists, and hardware are being removed and reconfigured for a new open floor plan layout that will better showcase the property's stunning ocean views. All plumbing was relocated in the 30” thick concrete slab. Waterproofing is complete around the entire house using the highest quality product on the market for below and above grade components. The courtyard is taking further shape with the first phase of concrete stairs starting today. Additionally, all plumbing is getting a new location in the 30” thick concrete slab. Waterproofing is complete around the entire house using the highest quality product on the market for below and above grade components. Moreover, the HVAC, Plumbing, and Electrical is all underway with layouts complete and signed off by Roman James himself. Finally, the framing team is completing their daunting task of updating framing throughout the project. Once we complete the framing, the house will begin to transform into a world-class living space. Happy Investing! Costebelle Investment Update: May 2017 from DiversyFund

This month's Goshen investment update brings the gas lines now routed to the final connection point per SDG&E’s direction. Additionally, all rough mechanical trades are now complete for the two new units (1265 A & B), and by the 15th of May, the building inspector will grant approval to wrap the house and hang drywall. In addition, installation of the exterior doors and windows is complete. Also, scaffolding is up and ready for stucco and the existing unit (1261) has bath and shower tile complete with vanities in place, as well as fully installed carpentry that is ready for paint. As we near completion of the Goshen investment, the kitchen cabinets will be in within the next week. Shortly after this, the installation of the countertops will follow. Our target completion date is set for July 7th, 2017. Goshen: May 2017 from DiversyFund

This month's Monterey investment update brings you the latest details on the installation of the final beams and framing structures. Progress continues at Monterey We are setting the final structural beams and have begun framing the massive roof structure.Windows and Doors are on order and will be ready to install as soon as the frames come down from the rafters. We are making one last push with the HOA to modify the roofing material. The roofing material we selected will ensure a long-lasting product while saving on cost. Finish packages are finalizing as we work with the design team to assemble the perfect blend of luxury and comfort for the house. Finally, we are targeting a framing inspection date of May 26th, which will allow us to wrap the house; protecting it from the elements. We hope you enjoy these pictures showing you all the progress we accomplished in the last month. Monterey Property Update - May 2017 from DiversyFund

When it comes to making investments in real estate, the location of the property generally plays a big factor. With each city’s real estate market varying so greatly, where to invest in real estate can often become the deciding factor in making a great or not so great investment. For a more in-depth peek inside of where to invest in real estate, Forbes Magazine and Local Market Monitor teamed up to find the best markets across the nation. Furthermore, the team sought out areas, which are projecting an increase in population and jobs. Even more so, areas with at least a 17% increase in home prices by 2020. Choosing Where to Invest in Real Estate While Texas and Florida continue to have some of the strongest real estate markets in the United States, many other areas continue to strengthen too. Most notably though, California’s market continues to increase rapidly. With some of the highest job and population growth in the country, California's market is only expected to continue expanding. Furthermore, through their data collection and analysis, we can already see how California’s market can continue to flourish. Both Sacramento and San Diego made the top twenty list of where to invest in real estate. Therefore, investors can expect the stable returns with minimal risk to continue well into the future. California on the Rise Even more so, within San Diego’s real estate market, we saw a 6% gain last year. With home prices remaining in check with the local median income, California’s future for producing stable real estate investments is strong. From continued job and population growth to steady increases in the housing market, California’s market is likely to continue growing. This is true for both investors and homebuyers. While homebuyers will enjoy competitive home prices, investors will be able to take part in these exclusive real estate investments. Through evolutionary real estate crowdfunding platforms, investors can easily invest in some of the top markets available. With immediate access to a wide array of exclusive investments, choosing where to invest in real estate has never been easier. Take a few seconds to fill out our free registration form. You will gain exclusive access to our current and future investment opportunities today.

Have you recently wondered about the ways to make investment income? We know you have, and we have great news! Investment options are increasing in our market. Thanks to advanced technology and new government regulations, alternative investments are gaining ground for investors. As history shows us, we must not put all our eggs in one basket, especially when it comes to investments.  That is why options are increasing for those looking to gain investment income from different investment opportunities. “Diversifying your investment portfolio continues to prove itself as the smarter way to invest.” What is investment income? If you are wondering about investment income, you must understand what it is about. It is the income that you gain from different sources such as dividends, interest payments, capital gains, and any income made through different investment vehicles. It refers to the financial gains above the initial cost of investment. For example, the interest that you accumulate in a regular savings account is part of your income. The base for this income comes from the money that you deposit into your savings account. Thereafter, the interest you make on these deposits is known as investment income. From your Savings Account to Residential and Commercial Investments It was simple, and almost a no-brainer decision to open your savings account when you did. It was a smart idea and your bank account manager was right when he made the suggestion. As you can see on your bank statements, every month you make a little extra cash on the amounts you deposit into this account. Although little, every penny counts. Nonetheless, if you want to take your investment income a few steps further, there are options available. Some of these are dividend stocks, peer-to-peer lending, index funds, and real estate. How can I get investment income from real estate? When it comes to long-term returns, real estate is still the preferred choice among investors and their advisers. Besides providing a sense of security for investors, Real Estate also provides 3 different ways to gain investment income: 1. Rental Properties This option is great for those who own properties and are approved to rent them. On the downside, you usually need a 20% down payment of the rental property value when you purchase it. Thereafter, your mission is to find great renters to take care of your property and to pay for it as well. Owners see their rental property as a steady source of monthly investment income which in the long-term continues to gain value in the market. It’s important to note that when you start renting your property yourself, you have the full responsibility for everything that could happen to the property. Some people back away from this option because of all the involvement required to manage a rental property. Companies such as Cedar Crest, from Denver, Colorado, are some of the new alternatives you have since they do not have realtor fees and they work with you in the terms you need. 2. Real Estate Investment trust, or REITs These are another passive investment income source for those who are not interested in dealing first-hand with managing a property. It has many advantages. One of which is that they pay out 90% of their taxable income as dividends to investors. Nonetheless, dividends are subject to taxes as ordinary income. Depending on tax brackets, this condition affects some investors more than others. Consequently, some investors take this route with extreme precaution and care. 3. Real Estate Crowdfunding These investments are as good as they get. They present a happy medium option for investors. With real estate crowdfunding, investors have the option to choose from equity or debt investments, and in some cases a good combination of them both. One of the advantages is that the investors get the tax advantage of direct ownership, includes depreciation deductions and investors don’t have the direct responsibility for the property (for more information, click here to learn about all the advantages in real estate crowdfunding). Passive investment income sources have been and continue to be one of the most reliable ways to make passive income making your life easier in many ways. Once you set up your passive income sources, the possibilities are endless. If you are looking for a company, you can trust with your investment income click here to gain exclusive access to pre-vetted investment options for you to start making investment income with higher returns.

With this month's investment update, 2112 Felspar is basically a blank canvas. Investment Update: Demolition Since the demolition work is nearly complete, we are moving into utility infrastructure and grading/site prep. Additionally, the temporary power installation is complete. Plus, the SDG&E is finally out of our construction crew's way. from DiversyFund Preparations for Felspar Even more so, this property is ready for the construction of two beautiful new homes. With the lot consolidation and condominium map process initialized, we have submitted it to the city for final review. After approval, our team will make great progress on the Felspar property.

Goshen's property update brings you major progress with all rough mechanical trades complete for the two new units. Existing Unit Property Update First of all, the existing unit, 1261 Goshen, is complete all the way through drywall. This includes the installation of all exterior doors and windows. Additionally, installation of the interior doors with trim is complete, as well as tile work beginning in the shower and bathrooms. Furthermore, finish carpentry is ongoing with cabinets, which are to be delivered in the next week. Goshen Investment Update: April 2017 from DiversyFund Both Units Property Update Even more so, the two new units, 1265 A & B Goshen, exterior doors and windows are installed and scaffolding is being erected for stucco. With this, we gain the ability to insulate walls, wrap the exterior and hang drywall. Of course, the 1265 unit will catch up quickly to the existing unit with interior finishes. Nearing Completion Our target completion date is June 9th 2017.

This month's investment update for Balboa brings you foundation in the ground and structural steel set. from DiversyFund Investment Update: Construction Progress As of now, the construction crew has temporary power in place. Therefore, allowing them to move more quickly with the construction. Plus, lumber arrived to the job site this week, which allows the framers to begin laying out walls. Additionally, the crew is able to begin hammering nails among many other structural details. By next week we will see most of the first-floor walls built and standing in place. Thus, this project is moving along as expected and is well on its way to being complete.

For investors who are part of our Monterey, CA property, take a look at this month's investment property update on your investment. First of all, as you will be able to see in the pictures, framing is moving up to the second floor and roof structure. Additionally, electrical and plumbing are beginning with all outlets and switch locations laid out. During next week, crews will be running wire for electrical and topping out the plumbing. Window and Door orders are now final and the roof will be dried in by the end of the month. Finally, Interior designers are reviewing product selections for layouts and finishes. Thus, this will allow a smooth transition from the rough trades into beautiful high-quality finishes.  Therefore, turning this house into a dream home. Take a look at these pictures the for this month's investment property update. DiversyFund Property Update: Monterey, CA - April 2017 from DiversyFund

When it comes to investing and setting up investment portfolios, it is natural to go for high return investments and low to zero risks. But, be careful as not all investments are equal. You must do your due diligence before making a decision. Both on which investments to pick and which companies to trust. Finding ads that sell the “Best Investments” is easy. Just do a quick search and you will get 100’s of results. The hard part is going through details before making a selection. This is especially true for finding an investment that best fits within your time horizon, financial goals and desired returns. What investment options produce high returns with lower risk? While there are a number of great options to choose from when it comes to investing, there are only a handful that will produce high returns with minimal risk. Of course, these are not all available investment options, but here are a few investment options that produce high returns with low amounts of risk:   Peer-to-Peer Lending Stocks Credit Card Rewards Crowdfunding Real Estate   What should I keep in mind when looking for quality investments? The truth is, this will be different for each individual. Since each investor has a different risk tolerance, time horizon and other financial goals, each will view the various investments differently. Of course, each investor will want to weigh the risk of the investment against their time horizon and financial goals. Additionally, one will want to look at how big of a return is being received at the time of payout compared to the risk involved. However, it is also key to keep these three aspects in mind when seeking a quality investment: Transparency It is important that you are able to review the company’s prospectus, terms, and performance. Especially, before you trust them with your money. With access to so many options, it’s best you do your due diligence with all of them. Trust a company that: shows you all the information you need upfront, enhances your value as the investor provides full disclosures and transparency. makes your investment journey a pleasure and simple, provides detailed FAQs, how their investment process works, and the type of opportunities that are available on their platform. At DiversyFund we take pride in developing a modern user experience and simple investment process. We offer pre-vetted investment opportunities with full details available. This allows each investor to review before making an investment. History The company’s history in business, their experience in the field and past performance is very important. However, it is more important to learn about the people behind the entity. Some companies may have a lot of years in service, but the current management team may lack experience in the investment world. Therefore, take a moment to learn about their founders and team of experts. Here at DiversyFund, our principals have over 2 decades of experience operating in the real estate and investment sector. We have built a team of experts whose combined experience is over 30 years in real estate market research, construction, development, and design. This allows us to bring you the best investments available in the markets we operate in. Time Involvement Time is Money. You need to decide if you are looking for passive investment opportunities or if you want to be actively involved. This includes finding, qualifying, vetting, funding, fixing, managing and selling before seeing any returns. Based upon this decision, you can commit to your physical and financial involvement. You will want to take into consideration how long your investment will be held before you see any returns as well. Choosing DiversyFund With many alternative investment options offered through DiversyFund, the timeframe is typically 12-18 months. These opportunities require no or low involvement on your part. DiversyFund provides monthly progress updates for your investment project. In addition, we also share pictures and videos on how the project is coming along. This keeps our investors in the know without their active time commitment. Upon exit, returns automatically go into their bank account. In today’s hottest real estate markets the competition to find good deals is very high. This means companies need to be innovative for finding and pursuing the right type of investment opportunities. We have over 30 years of experience in bringing the right investments to the market. And, they continue to produce high returns for our investor community. Click here to learn if higher returns and lower risk investments are the right fit for you.

This month's investment project update on the Goshen Street property shows construction is moving right along! With all rough plumbing, electrical, HVAC and fire sprinklers complete for the two new units, Goshen is moving along in construction as we bring you this month's investment project update. Now, that the existing unit, 1261 Goshen, is complete through drywall, including the installation of all exterior doors and windows. Additionally, the front deck for the property is now complete. Finally, the cabinets and interior finish carpentry are ordered with expected deliveries throughout this month. Getting Ready to Hang Dry Wall & More On the two units located at 1265 A & B Goshen, a roof membrane has been installed, as well as exterior doors and windows being ordered. Furthermore, the exterior doors and window will install this month. Since this gives us the ability to insulate walls, we will be able to wrap the exterior and hang drywall too.   Finishing the Interior Even more so, the 1265 Goshen Street property will catch up quickly to the existing unit. With just final measurements needed, the interior finishes will be complete in no time. Nearing Completion With much of the construction completed or well underway, our target completion date is May 5th, 2017. Even more projects are underway at DiversyFund too! Check out some of our other latest investment opportunities here.

This month's La, Jolla, CA investment project update brings us closer to beginning construction With the contract almost complete and signed, this month's investment project update brings us excitement! As this one of a kind dream home designed by renowned designer, Roman James, will be under construction in no time! Roman James Design for Costebelle This luxury home will bring Roman’s immaculate design and finishes to the San Diego market for the first time ever. As you can see with the infinity pool and relaxing back patio design, this home is sure to create a unique ambience. Then, the "hers" master bath, which showcases a modern tub and shower, along with a large and sleek vanity. Of course, from the front of the home, you will be able to see through to the backyard. Even more so, the look of the wood surrounding the door really gives it that signature look. Within the kitchen, you will have a beautiful eat-in island, as well as all modern stainless steel appliances. Finally, another patio area and the staircase to the upper deck. With everything this home will offer, DiversyFund and Roman James Design are proud to be partnering on this project and excited to begin construction. And, of course, if you can learn more about our other investment opportunities by going here.

The following is an Investment Project Update for all current and future investors of our Balboa Avenue, Coronado, California property. March 2017 Diversyfund knows how important it is to have the perfect location for your real estate investment. The Coronado property is no exception to this rule. Being walking distance from the beach and only a few steps away from the amazing Sea 'N Air Golf club, this is an opportunity you can't miss. Clearing As you can see, we cleared away the trees from our building site. We are doing the necessary rough grading, and we are staking the house location in preparation for installation of the footings, foundation, and pipes. Excavation Moreover, we started the excavation process to install all the proper equipment underground. Erosion control Finally, we are taking all the proper precautions to prevent the runoff from your cleared land from carrying mud to adjacent roads and property. Remember, this property will be a 4,400 square feet. It is adjacent to the golf course and walking distance to the beach. This beautiful investment project has an estimated investment term of 9 months and 18% preferred returns. Click here to start investing in this luxury home. To conclude, learning more about these investment projects is easy. Just create your free profile today. It takes less than 30 seconds.

This month's investment project update: Felspar is off and running! To all of our Felspar investors, the progress we are seeing at this property is amazing. Let's go over the details for this month's investment project update.   Getting the ground ready The pool was demolished, filled in, and dirt compacted. The field is ready. Moreover, we received authorized inspections, and now we have a suitable area to build the new extensions for this house. Demolition Moreover, we mobilized the demolition. We began on the two existing structures and we will move onto underground utilities and foundation work before the end of the first quarter this year. One house. 2 Owners Concurrently with construction, we are processing a condominium lot split to legally entitle the new dwelling units for separate ownership. What is next? Finally, we completed the topographic survey. We will submit the new Map for completeness review by the end of April. This project is shaping up as planned. As you know, this beautiful property is in the Pacific Beach community of San Diego, CA. We are always thinking of the best locations for all investment projects. Remember, you can always click here to take a look at the latest investment opportunities. When it comes to crowdfunding investments, we know you prefer to diversify your portfolio.  

Although there are many ways to invest for your future, let us go over the many advantages in crowdfunding investments. Everyone agrees that you need to have investment options in order to make sure your retirement will be solvent. Even if you have a great salary you need to not only put away part of it, but also invest it in order to make enough money to retire. Crowdfunding continues to gain strength in a world full of investment choices. It is used for different types of investments, and these have many advantages. Nonetheless, let's go over the real estate crowdfunding investment advantages. Being that one of the safest investments is real estate, crowdfunding investments include a few advantages like no other. Typically, the value of a property increases over time. However, the cost of a property is a barrier to entering this field for many potential investors. Thus, real estate crowdfunding investments continue to gain strength among expert and new investors. The following are five of the crowdfunding investment advantages currently available to all investors. 5 Real Estate Crowdfunding Investment Advantages Crowdfunding investments bring down the high price barrier to a lower and more accessible level. Nowadays, we have accessible real estate crowdfunding platforms that require as little as $5,000 to start investing. This makes it far easier to invest in real estate property, and to ensure profits for your future. It is an easy way to diversify your portfolio. Rather than investing in just one property, you can invest in numerous properties at the same time. Thus, you are sure that if one property is not as good an investment as it looked, you have other investments going that can potentially cover the price of any bad property, and you can ensure a profit on the whole venture. Consequently, there is always safety in numbers, but you don't have to take the risk alone. One of the biggest crowdfunding investment advantages is that you are not alone on this. You and other investors with the same goals in mind take the risks together. This helps as a precaution in the case of any problems and helps you in buying other properties. Real estate investment through crowdfunding requires a smaller and more personalized firm. Smaller firms increase transparency as well as reaction speed. They provide higher accountability, faster reaction and action to market conditions, and better communication about your investments. It takes less than 1 minute to sign up and join in. All you need to do is click here to complete a short profile, review our current opportunities, choose your first property, and sit back; Diversyfund will do the rest for you. In a world with so many options to start investing, real estate crowdfunding investments continue to be in the top lists of investment trends for 2017. Let’s start investing today. Your future will thank you.

This month's investment project update on the Monterey, CA property includes a lot of fun walls! Although weather conditions continue to put a threat on our timeline, we are still bringing you the investment project update for March. We continue to have great progress on this property. Some great steps were taken between our update in February. Now, we have all walls in place, so let us show you. Take a look at the latest video and images of everything that is happening in Monterey, CA. Tilting up the walls To begin this process, still-plates are first set on the concrete floor. Once in place, the studs (vertical walls) get attached to the still-plates.  This is usually done on the ground and then the walls are tilted up into place as you can see. You are able to see the openings where the windows and doors sit. Additionally, here you can see the last walls going up. Finally, the walls are up! We are now going to continue with the second floor and roof.   Click here to take a look at our February and December updates. Take a look at this transformation from day one. If you would like to be part of this project or any of our other opportunities, visit our page to create your free profile. It takes no longer than 1 minute.

Forbes just released the top 3 real estate crowdfunding trends in 2017. Institutional Capital Non-Accredited Investors & eREIT Consolidation According to Forbes,  “Real estate crowdfunding continues to be a dynamic and ever-evolving industry, growing to an estimated $3.5 billion in 2016. By 2025, the crowdfunding industry as a whole is anticipated to be valued at more than $300 billion and online real estate marketplaces are primed to capitalize on that explosive growth.” With massive growth projected in the next 10 years, how can you take advantage of the real estate crowdfunding trends that lie in the year ahead? Invest in real estate crowdfunding platforms before they take on institutional capital. Many veteran platforms will begin sourcing from large institutions to back up their smaller investments. This may limit the opportunity for individual investors to invest in future projects. Find platforms that still cater to individual investors to invest in projects such as DiversyFund. If the platform eventually sources from the institutional capital, your investment will be much stronger. Beating institutional capital to the punch will only bring advantages to your investment. Build your portfolio if you are a non-accredited investor. 2017 will be the year platforms open investment opportunities to non-accredited investors. This gives anyone over the age of 18 with the minimum amount to invest the opportunity to become a real estate investor. This will be the most popular trend because non-accredited investors greatly outweigh accredited investors. For a non-accredited investor, this is a “gold rush” period where you can start building your investment portfolio on properties such as this property with 18% preferred returns. Invest with up and coming platforms As established real estate crowdfunding platforms look to grow and scale, they will be acquiring smaller platforms for diversification. It is highly strategic to invest with these smaller, niche platforms prior to any consolidation that occurs with bigger platforms. It will give you the opportunity to leverage your investment from the smaller platform to the larger platform. Added benefits of investing in more boutique-like platforms include having more control over your investment, receiving a higher level of individualized attention towards your portfolio and transparency. Research and understanding the market are always key when making a sound investment decision. However, these trends have made a perfect window of opportunity to take advantage of real estate crowdfunding in 2017.

Well, a month has gone by since Donald Trump became President of the United States. While not too much has changed in our everyday lives, a lot could be changing soon. With the various markets still adjusting to a Trump presidency, much is still unknown. This is especially true when it comes to interest rates and safe investment opportunities. New President, New Real Estate Investment Opportunities However, that hasn’t stopped many crowdfunding real estate platforms from hoping for the best when it comes to having a real estate mogul in the White House for the very first time. As Jorge Newbery, from Huffington Post, discovers this first-hand when he interviews major players in crowdfunding real estate about how a Trump presidency could affect the community. With much optimism about what a Trump presidency could mean for the real estate investment community, there are high hopes. One of these being that investors will shift towards safer and more secure investments, such as crowdfunding real estate. With Dara Albright telling Newbery during their interview: “Our markets are so destroyed and broken. They don’t work for the small investor, and they don’t work for the small business or the entrepreneur. A Trump presidency will help us return to investing into one another, community investing, peer to peer investing, etc. People have had it with the volatility of the markets, they feel like it’s a rigged system, and I feel that this is an opportunity for our industry to make a difference.” Since the current markets seem unreachable for many smaller investors, as Albright mentions, it can often feel daunting for investors to even think about risking the loss of their hard earned capital. This is especially true as many experts watch the stock market wave. And even more so, watching the mortgage interest rates slowly creep up to more than 4.6%. Even though the financial and investment communities are still figuring out where a Trump presidency leaves them, Albright seems pretty positive all will settle. Also, small investors will be better off for it. With a return to smaller and community-based investments as Albright predicts, investors will gain more control. As well as, confidence in their investments. START SEEING YOUR INVESTMENTS WORK FOR YOU Optimism Grows in Crowdfunding Real Estate Community While some still do not know where a Donald Trump presidency leaves us, one thing is for certain. That the real estate investment community has a lot of excitement about a real estate mogul in the Oval Office. With the know-how and knowledge of investing and being profitable in real estate, Donald Trump seems to be looking out for the smaller investors to ensure they too can turn a profit. As we watch this unfold, DiversyFund and, likely, many other crowdfunding real estate platforms will be watching closely.

The Monterey, CA project is moving forward successfully. We would like to bring you this month's Investment Project Update to stay up to date with everything that is happening. Monterey continues to progress as expected.   The framing crew has been working hard, rain or shine, and has only lost 1 week when the rains were a torrential downpour. Removing the form boards As you can see, the foundation is poured and set, so we were able to remove the form boards and the ground is ready for framing.         Framing Framing started on the additional/detached garage and the upstairs room.  Ceilings are expected to start next week. You can see where some of the rooms of the house are. Most of the walls for the first floor are up. The living room overlooking the bay, and the dining room also has a beautiful view. You can also see windows frames, hallways, doors, and the roof. It is coming together rapidly, in spite of the weather. Keeping the water at bay (no pun intended) Moreover, our experts are also working on the frame around the house that forms the surrounding area of the house. This must be done to make sure we keep the house away potential water damage from rain and other environmental events. As a result, the work is paying off as you can see in the images below. Nothing stops our crew from getting the job done!                  The Santa Cruz Bay Finally, we leave you with this breathtaking view of the beautiful Santa Cruz Bay. This is the view the future owners of this home will appreciate from the living room, dining room, and bedrooms. As you know, we enjoy bringing you these updates so you can stay up to date with everything that is going on with your investment project. If this is not your project yet, we invite you to create a profile and get an exclusive look at all the potential opportunities we have for you.

DiversyFund is proud to announce their new partnership with Roman James Design. Featured on CNN, Forbes and Architectural Digest, as a well-known luxury custom home architect and developer in California for his famous 1181 Hillcrest property in Beverly Hills, which sold for a record-setting $70 million. Even more so, Roman always provides the finest of interior finishes and modern design. Additionally, Roman James Design personally designs each home and oversees all aspects of development. DiversyFund’s partnership with Roman James on their newest investment opportunity will bring Roman’s immaculate design and finishes to the San Diego market for the first time. Coming to you soon! Our La Jolla investment opportunity will boast a signature Roman design, as well as a targeted 18% preferred return. See Our Roman James La Jolla Project Roman James Design Portfolio

Top platforms make headlines fast as crowdfunding real estate investment platforms quickly take off. From low investment fees to the new Fundrise self crowdfunding IPO, real estate crowdfunding platforms want you to know something. Investing in real estate is actually really simple. Crowdfunding real estate platforms aren't the only ones making waves in the real estate community either. Renowned wellness guru, Deepak Chopra announced his new wellness-centric homes near Miami, Florida recently. Expected to gain popularity quickly, these homes could become available as crowdfunding investment opportunities as demand grows. Fundrise IPO Interest Continues to Grow The real estate community rapidly adapts to new trends and the needs of millennial investors as interest in real estate investing grows. Clearly shown in the recent announcement regarding Fundrise’s self-crowdfunding Reg A+ IPO becoming over-subscribed. Their Class B Common Stock originally meant for 2 million investors is now at 3 million investors. Even more so, the interest continues to grow rapidly. Fundrise sets out to raise up to $15 million by offering entry fees into their Class B Common Stock as low as $5.00 and expanding the number of shares. Additionally, due to the high demand, the company paused their self-crowdfunding IPO offer. The company was first to set up shop in the United States and has truly transformed itself over the years. Now providing eREITS to investors via Reg A+ and creating a demand for real estate with a totally new type of investor. More platforms become available to invest as the demand for crowdfunding real estate investments continues to grow. Many offer similar services to each other, yet the quality of the investments stagger. Some outsource, while others keep everything in-house. Additionally, many offer entry requirements as low as $1,000, yet others require more from investors. Investors should read and fully understand before investing, as not all crowdfunding platforms are created equal. Investing with DiversyFund While DiversyFund currently offers different investment options than what is available on Fundrise’s platform, we like to think of our investment process as pretty innovative. From start to finish, you feel involved in the real estate development process. You remain updated on your investments with us no matter where you are. Through our platform, you review our pre-vetted opportunities, market analysis and then hand-select the opportunities to invest. Once you select an investment, just sit back and relax. We will ensure you are updated every step of the way. DiversyFund always reaches out to investors with images, videos and more when construction starts, the foundation is being poured or any other investment update. Now investors can feel actively involved in their investments and allow our team to handle the property selection, lenders, brokers, contractors and continuous management while you make it a passive investment and watch your money at work. Of course, through our modern crowdfunding investor portal, each investor always remains in the know about their investments. Sign up for a free account today to start viewing our exclusive crowdfunding real estate investment opportunities today.

Deepak Chopra is a well-known alternative health guru. His expertise in health now brings focus to a new realm of luxury real estate. By teaming up with Property Markets Group and S2 Development, the team plans to create luxury wellness homes. Designed with an individual's well-being in mind, the team plans to bring you wellness-centric homes. In an interview with Forbes Magazine, Chopra stated, “Biological living is the next revolution in real estate. This has been a long time in coming. Sleep patterns, breathing, color, light, movement, spatial flow, sound. These can all change our genome expression in the direction of good health and well-being. The wellness features and technologies that we are designing (into these residences) will enhance both the physical and emotional well-being of the homeowner.” While these wellness homes will first be built north of Miami, Florida, there are plans for more in the future. Plus, the demand for health keeps growing, so many developers will likely begin to mimic Chopra’s new homes. As we can see with Chopra’s wellness homes currently selling at a rapid pace. What can you do to be part of these wellness-centric homes? When owning a luxury condo isn't what you want, you can enjoy a slice of the pie with crowdfunding real estate investments. By having the reward of both high returns and low risks, you can enjoy luxury and build wealth along the way. While DiversyFund predicts that these wellness-centric homes will gain popularity fast and be highly desired houses for the rich, it is likely they won't be available to investors in the near future. However, there are plenty of unique investment opportunities available right now that offer a solid return on your investment. Think about it, the deals we offer to investors are pre-qualified by our investment and development teams. After pre-vetting and performing a detailed market analysis, we provide you with an amazing investment opportunity. With low entry minimums and our own skin in the game, you can easily start investing in real estate today. With these new wellness-centric homes on the market, it’s no wonder the interest of our team continues to grow. Of course, we want to bring these homes to you as investment opportunities. With a chance to offer these wellness homes, you can expect DiversyFund to be looking at opportunities to bring these homes to their investors. Sign up for free and get instantly notified when a new crowdfunding real estate opportunity becomes available.

Working alone in the real estate industry can be tough, hence the importance of partnerships. When it comes to finding a real estate investment partner, it is crucial to be careful and choose wisely. Finding the right investment partner is one of the most important business decisions you can make for your future investments. Apart from their financial contribution, they also share liabilities and make solid investment decisions with you. When looking for the right real estate investment partner, DiversyFund offers you a platform where you can find partners ready to invest, who are also looking to invest in the same properties and have the same interests as you do. The DiversyFund crowdfunding platform allows you to join in a large network of investors with the same goals in mind. However, we would like to give you a few tips for finding the right investment partner and how DiversyFund can make things more convenient for you: Inspect the property The first thing you need to do before finding a partner is to find the property for you. Take into consideration its location, price, size, and type of property (residential, commercial, etc.). Also, find out if is it an Existing property or a New Development project. Remember that with DiversyFund you will be able to easily create a free profile to have access to multiple investment properties. The platform allows you to easily browse through each pre-vetted project and choose the right one for you. Figure Out the Interested Parties You need to find out what type of partners will be interested in the property. The best investment partner is the one whose requirements are satisfied by the investment. For example, if the investment is a house, that may be suitable for a wealthy individual investor or group of investors with limited liability. Moreover, finding out other parties interested in the same property is not the easiest to do on your own. This is why the crowdfunding real estate platform make sense for most people. Find Potential Investment Partners After you decide what kind of partners would like to join you, you need to develop trust with them. This process takes time and a lot of patience. On the other hand, it might be easier to invest side by side with institutional or individual investors through Crowdfunding Platforms such as DiversyFund to find a trustworthy team of experts in the real estate industry. Find Partners with Real Estate Investment Experience As you may have heard, people learn from experience. Anyone with real estate investment experience should understand the market entirely and consider the ups and downs. At DiversyFund, our team has over 20 years of experience in the real estate investment industry. Our knowledge and experience allow us to scrutinize every deal to make it an investment grade opportunity and our platform allows you to go over projects that have been pre-vetted to lower the risk and maximize the profits. Where to Find the Right Partner Finding the right business partner is not always easy, but Diversyfund Crowdfunding platform makes it quick and effortless. Changing the world of real estate crowdfunding, Diversyfund offers a full service online real estate crowdfunding platform that links experienced and new investors to high-quality real estate investment opportunities. Take a look at our real estate crowdfunding platform to find the perfect investment opportunities. For more information about and our real estate crowdfunding platform, click here.

For all our Monterey, CA investors. The following is an update on your current investment. December 2016 At Diversyfund, we understand how important it is to receive updates on your current investment projects. We would like to thank you and share with you the latest news about the Monterey, CA project. [caption id="attachment_13236" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] Investment Opportunity - Monterey, CA update.[/caption] The Monterey project is progressing as scheduled. Our contractors finished pouring the slabs for both garages and the patio. Lumber was dropped, and the framing crew is busy cutting the studs and getting the exterior walls up.   Bay View Additionally, a tree service company trimmed trees to open up the stunning view of the bay and removed one tree that was dying. You are able to see the beautiful bay, and now we have the open space we needed for this project. [caption id="attachment_13240" align="aligncenter" width="896"] Day 1 of Tree Trimming and Removal[/caption] [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="894"] View after Tree removal[/caption]     Using time efficiently As the walls go up, the rough trades (electrical and plumbing) will be going in as well. Time is essential for our investors. Therefore, our builders ensure that time is used as efficiently as possible. As you can see here, garages are poured and being finished. We have a solid base to proceed. Finally, here is an image of the walls as they are going up. We are on the roll! At Diversyfund, we enjoying bringing the best investment opportunities to you and making real estate investment easy for you. Your portfolio grows effortlessly, and we keep you up to date on all your investment projects. Contact us today to start your portfolio.

You don't have to be alone in your investments. Learn how Real Estate Crowdfunding is the solution you are looking for. It is important to remember that not all real estate deals are equal. In fact, quite the opposite tends to be true. That is where Real Estate Crowdfunding comes into the picture. Typically, larger investments have higher rates of returns and have more success. This makes investing in real estate quite a hassle if you aren't adequately capitalized. It is often discouraging as an investor to know that you are missing out on good investments just because you are not wealthy, or you are short on capital. For many years, real estate was an investment that only the well-off were able to afford. Although, it has many attractive features that would lure investors of all backgrounds. What is Crowdfunding? Crowdfunding is a recent phenomenon that is revolutionizing the way investors look at putting their money to work. Innovation in finance is nothing new, and crowdfunding is certainly no exception. Pulling resources as a group or community allows people to pursue investments that previously were not attainable to them. It takes quite a bit of capital to invest in most real estate opportunities. However, crowdfunding is changing the real estate investing landscape by making it possible to get in on deals with far less capital. Crowdfunding for real estate is an innovation that brings in more working-class people. It gives them new real estate investing opportunities that they might not otherwise have access to. Real estate crowdfunding investments are a win-win situation. The investor and the debt holder are both given more flexibility and more opportunities. This is a fundamental change in real estate investing that will bring about permanent changes to the real estate industry and to the way people look at investing. How does it happen? To make all of this possible, there needs to be something that has the ability to bridge the gap between investors (lenders) and debt holders (the people executing on the real estate investments). The bridge between these two groups is offered by real estate crowdfunding platforms. These platforms offer a channel in which the two groups (lender and debt holder) are able to meet and connect. Often times, real estate crowdfunding platforms take a small cut for offering these services. However, the fees that are typically associated with this form of investing are relatively small. All in all, this is a form of investing that opens up investing in real estate to a whole new group of people. This is, no doubt, an innovation that is shaping multiple industries and will continue to for years to come. For real estate crowdfunding and more investment opportunities, sign up today to learn more. Let's start planning your future success with investments today in a few easy steps.

Sites like GoFundMe and Kickstarter have transformed the way people raise money. Crowdfunding is a great tool for fundraising. Since each donation doesn’t need to be very large, accomplishing your goal is much simpler. The number of people that donate are what makes all the difference. This new method has revolutionized how startups, musicians, artists and directors earn funding for their projects. Even more so, it has also hugely impacted the world of real estate investing. What is crowdfunding real estate? Crowdfunding real estate is a way to gain many investors without requiring high dollar amounts from each one. The basic idea behind crowdfunding is that it’s easy to get a lot of people to invest small amounts. When they all work together, a campaign can quickly meet its goal. This method, when applied to real estate development, allows developers to reach new investors that they could never have reached otherwise and vice versa. Finally, real estate investing isn’t an exclusive business venture and you don’t have to be the uber-rich to start playing the game. The Future of Investing: Crowdfunding Investments Before crowdfunding was an option, investing in real estate depended mostly on business connections. It was all about who you know and how much money you had. Under the Securities Act of 1933, private securities could not publicly solicit investments. Plus, the minimum threshold to invest in these deals was usually in the six-figure range. The high amount needed to invest coupled with a ban on investment solicitation made it impossible for any average investors to earn a spot in the real estate market. For developers, the pool of investors was very restricted, which made earning capital difficult. However, everything changed in 2012 when the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act of 2012 was passed. Now, developers are able to directly market to accredited investors. Additionally, potential investors can literally choose where to invest their money from the palm of their hand. And, they don’t have to fork up $100,000 or more to get started. While the SEC is still reviewing a few materials, the hope is that this method of investing in real estate development will continue to thrive in the future, as well as provide great alternatives to investors. Take Advantage of Crowdfunding Real Estate Thanks to the fast pace at which technology changes, no market is being left untouched. Even the oldest, most traditional industries like real estate investment have had a makeover. With Internet access, you can now begin investing in the previously exclusive real estate market. The old ways of investing meet new advancements in technology with the crowdfunding method of raising cash. While the basic steps of investing in real estate have stayed the same, the ways developers find investors and the availability to invest has changed for the better. Now, more people can participate in the fast-paced and exciting real estate industry. How does real estate crowdfunding work? Crowdfunding is such a game-changer when it comes to raising money. This is because each investor does not have to give very much to help the overall cause. While each person donates less money than real estate investors have previously done, crowdfunding offers the advantage of a bigger pool of people from which to draw funds. This means meeting goals and raising money for projects can be accomplished much easier and quicker than ever before. While sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo are popular crowdfunding sites, these platforms don’t offer any shares or financial ROIs. Usually, the rewards for participating come in the form of prizes or perks. While these platforms work well for other types of startups, real estate investors prefer something that will actually bring them a return on investment as well as diversify their portfolios. So, crowdfunding platforms made specifically for real estate have emerged to fill the gap. Who can invest in crowdfunding real estate? Crowdfunded real estate investment has opened the doors for non-accredited investors. Now, you don’t need to be a billionaire to start investing. Investors can buy-in with a minimal investment and still reap the benefits. Additionally, finding investors was nearly impossible for many developers before. Since it was illegal for developers to advertise deals or to ask for investments at all, the pool from which developers could raise funds was very limited. Today, new real estate projects can be freely advertised, making it easier to find investors. Why invest in real estate in the first place? Investing in real estate helps to diversify your portfolio in order to reduce risk. By investing a variety of industries and price points, you can better protect yourself from the natural ups and downs of the market. An advantage to investing using crowdfunding is the ability to gain access to the real estate market with a small amount of capital. Plus, investors can work in direct contact with developers and have a voice in the process. Full-service crowdfunding real estate platforms also take care of confusing paperwork to make the process less stressful. When it comes to getting started investing in real estate, crowdfunding is really the simplest and easiest way to do it. Where do you invest? When you invest in real estate through a crowdfunding platform, the method is as easy as it gets. Invest from your home computer, tablet or even your smartphone. Browse the site to see what deals are out there and start building your portfolio with a few clicks. Why work with DiversyFund? DiversyFund is a real estate crowdfunding online investment platform that connects accredited investors to borrowers with in-house vetted real estate investments. The platform provides the ease of browsing, investing, and managing investments online, anywhere, anytime. DiversyFund is your gateway to exclusive real estate investing. We simplify the process of crowdfunded real estate investments. Our committed team of dynamic real estate professionals aim to provide you with the best investment opportunities available. We have combined our extensive knowledge of real estate with our experience in asset management, consulting, investment banking and technology to revolutionize the real estate industry by making the investment process simple and accessible for you.

Investing in the hottest real estate markets is one of the many ways to diversify your portfolio. Traditionally, you would have to find local properties to invest in. Otherwise, you needed to have connections in the real estate market, so you could expand your horizons. However, DiversyFund is disrupting the real estate investment market by making it easy for nearly anyone to invest on real estate. With our online portal, members can access the hottest real estate markets available in the country. Even if you are new to real estate investing, our crowdfunding platform makes it easy to discover, analyze and invest in the properties that interest you. Finding The Hottest Real Estate Markets Southern California continues to be one of the hottest real estate markets in the country. According to Realtor.com, San Diego is the third hottest market available. However, until recently, you needed to be living in Southern California to invest in these properties. Not anymore though! DiversyFund is lowering the barrier of entry, so all have access to real estate investments.  If you are an investor in Chicago, New York, San Fransisco, or anywhere else in the country, you now have access to these exclusive investment opportunities.  Even more so, if you don't have real estate investing experience, our team of experts make it easy for you to get started By signing up for free as an investor on our site, you have immediate access to all of our pre-vetted offerings.  DiversyFund, a crowdfunding real estate platform, ensures you have all the essential financial information regarding the investment. This allows you to avoid spending hours on the phone or computer researching each investment. Since all of the facts are provided to you upfront,  you can start investing in minutes. Additional Real Estate Investment Tips Leverage Technology Put technology to work for you, so your money can go to work too. A platform like DiversyFund can save you a lot of time. By presenting deals and information to you immediately, you no longer need to hunt down the investment facts. Evaluate Residential and Commercial Deals Differently If you generally invest in residential properties, it's important to understand that commercial properties are different. For example, commercial properties are evaluated by their usable square footage. Know the Market Having a direct understanding of the market is crucial to investing. If you don't have a full understanding of the local market, then you should work with a partner that does, such as DiversyFund. With a detailed vetting process, we back only the most exclusive deals.

Why is the option to diversify in Real Estate so attractive? Since the passing of JOBS (Jumpstart our Business Startups) Act in 2013, Real Estate Crowdfunding has shook-up the real estate industry. Nowadays, anyone can invest in real estate and has the ability to do so online. After we learned some of the most disrupting factors in the way people invest in real estate, a big change had to happen. Transparent ways of investing are now available to everyone. The option to diversify is becoming more attractive to all investors since it lowers the risks and increases chances of success. What is new? In an industry previously transacted entirely offline, it is expected that many investors refuse to change their ways. As the saying goes, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Although it may not be necessarily “broken,” something needed to change. The accessibility to investments, the ability to streamline investment transparency, and portfolio management were simply non-existent to the average person investing in real estate. These tools are available now and DiversyFund offers you a platform that you can trust.  Factors such as the majority interest and control over the investment create concerns to real estate investors. However, having this new access when a particular investment goes sideways, the investor has more control through crowd investing in that same project. What are investors saying about these new platforms? Some investors argue that the priority lies in having the majority interest in the deal. Other investors prefer to diversify with crowdfunding investments to spread capital across multiple investments lowering the risks. This way you avoid the option of coddling a deal where all of your money is housed in one place (no pun intended). By choosing to invest $25,000 in one project and $50,000 in another, you are increasing your investment portfolio because you have chosen to diversify. As a result, you spread risk, and you are benefiting from a potentially higher and stable returns. In a worst case scenario, if an investment goes into default, you would still have the other investments that are performing to offset potential losses. What can you expect in the future? We are barely reaching year 3 since Regulation D 506 (b) and (c) amendments. This is why it will be interesting to see if seasoned investors adopt this new way of real estate investing. Especially since Regulation A+ (Reg A+) was put into practice as of June 19, 2015, and the potential of Title III passing, both of which added unaccredited investors to the mix. It continues to be an exciting time for anyone involved in the real estate industry’s development. Have specific questions? Want a personalized walk-through? Visit our site to take a look at the current opportunities available for you. You may create an investor profile free of commitment to have exclusive access to all upcoming investment opportunities.  

Investing in real estate is no longer just for the uber-rich. Thanks to DiversyFund, an online real estate crowdfunding platform, anyone in the United States can take advantage of the lucrative California real estate market. Even if you don't have any real estate investing experience, we make investing in real estate simple. In order to get started, just set up your free accredited investor account on our website. Then, you will have immediate access to all of our pre-screened offerings. With all of the information you need to make a decision presented to you, there are no more spending hours on the phone or conducting research. Instead, we give you all the facts and you can be making investments in a matter of minutes. How Does An Online Real Estate Crowdfunding Platform Work? Create A Free Account in Minutes By creating an accredited investor account, you can view and fund properties instantly. Plus, there’s no obligation to invest. All you need to do is create an account, browse properties, and invest when you find the perfect opportunity. Browse Our List of Pre-Vetted Properties With our extensive real estate experience, the detailed vetting process, and 100% backing of all properties, you only see the best possible investment opportunities on our listings. Invest Online To Build Your Portfolio DiversyFund's platform makes it easy to securely invest online. Simply go through our portfolio of investment opportunities at your leisure, fill out the necessary paperwork, and transfer the desired amount of funds. Best of all, you can do it all from the comfort of your own home or office. Since we understand that your time is valuable, we make it a priority to ensure investing is easy for you. Your Returns Immediately Deposited As your real estate investment grows, we automatically deposit the funds and dividends into your account. This makes re-investment a simple process. For more information on how our platform works, click here.

While real estate investments are a great way to diversify your portfolio, they also produce a long-term income source. However, up until recently, investing in private real estate deals was seen as something only the super-elite could do. Now, with real estate crowdfunding paving the way for new investors, there is a new way to invest in exclusive real estate deals. To gain a better understanding of the who, what, where and why of real estate crowdfunding, DiversyFund has put together a complete breakdown about real estate crowdfunding for you. What is Real Estate Crowdfunding? For starters, let’s first understand what crowdfunding is. Crowdfunding involves using the power of the crowd to raise capital for startups, medical costs, charities or any other venture an individual needs capital for. With real estate crowdfunding the power of the crowd is used too. By making private real estate deals available to the public, these platforms are using multiple investors to pool the needed funds to complete the real estate project. While there are other types of crowdfunding, this form is uniquely different in regards to how investors invest, the returns received and the level of risk taken. Types of Crowdfunding Real Estate Investments To further understand the ways to invest in these real estate projects, one must know there are different types of crowdfunding real estate investments available. These can be broken down into three different types, which include: Equity: In an equity investment, investors in the project gain an ownership stake. Typically, returns come in the form of rental income or the sale of the property. Investors receive their share of the profits either on a quarterly or annually basis. Debt: With a debt investment, investors are investing in debt. Generally, this means investing in a mortgage loan for a property. Therefore, as the loan is repaid, you receive a percentage of the interest made on the load either monthly or quarterly. Overall, equity investments tend to offer a higher return on investment. This is because debt investments have a limitation of the interest rate associated with the mortgage. Although investors may receive a higher payout with equity loans, there is also more risk associated with equity investments. Additionally, in equity investments, the investors are usually the last to be paid out their earnings. On the other hand, many crowdfunding real estate platforms are combining the power of equity and debt investments to offer investors safer and smarter investment options. Our platform for example, provides investors with investments that have the perfect balance of debt and equity. These type of investments combine the best of both debt and equity, so investors are able to earn potentially higher returns with much lower risks. Plus, our capital stack means after the construction loan is paid, our investors are paid their dividends or shares. Then, the developer, DiversyFund, is paid out. Understanding the Types of Real Estate Crowdfunding Websites With the explosion of the crowdfunding real estate market, there have emerged various types of marketplaces. They all work in very similar ways to connect investors with new and exciting opportunities. The differences between these real estate crowdfunding websites lies in the fees associated with joining, the yields, risks and growth potential. While each method has its pros and cons, all are great ways to start investing in real estate. Here are the three types of websites investors will come across on their search for the perfect investment platform. Indirect Investing An indirect investing model allows investors to participate by using a Special Purpose Vehicle or SPV, which the crowdfunding firm creates. An SPV helps to isolate potential financial risk. The firm figures out how much money they can contribute to the developer’s funds. After this, they call upon investors to fill in the difference. While this model makes things simpler for real estate developers in terms of getting their funding, a trade off is that they can not make personal connections with investors. Since firms don’t know individual, a direct relationship does not form. This means that developers miss out on the opportunity to expand their networks to leverage in future opportunities. In this model, the risk lays on the shoulders of the crowdfunding agency. The crowdfunding platform pays cash distributions and returns, not the real estate firm. Since this is the case, there could be a risk associated with this type of investment. This is especially true if the crowdfunding company fall upon hard times. In such an event, an investor’s capital could be lost or their returns diminished even if the real estate asset still performs well. Overall, the health of the crowdfunding platform and the performance of the real estate asset directly impact the investor’s ROI. Direct Investing Direct investing crowdfunding allows investors to directly invest with real estate firms. The crowdfunding platform becomes the middleman to facilitate raising funds from investors. Through this method, investors are able to invest right alongside real estate firms. However, there is a risk on the behalf of the real estate firm. They’re the ones who have to fulfill the business plan for the specific project or property. For the real estate firms, there are many benefits to outweigh the risks. Not only are these firms able to raise more capital, but they can also expand their networks and make new connections to investors. After the crowdfunding firm has successfully sponsored a deal, investors are able to directly interact with the developers. This opens up opportunities for both parties in the future, who may wish to invest in other opportunities together. Additionally, since this model eliminates the need for brokers, there are some fees that are irrelevant. Real Estate Crowdfunding Software The final crowdfunding option that developers could choose is to integrate a Software-as-a-Service or SaaS platform within their existing websites. This real estate crowdfunding software allows them to begin raising funds under their existing brand. Developers can also manage investors and communicate with an existing network of private investors, as well as advertise to the public. This model is beneficial for developers because it allows them to leverage their own investment network while expanding their brand’s reach to new investors. With this software, it’s easy for developers to create their own direct investing platforms and offer more value to current investors. Using this method, developers can also provide advantages to their private investor networks by offering investment opportunities to them first. They still typically offer them to the public later if the project still requires funds to get off the ground. The JOBS Act and Real Estate Crowdfunding With the passing of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act in 2008, many new doors opened for real estate crowdfunding platforms. One of the biggest accomplishments of this act is the changes in how startups are allowed to raise capital through crowdfunding. Since it’s passing, investors now have a number of options in how they invest in real estate deals. These options can be broken down into three different crowdfunding investment categories, which include: Rule 506 (b) Rule 506 (b) is the old school way of investing in real estate. These offerings are the same type of private placements that developers have been participating in for the past 3 decades. One thing has changed, however. Now, investors can participate in these deals online. It is not like anyone can see these opportunities. Potential investors must apply and then wait out a “cooling down phase” of 30 days before they can view any deals and begin investing. Under Rule 506 (b), developers can raise an unlimited amount of money from an unlimited number of accredited investors plus a maximum of 35 non-accredited investors. However, deals including non-accredited investors require massive amounts of paperwork and other legal actions. Rule 506 (c) Rule 506 (c ) is very similar to Rule 506 (b), however only accredited investors can participate. Developers must also perform their due diligence before accepting investors. There is a certain amount of background work to do before individuals can begin investing. The potential investor’s tax returns and financial records must be thoroughly checked before they can begin viewing and investing in deals. Another key difference in Rule 506 (c ) is that the real estate developers and crowdfunding sites can advertise the deals however they like. From digital to print, these opportunities are readily available and do not require any type of “cooling off phase”. This difference makes it easier for investors to find opportunities. Regulation A Similar to 506 (b), under Regulation A, both non-accredited and accredited investors can participate. And, similar to 506 (c), developers can advertise however they like: the internet, print, broadcast, etc. However, Regulation A has some major differences as well. In order to raise money, developers must file complicated registration statements with SEC. This process can take up to 6 months and cost a substantial amount in legal fees. In some deals, the registration statement may also include audited financial statements. Once the project is fully funded, the developers may also be required to file reports periodically with the SEC. Preparing to Invest in Crowdfunding Real Estate Deals As with any investment, it’s important that investors conduct their due diligence prior to investing in any opportunity. Due diligence is the defining factor that could make or break your credibility as an investment firm; and yet it’s one of the hardest aspects of real estate investing. “Out of 100 deals that come in the door, the underwriting team approves less than 5%,” states Craig Cecilio, Founder of DiversyFund.  “Although our jobs as asset managers is to ensure investors yield compounded returns by getting their money working all the time, our number one priority is to conduct a rigorous process and in some ways marry the deal to really understand it’s true purpose.” For real estate investments, due diligence comes in all shapes in sizes. Before anything else, you need to analyze the 3 C’s thoroughly for residential properties. Character: Operators must possess integrity in their work history and overall track record. The Operator’s character will be exposed in terms repaying investments when credit history is in review. Capacity: Operators need to show the ability to repay your investment. Bank statements, financial statements, W-2s, and other proof of liquidity will be needed for review. Collateral: The subject property inspection and/or an analysis of the market in that particular area says a lot. The beauty of Zillow, Redfin, and the like, will provide added legitimacy. In addition, any legal documentation pertaining to the property is subject to review. This will include current and/or previous liens on the property, articles of incorporation and good standing, insurance, and any evidence of potential red flags. Throughout the life of an investment, investment firms never want to see investors second guess their investment choice. That is why, “we are present when investors make their decision, we are there when investors receive their disbursements throughout the life of the investment, and we are there when the investor receives their principal back. Our goal is to create an opportunity for investors to diversify their own portfolios. And our goal continues to be realized as we build more long term investor relationships,” Craig says. “We’ll let due diligence be the reason for our success.” The DiversyFund Difference At DiversyFund, our team has over two decades of experience in real estate investments. However, that’s not what makes our crowdfunding real estate platform different. What makes us different is that our team of experts are on the ground and present at each project site. That’s right, we oversee everything from the loan to the construction and sale of the property. In addition to this, our investors receive regular updates on their investments, so each investor stays “in-the-know” on how their real estate project is progressing. By overseeing and managing everything in-house, our team is able to make swift decisions when necessary, as well as provide complete transparency to investors on each investment available on our platform.

Many people believe that investing in real estate is a pursuit reserved for the extremely wealthy. However, through crowdfunding real estate investments, you no longer need billions of dollars to start investing in real estate. By becoming a micro-investor, more people are finding that smaller investments can bring surprisingly huge returns. There is a lot of power micro investors are experiencing in the real estate market. So, what does that mean for you? One of the best ways to maximize your returns, even on small investments, is through crowdfunding real estate investments. Among the most innovative development in real estate, these platforms allow you to invest small amounts in a highly diversified, expertly-selected real estate portfolio. Micro Investors Investing in Real Estate Before crowdfunding came to the real estate investment community, investing with a low budget was a very risky process. Often, all you could do without an enormous amount of assets was purchase one or two properties. Then, you'd just hope for the best and wait patiently. If these properties weren't in your local area, it was often hard to perform the necessary upkeep. Of course, if you had the time and skill set for home rehabilitation projects, you could attempt a flip. However, this meant spending thousands of dollars and hours on costly repairs in the hopes of potentially recouping some of that labor. On top of all of this, even these options were more expensive than many would-be investors could afford. Now, crowdfunding real estate investment platforms are on the rise, such as DiversyFund. Even more so, micro investors no longer need to take such stressful risks in order to be involved in real estate investments. Instead, you can invest in some of the most exclusive markets available with as little as $5,000. How Do Crowdfunding Real Estate Investments Work? You've probably heard of “crowdfunding” in other contexts. Many crowdfunding platforms exist in order to provide financial resources to artists directly from their fans. Additionally, these platforms have funded a number of musical projects and films. Individuals have also utilized crowdfunding platforms to fund costly and necessary expenses, like medical bills. Overall, crowdfunding relies on the power of the crowd. This means a large number of people investing a relatively small amount to achieve a large financial goal. Real estate crowdfunding and investing works along similar principles. Through crowdfunding, these platforms give ordinary people access to the best real estate investment opportunities available. While $10,000 can't get you much in even the smallest housing markets, when combined with similarly-sized investments from hundreds of investors it can secure you a real estate investment in rapidly-growing markets. Additionally, given the scope of these investments, you can greatly diversify your portfolio. By doing so, you are allowing yourself to maximize financial security and returns. Our team of committed and highly experienced investors at DiversyFund always ensure that you're making the best investments your money can buy. Investing With DiversyFund DiversyFund embraces transparency with their investors throughout each project. In our post-recession world, many people are understandably reluctant to invest blindly. For this very reason, all of our transactions are carefully vetted by our investment and development teams. On top of all of this, your returns are deposited immediately and updates are sent regularly. Through our innovative investor portal, you are able to track your investments, receive images, videos and more from our teams. Overall, crowdfunding real estate investments offer the best of both worlds: micro-investment in truly major markets. If you're interested in experiencing the power micro investors have in real estate for yourself, register for a free account at DiversyFund today!

Looking to explore new real estate investments in California with as little as $5000 to get started? Sign up for free here! Since real estate investments are among the safest wealth building asset classes that you can own, it's no wonder you're ready to start investing in them. Some of the hottest markets around the world are experiencing a boom in real estate values. This is especially true in California. Start Exploring New Real Estate Investments With DiversyFund Crowdfunding platforms such as DiversyFund provide investors with an amazing opportunity to own a piece of property in the hottest and most expensive real estate markets available. And, you can start investing with as little as $5000! DiversyFund enhances their investor’s value by providing advanced tools and technology to investors. Right at their fingertips, they can access trusted and pre-vetted deals. Even more so, our team enabled transparent investment tracking, reporting, and communication through investor’s personal dashboard. This allows each investor to have 24hr access to their investments and new opportunities. Regardless of what stage you are at with investing - baby boomer, savvy professional or millennial - DiversyFund is an excellent choice to diversify your investments and start earning the most admired returns in the industry. It’s never too late to dream big! To browse our current and closed offerings signup here for free.

Investing in real estate can be a lucrative opportunity. Until now, the majority of these types of investments were only available to institutional investors and very wealthy ones. However, thanks to new technology and fundraising methods, real estate investing is now accessible to all accredited investors. If you’re exploring the world of crowdfunding real estate investment platforms, the chances are you’re curious about the industry and its best practices. Here are some of the most popular and most important real estate crowdfunding tips to keep in mind during yoru search for the perfect investment opportunity. Vet the Platform As with any investment, it’s necessary to do your due diligence. With this in mind, ensure you find out as much as you can about how the crowdfunding platform operates. You will also want to learn how they handle technical things, such as the underwriting process. Learn the Market Just like any other investment, it's important to know what the market looks like. Plus, the chances of a great investment opportunity being available outside of your local area is very high. So, if you’re not living in the area of the project and don’t know much about the neighborhood, it’s definitely time to do your homework. What are the Risks and Returns? When thinking of risks and returns, think of them just like a list of pros and cons. If the returns outweigh the risks involved, this may be a very good opportunity to pursue. However, high returns often equals high risks. This is why you should seriously weigh the two before you begin investing in anything. Set Reasonable Expectations When you go into a deal with unrealistic expectations, you’ll have a disappointing experience or worse, you could lose money. This is why you need to know what to expect. By knowing what assumptions the platform and sponsor are making, as well as being certain their projections are in the realm of possibility, you will be able to gauge your expectations accordingly. Read The Fine Print Since any type of investment involves some sort of risk, it's essential to read all of the paperwork provided to you. While crowdfunding real estate investments are a fantastic tool for investing, there is still a risk involved, which is why it's important to know what will happen if something were to go wrong with the project. Don’t Get Too Emotional When it comes to investing, it may be difficult to remain unemotional. However, it’s important to view each opportunity with an unbiased eye. If the deal doesn’t make sense or isn’t realistic, walk away. Just because a project is in a neighborhood you’re personally passionate about does not mean that you can ignore unrealistic return projections. Investing With DiversyFund DiversyFund’s online real estate crowdfunding platform makes it easy to invest in residential real estate by lowering minimum investment amounts, reducing fees, and increasing returns. Our platform provides the ease of browsing, investing, and managing investments online, anywhere, and at anytime. We have combined our extensive knowledge of real estate with our experience in asset management, consulting, investment banking and technology to revolutionize the real estate industry by making the investment process simple and accessible for you.

The world of investment servicing can become quite confusing. This is especially true is you're new to investing. With so many questions pouring into our investment servicing department, we decided to put together some of the most helpful answers here for you to learn more. Investment Servicing Frequently Asked Questions How does the Operator of an investment know when to make payments? When funded and closed, a welcome packet goes out that includes their first payment letter, mortgage statement, and coupon payment booklet. In the event of a late payment, letters go out to them on the 15th of each month. In addition, Balloon Payment letters go out at the 90/60/30 day mark before the investment is due. What do investors receive once the investment is closed and funded? When the investment is funded and closed, a notification goes to all invested parties. This informs them of their investment number, property address, and percentage breakdown of all investing parties. When are distributions made? Interest payment processing takes 3-5 business days. Disbursements to investors are made on Tuesdays and Fridays, following a 5 day hold to ensure payments clear. Why are the first disbursements lower than the monthly return? The day investors fund the investment is the first day you earn interest. In most cases, funding takes place somewhere in the middle of the month and as a result, this is considered odd day’s interest. Depending on the day that your investment closes, disbursements go to Investors on Tuesdays and Fridays, following a 5 day hold to ensure payments clear. Payments either go out through direct deposit or the mail. Investors that set up for direct deposit will see their payment hit their account the following business day. If I set up direct deposit (ACH), will I lose the ability to have a paper trail or keep track of what each payment is for? Investor’s set up for direct deposit receive monthly statements detailing a summary of their serviced investments. Investor statements illustrate information on each payment disbursed. Can I use multiple bank accounts for my direct deposit? Each investment is setup to only disburse to one account. Do Investor’s get a copy of all statements that go out to Operators? Investors are always notified when welcome packets go out to Operators. Upon request, we can provide a copy of statements sent to Operators. What are the benefits of Servicing? Timely and effective responses providing resolutions to customer service needs Mailing of Operator welcome letter including payment coupons and servicing standards Collection of monthly payments and payoffs from Operators Secure and timely disbursements to Investors Providing monthly investor statements with disbursements Mailing of late and maturity notices to Operators Preparation and submission of Payoff Demands Preparation and submission of Reconveyance documentation Tracking the status of insurance and delinquency on all investments When action is required we notify Operators and investors Referral to foreclosure department – upon investor request Providing end of year Tax documentation for all investments To sign up for a free account on DiversyFund's crowdfunding real estate platform, click here.

Real estate continues to be understood as one of the highest-quality markets to invest in. However, many experience problems when trying to start investing in real estate. This is due to the investments often requiring a large amount of starting capital. For this reason, many perceive real estate investing as the domain of the hyper-wealthy. As very few people can invest in an extra house or two. Let alone thinking about a piece of real estate such as, an apartment building. In addition to being incredibly expensive, real estate investment in America has also historically required a number of private connections. In his article for Forbes Magazine, Nav Athwal writes, “Under the Securities Act of 1933, private securities investments (including securities of real estate companies) could not be marketed publicly. This means that access to private deals was limited to investors who were able to seek them out through connections in their personal network.” However, in the last decade, many of these legal precedents shifted. With this, more accessible platforms for investing opened up. Crowdfunding Platforms Make Real Estate Accessible Perhaps the most important new development in real estate investment is the proliferation of crowdfunding platforms. By allowing investors to place their funds in a variety of properties, crowdfunding platforms made real estate investing simple for ordinary people. Before, real estate often required hundreds of thousands of dollars – and all of that money went into the same investment. Even if an ordinary investor can afford to invest in property, their investment still remains highly risky. If their building doesn't turn a profit, the entire investment process goes bust. Real estate crowdfunding platforms, however, are remarkable as they require so much less of an initial investment. Even more so, they are innovative as they allow even wealthier investors to diversify their portfolios. Real estate crowdfunding platforms allow many different investors to collaborate on the purchase of properties. If you enter a real estate crowdfunding investment with $10,000, you will be able to distribute that money across different properties and markets. This means that you won't be as beholden to particular boom-bust cycles as those forced to invest in individual properties. Investing in Real Estate Crowdfunding Platforms This is why real estate crowdfunding platforms are useful for all real estate investors. It's not just for those with less money at first. Many argue that the entire market has changed for the good. Even investors who may otherwise have been able to invest in a moderately diverse real estate portfolio can now invest their money even more widely, if they want to. As Athwal reports, this increases transparency across the board: “Previously, investors might go into a deal knowing very little about the property in question...Crowdfunding platforms, on the other hand, generally operate with a goal of offering investors as much detail about an investment as possible.” In short, real estate crowdfunding platforms have opened up the world of real estate investment to a whole new group of investors. And, in so doing, changed the entire real estate market. If you're curious, why not start today with DiversyFund? Making an account is quick and easy, and we'll help you through every step of the crowdfunding investment process. What to Look for in a Crowdfunding Real Estate Platform Technology has dramatically changed the way we live our lives. From the way we track our health and fitness to how we date, the advent of new technology has shifted each aspect of our lives. Its reach has even extended to how we invest our money. Crowdfunding has made it possible for new investors to get into the real estate market where before, entrance was nearly impossible for rookie investors. Breaking into the real estate market is a great way to diversify your portfolio and earn a long-term income source. There are so many crowdfunding websites, that narrowing down your selection might seem daunting. And the truth is, all these sites are not created equal. Some lack the experience and integrity of others, potentially setting you up for a sticky situation. Choosing a Crowdfunding Real Estate Platform Before you jump in and get started, you may have some preliminary questions. Instead of reading a million crowdfunding real estate reviews before choosing which platform is correct for you, learn more about the most important elements to any crowdfunding platform. Choose a team that has valuable experience One quick way to suss out the good platforms from the bad is to look for quality experience and expertise. Browse the sites’ “About Us” pages to learn more about the teams behind the businesses. Look for members who have solid real estate experience and proven track records of expertise in the field. Up to date market information and investment opportunities Going into an investment without all the facts would be foolish. You’ll want to verify that the site you’re using has up to date information on all its listings. If you’re hoping to see your investments perform well over time, you need to begin the process with all the current and most accurate information possible. A credible site will give you updates and stay in close contact with you regarding your investments. Data on current market trends and stability should also be easy to access. Crowdfunded real estate is inherently more transparent than traditional real estate investing. Still, some sites may not continue to advise you on your projects whether due to lack of experience or simply poor business ethics. Crowdfunding sites can personally vet each opportunity and provide up to date information to its investors. Your investments should provide you with the most highly personalized experience you desire. Your platform should also have the ability to react quickly to key market changes and take advantage of creative strategies. Stay on top of these changes to get the most of your investments. Access to vast opportunities The platform that you choose should provide a useful “one stop shop” experience. From the platform, observing a wide variety of opportunities should be easy. Plus, the platform should make choosing which ones are right for you as simple as possible. Look for a crowdfunding site that opens doors to a variety of types of investments. This is a great way to diversify your portfolio and find what works for you as an investor. Accountability and experience If the burden of filing legal documents and jargon-heavy paperwork has been holding you back from investing, don’t sweat it. Find a platform that makes the process easy. A stand-up firm will also be a source you can trust. Platforms you should work with will underwrite every aspect of the loan, measure the known risks and identify any potential unknown risks in the transaction before we providing the return price to investors. Why work with DiversyFund? DiversyFund is a real estate crowdfunding online investment platform that connects accredited investors to borrowers with in-house vetted real estate investments. The platform provides the ease of browsing, investing, and managing investments online, anywhere, anytime. DiversyFund is your gateway to exclusive real estate investing. We simplify the process of crowdfunded real estate investments. Our team of dynamic real estate professionals is committed to providing you with the best investment opportunities. We have combined our extensive knowledge of real estate with our experience in asset management, consulting, investment banking and technology to revolutionize the real estate industry by making the investment process simple and accessible for you.

For centuries, real estate has been one of the best ways to create wealth. Before real estate crowdfunding was an option, real estate investment trusts (REITs) were the only way to enter the market. But, thanks to crowdfunding, what was once an exclusive club is now available to anyone. For a number of reasons, crowdfunding real estate investments appeal to a wide audience. This is because it requires a small amount of capital, produces more options and allows for direct access. Still, you may wonder what the advantages of working with accredited investor crowdfunding sites are. The truth is, there are many. Who’s considered an accredited investor? First, let’s go over who is seen as an accredited investor. The SEC has defined these investors as individuals or entities that are allowed to invest in securities that are not registered with financial authorities. In order to gain this ability, one must become an accredited investor. This is done by meeting the requirements for income, net worth and/or asset size. These requirements include, an annual income of $200,000 individually or $300,000 for joint income, over the last two years. The SEC also considers any individual with a net worth of over $1 million an accredited investor. What's the difference between accredited and unaccredited investors? The difference between accredited and unaccredited investors lies within their income and asset value, as mentioned above. However, there is more to this. For over 80 years, only accredited investors had access to private investment deals, real estate included. And, these investors needed to know the right people to get in on the deal, as well as have a large sum of capital at hand. With that in mind, we move to 2008. This is when the JOBS Act was put into place. This act enabled companies to go to the general public and seek funding for investment opportunities. Therefore, allowing more accredited investors to invest. This was followed up by the passing of Regulation A+, which opened up the doors even more. With this bill, companies gained the ability to advertise to all investors. Yes, both accredited and unaccredited. Since the passing of these regulations by the SEC, crowdfunding real estate has seen a boom. With more investors pouring in than ever before, platforms like ours are seeing exclusive real estate deals fulfilled in record time. While there are many benefits, you’re probably starting to wonder why choosing an accredited investor site is a good idea. So, why work with an accredited investor crowdfunding site? Direct investment Unlike investing with REITs, crowdfunding is a direct investment. One of the biggest advantages of crowdfunding investments is that investors can directly contribute to the project of their choice. There’s no need to hire a middleman to invest your money for you. Before, the value chain of real estate investments made it difficult to gain a significant return. The developer, initial investors and REITs took the bulk of the earnings first. Therefore, in order to succeed in real estate investing, you need to invest higher up the value chain. This is where crowdfunding comes into play. This method cuts out the middleman,. Therefore, reducing the costs of investing and increasing the accessibility of investing. You can almost double your return by choosing to invest with crowdfunding instead of REITs. Choose where to invest your money In the aftermath of the 2008 recession, the public’s faith in traditional institutions has been unsteady. With this, crowdfunding has taken root. Investors are much more conscious with how they spend money now, and crowdfunding has allowed them to be choosier.Additionally, crowdfunding provides opportunities even during periods of recession. Crowdfunding real estate investments are a direct property investment, so individuals can better diversify their portfolios. Get access to new markets For many years, real estate investing was a hard market to enter. The minimum threshold to invest was typically at least $100,000. Plus, it was difficult to gain insider knowledge about investment opportunities. It was also important to make and maintain many connections since private securities could not legally solicit investments. With crowdfunding real estate, the old rules have been thrown out the window. You no longer need to fork over $100,000 or more to enter the market. Instead, you gain access to so many projects, the hardest part is picking out the right project for your goals. How to Start Investing With DiversyFund, starting and setting up your portfolio is simple. We aim to create a transparent platform and make investment opportunities more accessible to you. By registering, you will gain access to all of the available investments listed on DiversyFund. Then, it’s as simple as browsing the projects to find the right one (or more!) for you. Once we review your submission, we will take care of all the paperwork for you. Once you’ve fully invested, we will update you along the way to keep you informed about your investments. Why work with DiversyFund? DiversyFund is a real estate crowdfunding online investment platform that connects accredited investors to vetted real estate investments. The platform provides simple browsing, investing, and managing of investments. Our team of dynamic real estate professionals is committed to providing you with the best investment opportunities. We have combined our extensive knowledge of real estate with our experience in asset management, consulting, investment banking and technology to revolutionize the real estate industry.

On September 24th, Craig Cecilio, Founder and CEO of DiversyFund, will be joining the panel at RealCap Chicago's 2nd Annual Real Estate Crowdfunding Conference where he will speak on the future of real estate capital since the event will capture how to raise debt and equity for a variety of projects. Furthermore these projects will include, single family homes, multifamily complexes, commercial buildings, and ground up development projects. RealCap Chicago Event Details: September 24th, 20158:00 AM - 6:00 PMOne Financial Place440 La Salle Street, Chicago, ILREGISTER HERE. What topics will the panel cover? First of all a variety of topics being covered, so the event is sure to be a success for the crowdfunding real estate community. While there's a large number of topics, some of the most intriguing include: The Evolution of Online Capital Raising Attracting Institutional Capital Crowdfunding for Non-Accredited Investors: Regulation A+ and IL Intrastate Exemption Raise Capital with your own White Label Crowdfunding Platform Marketing to Attract Investors However, don't forget to ask your questions during the panel discussions, so all attendees can benefit from the expertise. Additionally, you may choose to stay and chat with industry leaders about your next project. Who should attend? While everyone is welcome to attend, this event is geared towards educating the following individuals: Entrepreneurs Crowdfunding Platforms/Marketplaces Investors Venture Capital Firms Family Offices Angel Investors and more... Additional Information About RealCap Chicago "The rapid growth of real estate crowdfunding platforms can be attributed to both the low minimum investments of $100 - $10,000 as well as the transparency which both developers and investors now benefit from as they compare terms and opportunities on platforms, and even across platforms, " as Jorge Newbery said. Therefore, "The ease and speed of investing on the platforms is seductive. Online capital raising is the future of real estate finance." Even though there are already over 75 real estate crowdfunding platforms active in the United States, several additional platforms planning to launch soon. 

Once a month, a group of established CEOs, called Vistage 29, come together to brainstorm and help improve each other’s businesses.  Their 8-hour monthly recurring meetings involve sharing their successes, failures, and learning experiences as CEO's. Each meeting includes a guest speaker that focuses on a specific topic proposed by the Vistage group members. The speaker's topic is on a certain industry challenge that's being endured at that point in time. And although industry challenges may differ, solutions have proven to be similar. This holds true to the Vistage mission. Industry challenges such as human resources, operations, marketing and business development are just a few high level topics that speakers discuss as is a way to provide new perspectives for the CEOs. Celebrating with DiversyFund & Ozzie Gontang Vistage 29’s upcoming meeting will be hosted on September 8th 2015 by Craig Cecilio, Founder/CEO of DiversyFund. It will be at DiversyFund’s headquarters in downtown San Diego, California. Although most meetings include a guest speaker, this month’s meeting will cover two very important topics. These topics include, discussing live issues that each CEO is enduring and celebrating Ozzie Gontang. As Vistage 29’s Chair,  he celebrated for being an extraordinary mentor, friend, and leader. A little background on Ozzie Gontang and Vistage. Vistage is a worldwide organization that has been bringing CEOs into “private peer advisory groups guided by expert executive coaches, known as Vistage Chairs,” since 1957. Ozzie brings over 26 years tenure at Vistage. Additionally, he's received the Don Cope Memorial Award for being one of the most enthusiastic supporters of the Vistage mission. The team at DiversyFund is exciting to be hosting the event. Even more so, to honor Ozzie’s mentorship and long term dedication to Vistage and the CEO’s on Vistage 29, including Craig Cecilio. *You can follow the event live by searching the hashtag, #Vistage29, on Twitter.  

Step aside retail investors, there is a new player in the real estate investing town - Big Data. Prior to the tech bubble, it was difficult to find or gain access to information regarding real estate. Unless it was a full-time gig, you needed relationships to gain access to real estate investment opportunities. Even with that information alone, you still needed to drive the property to see if an investment made sense. Completing a comparative analysis of properties a-like was the most effective way for retail investors to make a decision. Post tech bubble; however, this process became rare. During the post-tech bubble in the early 2000’s, revolutionary technologies, such as Google Maps, Redfin, Zillow, and Walk Score, appeared in the world. This became the first major step in shifting the way we invest in real estate. These technologies provided, nearly, instant gratification when seeking answers to questions involving real estate. Faster than ever before, retail investors were able to use this data to find properties and analyze markets. This allowed investors to confidently decide what property to invest in. This kind of data supercharged multiple facets of real estate investing. Yet, systemic issues involving paperwork, accessibility, and overall awareness were not clear. That was until September 2013, where the JOBs Act was revised and enacted. And so we got to learn about a new term - Real Estate Crowdfunding. What is Real Estate Crowdfunding? Real Estate Crowdfunding is the fusion of real estate investing and technology. Platforms provided solutions of streamlining paperwork, deal flow accessibility, payment processing, investment due diligence and awareness of products. All these solutions tie into the most important factor of all for real estate investing - Big Data. Online platforms found ways to use data in a way that drives opportunities exponentially. Retail Investors don’t need to have the relationships to find the deals anymore. They definitely don’t need to drive the property nor conduct due diligence, because the deal analysis package is online and they can access it 24/7. As a result, retail investors are quickly testing the waters to see if what they have heard about technology advances is true. When you partner up with a crowdfunding platform, the search time for retail investors is now half. Instead, they spend their time deciding whether to trust the platform and they seek information on their track record and public credibility. On the other hand, some retail investors are slow adapting to new market trends. These investors still choose to drive properties and surrounding neighborhoods to conduct due diligence for an informed decision on the investment. By the time it would take for delayed market adapters to decide on whether to invest in a property, early adopters have already reserved the investment, signed paperwork, wired their money and received their first payment check. As a result, delayed market adapters are missing out on great opportunities. It is a slow and steady process to get everyone comfortable with this new idea. Partnering with real estate crowdfunding platforms is a huge innovation. It will take a while until delayed market adapters begin to transition into today’s efficient and data-driven way. Big Data is not going way, it is here to stay.

DiversyFund joins forces with Karim Rashid and Mavrix Group to finance and develop a stunning home in the desirable community of La Jolla, California. Karim Rashid, an established designer with over 32 years of experience, will take an existing home that was under partial construction and redesign the home's interior structure. Karim plans to incorporate California's natural surroundings to evoke fluidity of the neighborhoods contemporary design. One of the main reasons Erin Wicomb, Founder of Mavrix Group, brought Karim on was to have the designer incorporate his own personal flare to make the property truly one of a kind. Located at 7930 Costebelle Way, La Jolla, CA 92037, the home's structural shell has about 6,000 SF of living space alone and that might seem secondary to the spectacular 180 degree ocean views. DiversyFund's platform raised $1 million dollars to crowdfund the property's construction. Craig Cecilio, Founder and CEO of DiversyFund, and Erin Wicomb have worked together on a handful of successful real estate projects to date. "Erin Wicomb and his team are the new up and coming developers in the real estate industry. Teams like theirs are one of the main reasons we decided to branch out into crowdfunding and incorporate DiversyFund. By partnering with innovative teams like Mavrix Group, we really are looking to take part in making an impact in the industry by adding value to neighborhoods both distressed and established. Especially with Karim on board, we are even more excited to see what he can do to this home," Craig Cecilio discussed during the taping of the property. Watch the video below of Karim Rashid and Craig Cecilio sharing their vision at the property in La Jolla, CA. Mavrix La Jolla Home from ROF Industries Inc

Wow! One of DiversyFund's repeat clients recently completed a stunning Point Loma remodel in San Diego, CA. DiversyFund provided the Debt and Equity financing for the property located at 3221 Byron Street San Diego CA 92106. With the financing covering the purchase, rehabilitation, and resell. As of right now, the stunning property is currently listed at $1,379,000-$1,479,000. It is a 4 bed / 3.5 bath 2,650 SF home. Even more so, you will enjoy endless ocean views and a mid-century feel within the home. One of its perks is the large dual master suite downstairs. Since this suite can also be used as a 2nd unit, one can produce extra income. Not only did the Operator do a spectacular job on the renovation, their turn around time was actually 2 months faster than expected. DiversyFund and the investors yielded 12% on the Debt Product and upwards of 40% on the Equity product when the property sold. Check out the before and after photos below:

On May 28th, Craig Cecilio, Founder/CEO of DiversyFund will speak as a panelist at "The Second Annual Fintech Global Expo 2015." Here he will be discussing all things FinTech and Real Estate. Additionally, his focus will be on Real Estate Crowdfunding. For more information - CLICK HERE. There is no doubt that technology is revolutionizing every aspect of the financial services industry. Even more so, the market is taking notice in a big way! According to a recent Accenture study, worldwide venture capital investment in the fintech sector growing four times faster than overall venture capital investments in the last three years. Due to recent IPOs of Lending Club and Ondeck, increased API connectivity, mobile device proliferation and borrowers’ increased use of online platforms, many investors and consumers alike believe that 2015 will be the year that fintech comes of age. Topics Being Covered at FinTech Global Expo With so many changes occurring in a rapidly growing market, Coastal Shows has expanded this year’s main conference. This way multiple aspects of the thriving financial technology industry are covered. The conference will bring together global leaders from the world's leading platforms with dedicated panels on Europe and Asia. The panels will cover innovations, case studies and lessons learned within the following industries: Marketplace/P2P Lending Real Estate Alternative Finance Crowdfinance Bitcoin Infrastructure Online Investment Platforms The Second Annual Fintech Global Expo is a deep dive into the innovation occurring within the fintech industry. There will be new data releases, a press conference for lending fintech analysts and reporters, special sessions devoted to retail investors and much more. The Second Annual Fintech Global Expo, taking place in beautiful San Diego, is different from other conferences.  In fact, we will bring together not only startup and established leaders within the burgeoning fintech industry from the United States, but also introduce groundbreaking international companies who serve some of the largest markets in the world. Keep a look out for the event and join our online community to receive real-time updates from the nation's leaders!

On May 5th and 6th 2015, DiversyFund joins the Collision Conference in Las Vegas, NV. There they will join key influences in the tech community in search of achieving their ultimate goal: disrupting the traditional way of real estate investing. Joining Industry Leaders at Collision Conference DiversyFund provides investors the opportunity for a diversified portfolio of high-quality, thoroughly-vetted, real estate investments opportunities. By making the process of investing simple, investors receive a transparent, real-time platform. Additionally, they are able to manage all of their real estate investment needs. “We want DiversyFund to be the catalyst for investor’s long-term investment goals,” said Craig Cecilio, Founder of DiversyFund. Since launching DiversyFund, they have raised the largest cumulative funding for residential real estate in California. Even more so, all of it was raised by a true crowd: retail investors. And they have successfully accomplished all of our initiatives without additional outside funding. “We are now opening up to the idea of venture funding to scale operations, boost technology and increase overall market share. It’s a race to see who is going to figure it out first and whoever does will become the leader in the industry,” says Craig Cecilio. He also mentions, “RECF Platforms’ want to become the real estate crowdfunding equivalent to LendingClub or Kickstarter. There are a lot of bright minds in our space right now and it will happen sooner rather than later.” For more information - CLICK HERE. Last year over 1,500 attendees joined together to attend and speak at Collision. Many included business leaders from Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and the Box. "As we are continuing to leverage technology to make the processing of real estate investing simple and we believe Collision is a great place to start," says Craig Cecilio. Register For The Event Here Keep a look out for the event and join our online community to receive real-time updates from the nation's technology leaders!

Colony Capital, BlackRock, Fortress, Apollo are just a few of the many institutional investors that are capitalizing on today’s real estate investment opportunities. As a result, these large corporations have driven down industry rates. Thus, making the real estate space even more competitive. As Craig Cecilio, Founder of DiversyFund says, “It’s was inevitable that this was going to happen during a great market." And, goes on to say, “I predicted this was going to happen back in 2011 as the market started to heat up again. In coming years, we will continue to see the cost of capital become more and more competitive.” The Institutional Investor Shift If we are comparing 2007-2008 to today, the market is quite different, in a good way. There’s not one singular way to structure a real estate debt and equity investment anymore. “We are continuing to create new equity products every day,” mentioned Craig Cecilio. “Creativity is the driver of the industry right now. Therefore, whoever is putting together the most creative products will be leading with a competitive edge.” Since institutional investors are already capitalizing on debt real estate products, they'll likely continue to seek these returns. For retail investors still enjoying the double digit returns that these debt products are offering, they may find in the next few years that double digit returns will lower to single digits. Fortunately enough, equity products are becoming more popular for retail investors and these high yield returns are still there…for now.

Crowdfunding for Real Estate is heating up and becoming one of the most popular products for venture funding. Just recently, RECF (Real Estate Crowdfunding) Platforms Patch of Land and Realty Shares, simultaneously announced a successful Series A funding on April 4th, 2015.  Other companies, like Fundrise, received Series A funding back in 2014. Realty Mogul is already on to their second round of funding as of March 2015. Institutional and individual investors are beginning to catch on to the potential the industry is projecting. Even more so, they are already actively capitalizing on it. Series A is the first seed funding round for privately held startups, in return for ownership in their company. Usually Series A allows for preferred ownership or anti-dilution provisions in the case of future financing. Why Venture Funding? RECF Platform’s main reasons for seeking additional funding are to scale operations, boost technology and increase overall market share. “It’s a race to see who is going to figure it out first and whoever does will become the leader in the industry,” says Craig Cecilio of DiversyFund, a Real Estate Crowdfunding Platform based in California. He also mentions, “RECF Platforms’ want to become the real estate crowdfunding equivalent to LendingClub or Kickstarter. There are a lot of bright minds in our space right now and it will happen sooner rather than later.” In many ways, the SEC is, and will continue to be, the reason for why there has been a lag in an emerging leader due to ongoing regulation amendments and implementation. In recent news, the SEC announced March 25th of new rules providing investors with more investment choices, which will soon allow for an alternative vehicle to raise capital rather than using Series A Funding. This is referred to as Reg A+.  Originally referred to as Reg A, Reg A+’s most impactful amendment was allowing for raises up to $20-$50 Million depending on what tier is used. Before the amendment, Reg A was capped at $5 Million which proved to be more burdensome than Series A funding. Planning Ahead for Reg A+ It is not clear yet whether the use of Reg A+ will still be too burdensome to compete with Series A Funding as it is not currently in practice. However, current public information shows that Reg A+ can open more doors to investor diversity. In other words, the SEC has lifted the restrictions on accreditation thresholds allowing those persons who make less than $200K per year or have less than $1 Million net worth to invest up to 10% of their net worth in any company. This non-accredited raise option is only available under Tier 2. Given the lack of urgency to push forth these new regulations, 2015 will be another year of pulling back layers of the onion to see what’s to come for new emerging RECF Platforms. Keep a look out for more information on Reg A+ and join our online community to receive live updates.  

Next month, Mike Greiner, Vice President of DiversyFund, will speak as a panelist at "Real Estate Crowdfunding Summit" on May 28th, 2015 in Los Angeles, CA. There he will be discussing the ins and outs of Real Estate Crowdfunding. For more information - CLICK HERE. First of all, iGlobal Forum is pleased to host the second annual Real Estate Crowdfunding Summit 2015. Here you will have the opportunity to meet the leading real estate crowdfunding thought leaders and experts, as well as hear them share their perspectives and stories within this amazingly fast-growing industry. With this interactive panel-driven conference, brings together the new breed of crowd investors and traditional investors, as well as the real estate developers and the crowdfunding marketplaces. Even more so, crowdfunding offers new capital options, new manners to enhance client relationships and new marketing opportunities. Additionally, it provides expansion into other areas of the world through the emergence of global real estate platforms, which allows developers and investors alike the chance to further capitalize on opportunities. Join us at the Real Estate Crowdfunding Summit on May 28th, 2015 so you can be “in the know” as to how crowdfunding is sure to affect the real estate industry and how you and your organization can best benefit. Key Topics Will Include: How to determine if crowdfunding is right for me How to determine which crowdfunding platform/marketplace is best What are the realistic expectations for crowdfunding in real estate? How can investors protect themselves in a crowdfunding deal? What do developers really think about crowdfunding? Where are future opportunities for crowdfunding? What legal, tax & regulatory issues are important when entering into a crowdfunded deal? What are the creative partnership structures that can be derived through crowdfunding? How do you market effectively when using crowdfunding platforms? How does the underwriting process work in real estate crowdfunding? Register For The Event Here Sponsors & Media Partners Keep a look out for the event and join our online community to receive real-time updates on revolutionary industry updates!

The New Norm: Real Estate Crowdfunding Platforms Turn to Wall Street We want to share what we've learned from attending recent real estate crowdfunding conferences. We are beginning to see a clear cut view of how crowdfunding in the real estate space is beginning to shy away from its original purpose. Funding through the “crowd” is a new reality. The trend is that Real Estate Crowdfunding (RECF) Platforms Turn to Wall Street. Crowdfunding, by definition, “is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising monetary contributions from a larger number of people, typically via the internet” – emphasis on “people”. Companies such as KickStarter and GoFundMe are perfect examples of how companies have successfully accomplished this business objective by getting projects funded through the crowd for the purpose of people wanting to work towards a similar goal. This has been the same objective the real estate sector is trying to duplicate. In many situations, we have been seeing the opposite. Additionally, RECF founders and C-level executives that have had the opportunity to be panelist speakers at Real Estate Conferences across the nation have touched briefly on their business objectives, and these objectives, with respect to raising funds for projects, have been directed towards institutional capital. In some cases, RECF’s are solely seeking funds through institutions. What are the arguments? Some argue that funding projects from institutional capital alone can be considered crowdfunding when funds come from multiple institutions. For example, a hedge fund, venture capital firm, and a private equity firm can pool their money together to fund a multi-million dollar project. You could also argue that to make a company profitable, the main objective is to drive down overhead costs. However, many would argue against this and say it isn’t true crowdfunding. RECF’s that elicit true crowdfunding strive to drive the cultural shift in the way people invest. On another hand, their purpose is much larger than making big pay checks and pay outs. It’s a revolution that they want to take part in and is making history.

After Lending Club’s IPO, it’s no wonder that RECF Platforms (real estate crowdfunding) are becoming more open to the idea of IPO’s. Lending Club had the largest tech IPO in 2014 valued at $5.4 Billion. In the real estate space, Ifunding has already opened shares in return for equity in their company. Based on his own experience, Ifundings CEO, William Skelly predicts that the number of platforms will decrease to three or five. Even more so, that one or more could do an IPO successfully. Skelly says that the most innovative and successful platforms will be the ones backed by larger financial institutions. Thus, lead to an access of public markets for capital. Key Takeaways of Shifting RECF Platforms As any relatively new industry blooms, consolidation is inevitable. Here are some realities to keep in mind given this transition: Real Estate Crowdfunding usually perceived as democratic, but in reality, Title III and Title IV are still in review. This means that the general public may not invest into these products. IPO’s allow investor’s opportunity for increased liquidity.

There is a growing divide in the industry between those who are building their business models from a social objective and those who are building from a business objective. From a social objective, some communities are investing in projects within their neighborhoods. They are doing so in hopes of revitalizing communities and promoting gentrification. From a business objective, the best companies offer the opportunity to build wealth in real estate. This is done through innovative technology and access to real estate experts. Either way, there remains an ongoing struggle for platforms to find the best approach to provide value to investors. Furthermore, investors aren't simply looking for a return on their money, investor’s want access to the best deals. They want to invest in a solid platform that has a proven track record and superior customer service to manage their portfolios. As a result of the real estate downturn, it is an uphill battle for platforms. Each must prove their credibility and worthiness in order to acquire new customers and retain them. Barriers to RECF Platforms In addition, given the continued revisions to the JOBs Act in the past few years, platforms are having to continue to update their compliance procedures. Whether the platforms want to or not, they must in order to simply remain in the industry.  An additional barrier platforms have to deal with is the reluctance that investor have of sharing their credit card.  This is similar to the e-commerce days when people were reluctant to give their credit card information online. A platform can distinguish itself from the competition by creating a sense of community and exclusivity for their customers. If platforms can “wow” their customers to make them buy online and stay, the likelihood of the projected $2.5B market valuation for 2015 is not unreasonable to foresee.

Earlier this month, Massolution, the sister company of crowdsourcing.org, announced the release of its comprehensive 2015CF-RE Crowdfunding for Real Estate report. The company is known as a leading research and advisory firm specializing in crowdsourcing and crowdfunding solutions for private, public and social enterprises. Even more so, the report provided by then gave us the first ever detailed look at the crowdfunding real estate industry. Additionally, the 158-page report features data on the exponential growth of real estate crowdfunding, as well as the emergence of specialized real estate crowdfunding platforms. Lastly, it features how this revolutionary new method of real estate finance and investment is disrupting this class of assets. Top Findings in Real Estate Crowdfunding Industry Report: Real estate crowdfunding grew 156% in 2014. With campaigns ranging in size from less than $100,000 to over $25 million, the industry broke the $1 billion mark. In 2014, North America stood as the largest region by funding volume. The accounted for 56% market share, compared with Europe at 42%. By 2015, Massolution forecasts that North America will retain its lead. Furthermore, they predict it to reach $1.4 billion in funding volume. On the other hand, Europe will have just broken the $1 billion threshold. Overall, real estate crowdfunding is expected to increase by 150%. This will equate to $2.57 billion in 2015. Thus, making it one of the fastest-growing industry segments of crowd capitalism. All in all, this year U.S. commercial and industrial property crowdfunding expects to see a 250% increase. Finally, the growing investor interest in crowdfunding platforms is proving crowdfunding to be a legitimate source of funds. This is especially true when compared to traditional banking. “It appears that alternative finance platforms are here to stay and are starting to nibble away, albeit limitedly, at the regulated banking segment,” said Steven Cinelli, of Massolution. Additionally, he continues with, “Crowdfunding affords users and providers of new capital options. And with enabled technology and scale, such platforms will even offer traditional banks new ways to enhance their existing client relationships through partnering.” Expanding Across Borders Most notably, one of the new and exciting findings in the report is the development of cross-border deals. Even more so, is the expansion into other areas of the world. This is partly due to the emergence of global real estate platforms like Wealth Migrate. Due to this, there has been a dramatic increase in real estate crowdfunding. Moreover, it's increasing in regions with markets large enough to potentially surpass the United States. Of course, both in terms of investors and available opportunities. “The intersection of real estate and crowdfunding is enabling a huge leap within the industry away from the old property syndication model to new intermediate marketplaces, further proliferating this model around the world,” said Carl Esposti,CEO of Massolution. Since crowdfunding platforms have turned their focus internationally, investors from around the world can get involved. Now, each has the chance to capitalize on opportunities across every continent. “It is important to expand a real estate investment portfolio beyond your own backyard in order to access the global investment community for greater capacity, reduced risk and sustainable growth,” said Scott Picken, founder and CEO of Wealth Migrate.  

Are you curious about crowdfunding? To start, you should know that there are four different types of crowdfunding available. While crowdfunding has only been around since 1997, it has rapidly grown and expanded over the years, as have the various forms of crowdfunding. Since the four types commonly get grouped together, it’s important to understand the differences between each type of crowdfunding. By understanding the differences, you’ll be able to better choose which is right for your goals. Depending on the goals you’ve set for yourself, will determine which form of crowdfunding is right for you. There are four distinct crowdfunding categories, which are: Donation Based Crowdfunding Rewards Based Crowdfunding Equity Crowdfunding Debt Crowdfunding Now, let’s take a look at each of these types in greater detail to gain a better understanding of them. 1. Donation Based When it comes to donation crowdfunding, donors give contributions usually a good cause, such as a nonprofit or charity. Generally, these donations will range from $1 to $1,000. In donation based crowdfunding, donors typically do not receive a reward. Instead the reward is warm feelings of helping others and maybe a tax write-off. Most often, this form of crowdfunding is used for social justice causes, political campaigns or nonprofits to raise money for their next community project. Additionally, individuals may use donation based crowdfunding to raise funds for medical bills, treatments or other personal matters that become too costly to bear alone. Some of the most popular donation based crowdfunding platforms include, GoFundMe, KickStarter and Indiegogo. While you must always remain within the platforms guidelines, these platforms aid organizations and individuals in raising the necessary funds for their next project. Donation Based Example: For example, a local nonprofit is planning a community project to build a new park in the area, but they’re lacking the necessary funds. Therefore, the nonprofit turns to the community to ask for assistance in reaching their goals. By doing so, the nonprofit begins to receive donations from the community to complete their project. Within no time at all, they have reached their goals and are able to start building the park. 2. Rewards Based For a rewards based crowdfunding campaign, investors that give to the campaign will receive a reward in return for their contribution. Again, the amounts given in these type of campaigns is usually between $1 and $1,000. Furthermore, the reward given is usually the product being funded, such as a new tech gadget, game or really any item. In this form, companies turn to the crowd to kick off their next project or venture by allowing contributors to test the product or receive a free one upon fulfillment of their crowdfunding campaign. Most commonly, you will find reward based crowdfunding campaigns on the same platforms you would find donation based crowdfunding campaigns. However, there are a number of other platforms to participate in these types of campaigns as well. Rewards Based Example: For example, if a company came up with a new product idea, but was unsure of how the public would react to the product, they could start a rewards based crowdfunding campaign to test the waters. At this point, the company would launch their crowdfunding campaign and offer the product to all those that contributed funds. The product would be the reward received by contributors for helping them get their product off the ground. 3. Debt Now, this is when crowdfunding begins to look a little different. In debt crowdfunding, investors give money in hopes of receive their principal plus interest back. Oftentimes, you may here debt crowdfunding be referred to as “loan funding” or “lending crowdfunding.” Unlike most types of crowdfunding, debt crowdfunding does not give investors a reward or equity stakes within the company. Instead, investors make a loan with expectations of receiving a return on their investment. The way this works is instead of going to the bank for a loan, one borrows smaller amounts from a larger number of people to raise the funds they need. Thus, removing the middleman. Then, the company or individual that borrowed the money pays investors pack over a period of time with interest. Some common uses of debt crowdfunding can be seen in mini-bonds or peer-to-peer lending. Debt Example: Most commonly, it will be a company seeking funds for their next venture when it comes to debt crowdfunding. An example of this could be a startup company looking to launch their next product in a big way. Since the startup is likely operating on a shoestring budget, they turn to the crowd for funding. At this point, the company doesn’t have funds to pay back investors immediately, so the company offers investors interest on their initial investment. Therefore, if an investor invested $5,000, they would receive their $5,000 plus interest in the timeframe set by the startup. 4. Equity Within an equity crowdfunding campaign, investors are contributing much larger amounts of money for equity stakes in the company. Usually, the amounts donated start at about $1,000 and can go up to hundreds of thousands. Since equity crowdfunding typically involves larger contributions, this type of crowdfunding is most often used to raise funds for the launch or growth of a company. Once an individual has invested, they can expect to receive equity stakes within the company. Please note that the specifics of the equity stakes will vary for each crowdfunding campaign. In addition to this, equity crowdfunding has more legal guidelines that must be followed. However, in 2008, the SEC passed the JOBS Act, which has allowed many equity based platforms to operate more freely. Due to the complexity of equity crowdfunding, it can be broken up into three different types, which include: Equity I Crowdfunding In 1996, the SEC issued a No-Action Letter, which allows accredited investors to browse private investment opportunities on password protected websites. This form of equity crowdfunding relies heavily on Rule 506 of Regulation D, which gives businesses the ability to raise an unlimited amount of capital from as many accredited investors as they’d like. Equity II Crowdfunding With the passing of Title II of the JOBS Act and Rule 506(c), companies gained the ability to publicly advertise their funding needs. While investors still must be accredited to participate in this form of crowdfunding, the companies benefit greatly in being able to put their next venture in front of a much larger crowd. Equity III Crowdfunding As the JOBS Act continued to roll out new regulations, probably the most promising one is Title III of the JOBS Act. With the passing of this and Regulation A+, unaccredited investors gained the ability to be involved with these crowdfunding campaigns. However, the company seeking funds must deal with a larger amount of audits and compliance regulations. With so many equity crowdfunding options available, there are a number of platforms to participate in these types of campaigns, as well as a number of investment options. Equity Crowdfunding Example A great example of this is a startup company looking to launch their company. Let’s say the company is a new tech startup looking to exceed expectations in the tech world. Once the startup has finalized a business plan, they would turn to the crowd to fund their business startup. Within this crowdfunding campaign, investors are offered a 5% equity stake within the company for the first five years. Therefore, once the startup reaches its funding goals and has launched, investors will begin to receive shares or dividends over the next five years based on the company’s performance. Bringing It All Together Now that you have a good understanding of the different types of crowdfunding, how will you use crowdfunding? With so many choices, the options truly are endless! From doing a good deed with donation based crowdfunding to earning higher returns with an equity crowdfunding campaign, donors and investors alike have the world at their fingertips. However, if you’re seeking to earn a return on your investment, our platform provides the best of both debt and equity crowdfunding investment opportunities. With exclusive real estate deals available at low entry fees, investors can reap the benefits of lowered risks and higher returns. Are you ready to put crowdfunding to the test? Start Investing Today!

There are many ways in which Title III of the JOBS Act creates freedom for investors. Through changes in the market, added liquidity, and behavioral transformations, the average investor has the opportunity to invest in any real estate investment. A firm’s involvement can also provide a new level of flexibility and liquidity. This will have a major impact in the market. Thus, creating an opportunity for an entirely new market of buying and selling partial ownership of real estate. Market Shift: Cause & Effect Crowdfunding has established itself and many argue it will further establish itself as the new standard. This is especially true for early startups and financing for businesses. Some estimates give Crowdfunding a potential valuation of $300 Billion of market capital. This capital influx could create major implications for the real estate industry. It will create a new investor class (unaccredited investors will begin to shift away from only “friends and family” investing). People will be able to take part in the greater purpose, physical aspect, and creative display of each investment. It also creates an Economic helping hand encouraging entrepreneurs and startup financing. There is even a possibility of scalability if it is done correctly. Liquidity Title III allows for increased liquidity in an industry that is inherently illiquid. Investors now have more options for diversification, allowing the investor to spread their capital across multiple assets. As a result, it allows for the investment portal to create a larger pipeline for investors to have more investment options. Even more so, it provides the opportunity to be a part of a growing company. Behavioral & Cultural Shift Title III will impact society in a way that will shift the way people invest. In fact, they are categorizing this as FINTECH. Before real estate Crowdfunding, the looming issue for investors was finding the right property to invest in. Before, this could take browsing countless properties with an abundance of legal fees. With Crowdfunding, it’s as simple as browsing a company’s investment portal that has already laid out thoroughly-vetted investments negating potential legal fees. However, in the niche of Real Estate, timing and a firm’s ongoing track record are key factors in creating success and confidence for the investor. In other words, it is all about the portal, how seasoned they are, how they adapt in an ever changing market and what type of financing they provide. Therefore, you must be able to trust your portal. After all, the portal vets investments so you can make an informed decision on where to place your money. Like the internet democratized popular opinion, Title III will further democratize the way we find, choose, invest, and manage investments. In conclusion, Title III will give those who do not have the financial means and education the ability to invest a small portion of money. There are still regulations, however, to ensure that the average investor doesn’t get out of control. Under Title III, investors with an income below $100K, the ceiling is $2K or 5% of income or net worth. For those with an income over $100K, the maximum is 10% of income or net worth. Yet, the regulatory drawback for companies is that they are limited to raising up to 1M per year under Title III. However, this is also a positive because it increases liquidity for the investor while providing a safety net in which they can fall back on.

Presently, Craig Cecilio, Founder/CEO of DiversyFund, will speak as a panelist at "The 2015 RealCap Conference: Introducing Online Capital to Real Estate Entrepreneurs" in Chicago, IL. During the conference, he will be discussing "How Crowdfunding for Realty Works."   For more information - CLICK HERE. Since Craig Cecilio will join a panel of some of the other leading Real Estate Crowdfunding platforms in the country, you can expect a hot topic discussion about getting projects funded online! Due to this, if you fix & flip homes, acquire multifamily or commercial properties, or are developing a ground up project, this is a must-attend conference. Most of all though, you will learn how to raise debt and equity through an online platform! Even more so, we are excited to continue our expansion and keep going to events after having a great time attending The REI Expo on January 24th in Dallas, TX. At any rate, the conference will be held on April 18th in Chicago, IL. Additionally, it will be hosted by Victoria Global Holdings along with American Homeowner Preservation and The Soho Loft Media Group. Conference Spotlights First of all, there will be a Pitch Workshop for entrepreneurs serious in elevating their pitch to investors. During this workshop, we will completely deconstruct your pitch and work with you on formulating a clean and concise presentation. Thus, allowing you to give the important information that investors NEED to make an educated decision on your company! Secondly, there will be networking breaks during the event. Of course, there is also an after-event cocktail party. Additionally, there will be exhibiting companies with amazing projects to showcase, so be sure to stop by and check them out. Lastly, you will receive a program kit with investors, speakers, and sponsor profiles. Panel Discussion How does Crowdfunding for Realty work? Direct Public Offering for Realty Social Impact and Community Investments Moderators David Drake Founder and Chairman The Soho Loft Media Group Jorge Newbery Founder and CEO American Homeowner Preservation Panel Speakers Scott Purcell Founder and CEO FundAmerica Craig Cecilio Founder and CEO DiversyFund Jesse Clem Co-Founder and CEO Loquidity Joey Jelinek Co-Founder and CEO GroundBreaker Jordan Fishfeld CEO PeerRealty Steven Waldman Co-Founder Crowd Realty Advisors Eve Picker President Small Change Robert E. Lee Director of Capital Markets Silver Portal Capital William Skelley Founder, Chairman & CEO iFunding   Of course, stay on the look out for the event and join our online community to receive real-time updates on revolutionary industry updates from the nation's leaders!

Although learning about crowdfunding investments in real estate is our main goal, we don't choose every project. We have very specific criteria on how we pick our investment properties. DiversyFund evaluates deals on a case-by-case basis. In addition, depending on the frequency of repeat business, terms are in most cases negotiable. There are four initial factors that we address when reviewing purchase and refinance real estate investment projects: Volume & Recency Their track record of how much volume and how recent the investments they’ve managed helps to understand their deal flow and market knowledge. Time & Quality Effectiveness Turnaround time is imperative to return on investment. The longer the investment is held, the higher the holding costs. However, if there is too much of a rush to flip the project, quality suffers. Financing History Prior financing history will determine Operator liquidity and ability to make payments. Market Capacity Once the investment is ready for resale, prior history selling properties play an important role in determining if the Operator has the ability to sell the property.   On each individual project all factors are addressed and based on the strength, term details including but not limited to Investment Amount-to-Value, After-Repair-Value, and/or Investment Term are negotiable.

DiversyFund's CEO and Founder, Craig Cecilio, is back from another successful Crowdfunding Conference as a panel member. With CrowdFundBeat putting on an amazing event at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA held on March 4th-5th. Entitled the Rise of Alternative Finance, 250 crowdfunding practitioners, executives, educators and investors attended. All that attended were seeking updated insights on the exponentially growing marketplace finance phenomenon. Keynote Speakers First, the program began with keynote talks by Tim Draper, venture capitalist and leading proponent of Bitcoin, Ron Suber, President of Prosper, a leading consumer marketplace platform, and the Richard Swart, from UC Berkeley and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The three keynote speakers provided their perspective on current market conditions, especially relevant, was their unique insights on the mergers of technology and finance (FinTech), as well as Wall Street and Silicon Valley, and future direction. Panel Discussion Additionally, the conference included ten panels, discussing topics from small business lending and real estate finance, regulatory and legal frameworks, retirement account investing, and Real Estate Crowdfunding.  While all of the panels were all engaging and thought provoking, this may be in part due to the conference’s agenda being to raise the level of conversation into where this market is headed in 2015 and beyond. Whereas many other conferences merely report on the last three years of development. The Real Estate Crowdfunding panel included, Joel Block, Jason Fritton, Craig Cecilio, Richard McCay, Matthew Sullivan, Harold Hofer. Additionally, the moderators included, Sydney Armani and Carl Eposti. SV Conference Video Keep a look out for future events! Join the Community to receive real-time updates on revolutionary industry updates from the nation's leaders!  Join the Community:

So, you're wondering if compliance is totally irrelevant if the real estate deal is no good. Well, it long story short, not necessarily. For investment firms, this can only be true if there’s an assumption that regulatory paperwork, processing, and reporting is compliant. That being said, compliance is what makes a company sustainably viable as well as trust worthy. There is no discounting it. However, compliance can help protect the investor, to a certain degree, if a deal goes sour. How do you know if the Real Estate Deal is good? Product and Market Knowledge can, naturally, give you the confidence and understanding of where to look. Even more so, it can show you what key factors make a good investment from any real estate deal you vet. As long as you know where to look, you can make informed decisions based on whether the investment aligns with your portfolio and retirement goals. Understanding the Operator’s Purpose is one of the most important elements in knowing if the deal is good or not. What are they planning to do with the investment? Volume, track record, time & quality, and liquidity are amongst the major key points to consider. How Do You Know if The Asset Manager is Good? As an investor who has a successful track record in investing in real estate, sometimes getting to know the Asset Manager may not be their highest priority when vetting deals. If they plan to overlook the importance of an Asset Manager, their ability to adapt to market fluctuations is this particular investor’s biggest asset. On the other hand, an investor who lacks product and market knowledge will either need to take time to learn the products or rely on knowledge from the Asset Manager. The only downside to learning on your own, is that you may lose out on opportunities available in the current day’s market. Seeking knowledge from an Asset Manager will allow you to bypass potential market shifts. Asset Managers expertise and experiences provide real life examples of how investments are sourced and managed. A vast network of strategic partnerships to get great deals are the x factor that separates them from the crowd. Firms that show solid deal flow could mean one of two things. First, that they are passing every deal through the pipeline with minimal due diligence. Or that they have the strategic partnerships with industry leading Operators to create a true and strong pipeline. At the end of the day, any investor strives to yield a return on their investment. Anything shy of a positive return is a simply a loss. Whether it be no interest earned or a deal gone sour, compliance is like insurance in that it can only cover you up to a certain point. Seeking an Operator or investment firm that you like and trust is truly the only way to avoid it. Due diligence on the Operator and investment firm is in many cases more important than the deal itself.

DiversyFund announced its most recent crowdfunding real estate investment offering today. It is an equity investment offering for a single family residence located in the heart of La Jolla, California. Furthermore, the Mavrix Group, a privately held real estate development firm is the Operator. Additionally, they specialize in investments and the transformation of properties. Erin Wicomb and Joseph Ferrigno, visionaries of The Mavrix Group, have successfully flipped over 50 high luxury properties since inception. Even more so, they manage real estate holdings that value at over $10MM. “We are excited to be partnering with this team and taking part in this investment opportunity,” Craig Cecilio says, DiversyFund’s Founder and CEO. And continues with, “The property is in a strong economic market that shows decades of sustainable growth. It’s a slam dunk.” Funding the La Jolla, CA Offering Through DiversyFund’s crowdfunding platform, The Mavrix Group was able to raise $1.055 million. With the raised funds, they intend to renovate a 6 bed / 7.5 bath property that sits on a 20,495 Sq ft. lot in La Jolla, CA. Investors will receive a preferred return and a percentage of the profits expected to exceed 20%. The Mavrix Group has been a long time referral partner of DiversyFund’s. With over a decade of experience in real estate investing, DiversyFund launched in January of 2014. Since their inception, their vision has been to create an easier process for accredited investors to review live investment offerings. Even more so, to provide new individual and institutional investors high-quality real estate investments to invest into.

Compliance, or a lack thereof, is in some cases, the root of systemic risk in financial ecosystems. Government and Intrastate Regulators continue to adjust rules. So of course, business owners follow suit and grey areas arise as a result of poor implementation. Since the birth of the Real Estate Crowdfunding industry, compliance and regulations continue to be negotiated. So for today, what is and isn’t compliant? For California alone, we will delve deeper into these topics as an Accredited Investor as well as an Investment Firm. Accreditation Thresholds Definition | The Securities and Exchange Commission identifies an Accredited Investor as someone who receives annual income in the previous, current, and expected year of approximately $200K ($300K with joint spouse). Additionally, someone with a net worth of $1MM, not including their residence is considered an accredited investor. 10% of Net Worth | An investor is eligible to invest in any amount of offerings as long as it does not exceed 10% of his or her net worth (or joint spouse).  This includes all offerings made within the last twelve months as described under the SEC’s 502(c) Regulation D. Usury | Investors seeking real estate investments not for personal, family or household purposes can charge no more than 10% interest rate. This law does not apply to those who hold real estate broker licenses. Like we saw during the amendment of the JOBS Act, all regulators and rules set forth are subject to change. It is necessary for regulations to evolve, in conjunction the economy, in order to achieve sustainability whether it be with a specific industry or the economy as a whole.

Most noteworthy, Craig Cecilio, Founder/CEO of DiversyFund, will speak as a panelist at Real Estate Investors Expo (REI Expo). Furthermore, he will be discussing "The State of US Real Estate Crowdfunding." For more information - CLICK HERE. Even more so, we are excited to start this year off with a bang! As a result, it will be the largest real estate investor conference of 2015. Additionally, the conference will be held January 24-25 in Dallas, TX and is hosted by Victoria Global Holdings with LDJ Capital and The Soho Loft Media Group. Conference Spotlight Real Estate Crowdfunding as a New Asset Class Institutional and Crowd Investors for Real Estate Strategies for the New Online Realty Capital Financing The Two Faces of Real Estate Crowdfunding: Debt & Equity Reshaping the Future of Financing and Real Estate A New Ecosystem: Innovations in Investor Communities New Markets: Cultural Shifts and Economic Trends Crowdfunding Compliance Guidelines Seems like you should keep a look out for this event! Plus, join the Community to receive real-time updates on revolutionary industry updates from the nation's leaders!

If you start early enough, compounding returns can lead to a significantly earlier retirement. How It Works For example, assume that you put $5,000 aside in a note that’s 12 months gaining a 12% return. At the end of that 12 month period, you will make $600. Instead of paying out that dividend, now invests $5,600 aside in another note yielding 12%. Now you've made $672 in addition to the $600 you made just a year ago. Savings: $5,000 Interest Rate: 12.00% Year 1 Year 5= Year 10 Year 15 Year 20 Capital Gains(Yr 20) COMPOUNDED $ 5,600.00 $ 8,811.71 $ 15,529.24 $ 27,367.83 $ 48,231.47 $43,231.47 PAID OUT DIVIDENDS $5,600.00 $5,600.00 $5,600.00 $5,600.00 $5,600.00 $12,000.00 Benefits of Compounded Interest It’s powerful seeing the difference of compounded interest versus re-investing your initial investment. Moreover, the two options illustrated above are small samples of what you can accomplish. Here are a couple other ways you can maximize your initial investment: Gain Interest Every. Single. Day. Additionally, for investors hungry to get their money moving constantly, investment vehicles such as mutual funds, REITs, real estate investment funds, and the like all provide this opportunity. The yearly capital gains illustrated above, mirror what it would look like to have your money working every single day. With your money in motion, you would get to avoid doing any due diligence on the next 12% yielding investment you seek. Know Your Dividend Options Note that the examples above are one of many options as an investor. Hence, you decided to pay out only 50% of your gains and reinvested the rest. Right there you have an additional $10,071.35. Potential Set Backs Real Life Rather, in a perfect world, we can look at the above chart as a building block towards an early retirement. On the other hand, the real world does throw us enough curve balls where this may not be realistic for most people. Therefore, as long as you have enough motivation to at least get your portfolio in a compounded framework, it will set the precedent of your future retirement. Incorporate Crowdfunding Finally, think about a portfolio that includes multiple investments yielding 12% at $5,000 each. Not only are you going to compound your interest on every single investment, you’re also going to spread risk across different products. Resources: How many years would it take to double your savings? Use the Rule of 72. (Click the link for more information.) 

It is common knowledge that one’s diversification strategy is essential in order to manage risk while still yielding a high return on investment. Therefore, if you have too many, or too much allocated to a certain asset class within your portfolio, you've most likely already heard or considered that it may be time to expand your investment scope. So, how do you take a good portfolio and make it a great portfolio? Diversification. Let’s assume you are a sophisticated investor, and trading stocks, bonds, and commodities is your niche. Depending on the size of your current portfolio, adding a relative amount of illiquid investments can spread risk and leverage your portfolio. Diversifying your portfolio by adding illiquid assets provide multiple proven benefits to keep hungry investors coming back. Strategically allocating through liquidity Those who seek long-term investment goals, through the use of illiquid assets, will not be subject to potential short-term market volatility. Part of the reason is restriction.  By investing in an asset that restricts trading, an investor gives up the option to trade an asset. On the other hand, they gain the opportunity to take part in liquidity premium. In that respect, risk adjusted alternative investments enhance portfolios. Partly due to lower liquidity investments are (historically) shown to translate into higher returns. Preserving capital is a virtue Patience is a virtue as it can be vital to an investor. This is especially relevant to those who have long-term investment goals. This is where the lock-up period adds value. No matter the investment, emotion will always play a part in the investment decisions you make. Therefore, if you seek long-term cash flows that give you a substantial cushion during retirement, lock-up periods can help you avoid the possibility of selling what you can, rather than what you should. By allocating part of your portfolio to towards alternative investments, this will help hedge against market volatility. Yet, you'll still be earning fairly high risk-adjusted returns. In short, a healthy portfolio captures diversification. This is true in both public markets and alternative investment vehicles. Of course, being mindful of short and long term investment goals.

Since the birth of the amendment to the JOBs Act on September 23, 2013, concern for investor security continues to be a trending topic in the media. As the real estate crowdfunding industry’s top influencers highlight the importance of investor security, we are slowly beginning to see an emergence of authentic platforms. The Inevitable Barriers to Entry For early adapters, platforms with previously established backgrounds in real estate investing are becoming industry leaders. More specifically, companies’ success is fueled with track records backed by operational sustainability and scalability. On the other hand, platforms without established business models are falling to skepticism and remain under scrutiny. Adaptability in an Ever-Changing Market There has shown to be a necessary balance for platforms who are chasing markets and investing in what they know best. For those successful platforms, chasing markets require manpower. While those who invest in what they know could be slow to adapt if the market endures potential significant fluctuation. As markets continue to show signs of change, although minimal thus far, there needs to be just enough openness to analyze the profitability of new markets based on platform’s investor-base as well as exhausting profitability on deals that produce double-digit returns. Craig Cecilio, Founder of DiversyFund, provides insight on his past experience with market expansion, “As long as we continue to build and nurture relationships, we will sponsor the right operators, invest in the right area, and be flexible when potential changes in the market hit. Although we are still seeing an abundance of distressed assets statewide, we are also looking into new construction investment opportunities in the primary market.” Overcoming Barriers to Entry For those looking to overcome barriers to entry, here are just a few ways to get ahead in the game: Exceptional Resumes Platforms with executives from Fortune 500 companies are the golden ticket. The company name in itself attracts the media, and media accesses the masses. That being said, W.O.M. (Word of Mouth) is your baby. Strategic Partnerships Cultivate and optimize relationships by partnering with other platforms or executives that compliment your strengths and vice versa. Work From the Ground Up We all start somewhere. Gain trust one investor at a time. You may be slower than your competition, but it works. Creating Leverage with Skin in the Game Investors like to see institutional players whether it be 3rd party and/or solely the platform in the deal. It creates validity that their due diligence. That’s why third party edification and skin in the game play a huge part in the success for those using institutional capital as leverage. Join Diversyfund today by creating your free online profile. Investing today is easier than you think.

Over the past year we have seen real estate crowdfunding unfold into its own animal at an  unprecedented rate. With the SEC Regulation lifting the General Solicitation Ban, private companies can now publicly advertise their investment offerings. Additionally, open fundraising is the catalyst for this past year’s whirlwind of changes. Not only should all companies understand how this affects their business and their competitors, but investors should understand the importance in the development of the Title II of the JOBs Act when vetting investments. The Scope of Public Advertising What has been known over the past 80 years as illegal by the SEC under Rule 506 of Regulation D and Rule 144A of the Securities Act of 1933, is now amended. Under the amendment, companies will be allowed to fundraise investment offerings to a larger audience of people who may or may not be Accredited Investors. General solicitation has created impactful progress for investors. By increasing transparency to review detailed offering terms, this allows for investors to compare other offerings to make informed decisions that were otherwise difficult to do in the past. This has been vital for startups and investors that had little to no access to these investments prior to use of general solicitation. So much so, that on a global scale, the real estate crowdfunding industry should grow roughly “1.8 times the size of the global venture capital industry today by 2025,” stated at the UCLA Ziman Center for Real Estate on August 27th, 2014. Rule 506(b) or 506(c); exemptions of raising an unlimited amount of money Under Rule 506 of Regulation D, there are two distinct exemptions that take place when raising funds: 506 b 506 c Cannot use general solicitation or advertising to market the securities; May sell securities to an unlimited amount of accredited investors and up to 35 unaccredited investors. Unaccredited investors must be sophisticated in terms of sufficient knowledge and experience. This will allow them to make an informed decision of the prospective investment. Use general solicitation or advertising to market the securities; Sell securities to accredited investors only. Has taken reasonable steps to verify accreditation. These steps can include documentations such as W-2s, tax returns, bank statements, and the like. Title III… Still in Review In addition to the above rules, Regulation Crowdfunding through Title III of the JOBs Act is still under review two years later. Even more so, it likely won't be adopted anytime soon. Regulation Crowdfunding covers how much an issuer can raise and how much unaccredited investors can put into deals. Until approval of Title III, we can only speculate how this will influence real estate crowdfunding on a global scale. We are sure that it will be, increasingly, substantial. Especially since we continue to uncover even the recent amendments to the JOBs Act.

Here at DiversyFund we are all about helping our investors grasp a better understanding of diversification in the 21st century. This is why we have explained, below, the pros and cons of investing in only one asset versus diversifying. Understand the Importance of Diversification Let's start by saying that putting all of your investment eggs in one basket goes far beyond the boundaries of the Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT). One of MPT's key insights is that while investors need to be compensated for bearing risk, not all risks are rewarded. The market does not reward risks that can be "diversified away" by holding a bundle of investments, instead of a single investment. By recognizing that not all risks are rewarded, MPT helps to establish the idea that a diversified portfolio can help investors. Additionally, it can help investors earn a higher return for the same amount of risk. Understand the Risks There are many reasons why you may want to invest in just a single asset. The amount of upfront capital  at your disposal may be limited at the time. Even more so, you may even be convinced that you have stumbled upon the next "Big Thing". Whatever your motive may be; understand that the market conditions that can cause one asset to do well can cause another to produce average or even poor returns. We urge you to do your research before deciding to place one large investment. Pros & Cons of Investing in Only one Asset With that said, let's start off with the PROS & CONS of investing in only one asset; whether it be a single company's stock, bond, real estate or any other kind of financial investment. PRO: A High ROI. The potential upside to your investment can be astronomical. This is an active investor's dream; a single "fix-and-flip" deal that they hope will fatten their pockets after a quick resale on the market for a hefty profit. CON: The flip side to making money with a single investment is that it can suffer from a declining market value. If your investment loses value then you have no other uncorrelated assets in your portfolio that can counterbalance those losses; this is a result of limited diversification in your portfolio. PRO: You can build long and short-term cash flows. In turn, these will contribute to your wealth with a solid investment in one asset over time. Depending on which asset class you decide to place your money into, keep in mind that each have different risk-return profiles. Additionally, they will inevitably behave differently within given time horizons. CON: Too Risky! The rewards can be huge. However, is that amount of risk for the reward worth the loss of your initial investment? THE BOTTOM LINE: Diversification is essential for the survival of your portfolio in the modern day financial marketplace. However, no matter how well your portfolio is diversified, all unsystematic risks can never be completely obliterated. Investors are better able to utilize diversification to their advantage. This is done by managing risk and leveraged returns to reach their financial goals.

As you dive deeper into real estate investing, you weigh the pros and cons for your investments. You hear terms such as debt, mezzanine, and equity in conversations, but do you know what they mean? If you do not already know what these mean, you are not alone. This blog post will break down each investment type and their differences in basic terms. That way you can decide which investment fits your needs when you are ready to invest. Debt Investing This is simply when you provide a loan to an operator backed by an asset such as real estate. As an investor, you will receive either fixed or amortized payments. That is, you either receive interest only or interest plus a portion of your principal for your scheduled monthly payments, also known as a mortgage that you may have taken out on your own residence. You will have the option to fund that loan on your own or you can invest in the loan with the crowd - crowdfunding. Your annualized return usually ranges from 8.5% to 12%. Depending on the project, the term can range from a few months to a few years. Mezzanine Investing This is when you have the security of debt plus a portion of the profits. This investment type is usually collateralized by more than the subject property. Mezzanine loans are typically used to finance the gap between the debt, first mortgage, and the equity that the operator brings to the deal. Your annualized return usually ranges from 13% to 20% and the term usually lasts less than 12 months. Equity Investing Finally, this is when you participate in the net profits / net losses. It is very similar to stocks. Think of equity as ownership of the asset after all debts associated with that asset are paid off. Once preferred equity is paid out to the other investors, the remaining net profit will be split between equity investors and the investor-operator, with a small fee for the crowdfunding platform or LLC. Your annualized return is usually 20% or more, depending on the risk. In our opinion, as you continue to gain experience with investing in real estate, diversifying your portfolio in all three investments is the best leverage you can create for yourself. When you begin to diversify your portfolio you have the opportunity to drive out unsystematic risks. In the event of negative performance from one investment, your overall portfolio if diversified will neutralize from the positive performances of the other investments. The first step to building leverage is having more investments. From that point on, you can start looking into the weight of different investments in your portfolio's allocation. The only setback as you attempt to build your portfolio is that you may have a limited investment budget. Therefore, investing a small amount such as a $50,000 or $100,000 in each project may be your way to diversify. Another option is to buy shares in a real estate investment fund, this way you have an inexpensive source of diversifying your portfolio. Your options are vast. Want to learn more about asset allocation and diversifying your portfolio? Here is an awesome article that will help guide you to make the most profitable portfolio. New Investor's Guide to Asset Allocation.

Real Estate Investing can take many forms, all of which continue to cross over into one another as real estate investing continues to evolve. If you are looking for a basic distinction, we can begin by discussing the difference between an active or passive investor. Use this quick and useful summary to determine which type of investor you are. Active Investors. The primary purpose of active investing is to outperform the market. In order to do this, the investor must continuously monitor his or her investments to exploit market inefficiencies. This type of investing is very involved, but consistent success is rare, especially for an individual investor. The benefit of active investing is the potential to make higher than average returns. The risk is mainly the difficulty and rarity in achieving this, especially on your own. Essential Daily Demands: Active listing research online, studying the markets and/or zip codes you would like to invest in. Tracking inventory and demand in these zip codes. Researching sales prices versus offer prices. Hiring a Realtor to stay on top of recently listed properties or researching inside pocket/off market listings. Due diligence on the property you have chosen to invest in such as: Hiring a property inspector. Understanding the history of the property such a repairs, property management, and overall condition. If the market you are investing in is extremely competitive, you may have to make your offer on the property and arrive with a purchase agreement before you do your due diligence. Flip Versus Hold: Flip: Hire a contractor to rehabilitate any property shortcomings. Depending on how much money you are planning to put into the property you will also need to hire an architect. When you are ready to sell your property you have to hire a realtor, market your property, and conduct sale negotiation. Hold: Hire a property manager and purchase renters insurance. Keeping track of all of your expenses that will benefit your tax write offs at the end of the year Passive Investors. Passive investing, on the other hand, does not attempt to outperform the market, only match it. This type of investing manages risk and focuses on the aspects of investing that are controllable. It focuses on long-term returns and emphasizes consistency and very little involvement. In addition, a diversified portfolio is imperative. The benefits of passive investing are stability, consistency, and a lack of involvement. The risks include missing out on potential active investing gains. In passive investing, you must be satisfied to never beat the market, but rather match it. If stability and lower risk are appealing to you, then passive investing is the best approach. Essential Daily Demands: Once you are finished doing your due diligence on your investment's operator, you have no further demands. You can simply keep track of your property by looking it up online if that is something you wish to do. Now that you have a sense of what type of investor you may be, you are well on your way to start investing. However, the beautiful thing about investing in real estate is that you have the ability to wear a lot of hats. In this case, you may be at a crossroads and consider yourself both Active and Passive. If so, more power to you!

Still on the fence about investing in real estate? We get it. Hearing that real estate investing is the hottest investment in the market right now might not be enough for you to simply jump in and invest. If not now, when? By the time new investors in real estate jump into the market, the margin for returns begins to plateau. You research, research and research, and by the time you are ready to invest, the market has already peaked. Hey, we aren't saying that you should sell your stocks and bonds when you are ready to invest in real estate. We promote diversification. So much so that we put together 3 essential tips that will help you do exactly that: DIVERSIFY. 1. Start Small and Test the Waters We hear time and time again that people take all of their investment capital, place it into one asset in hopes of recouping their investment within a few months. New investors are excited! Excitement is AWESOME; however, sometimes when people get excited they trust too easily. They find the first operator who "wows" them with their investment portfolio and track record. Before they know it, their money is nowhere to be found. We suggest that no matter the operator or what you hear, you start small. Start with fifty thousand or one-hundred thousand and see the results. Based on your risk/reward preferences, begin to build and grow your portfolio to whatever feels comfortable for you. Let real estate investing supplement your investment strategy...not replace it. 2. Decide on What Investment Strategy Works For You Risk/reward preferences differ from investor to investor. The first question you should ask yourself is, "am I a passive or active investor"? Here are few simple definitions of each: ACTIVE REAL ESTATE INVESTOR An Active Investor is someone who enjoys full control of their investment. This entails driving the property on multiple occasions to see if rehabilitation updates are being conducted correctly. Once the updates are complete, they either have the option to sell or hold on to their investment. If they choose to hold they must make sure that rental payments are on time, take on the role of the property manager to ensure all is running smoothly, and pay taxes. If they choose to resell their investment they must: hire a realtor which includes marketing costs for potential buyers, all the while hoping to sell their investment for a lofty profit. In both instances, you could simply consider this a full-time job. PASSIVE REAL ESTATE INVESTOR A Passive Investor is someone who enjoys the full-time job they currently hold. They have the security of income as well as the opportunity to continue building their investment capital for future diversification. Passive investors get the best of both worlds; they reap the benefits of long-term appreciation and very limited day-to-day involvement in their investment. Once you figure out what type of investor you are, you can continue to Step 3. 3. Get To Know Your Neighbors As we all know, investing money in hope of a return can be extremely intimidating. Your skepticism is high for the reward you are seeking. Become involved with the experienced people in the real estate industry. Whether they are online groups, relevant bloggers, or one-on-one consultations with trusted advisors, the more educational information the better. It will help you for future investing. Ready to get started? If not, feel free to continue reading our blogs!

Ever since we came up with the idea of launching DiversyFund, we knew that it would represent more than just another “crowdfunding” platform. We knew we were going to be working towards a higher goal. You see, there are other real estate crowdfunding sites. While some are doing an amazing job of bridging the gap between real estate investments and technology, others are merely hoping to figure out the “why” after they've dove into the pool. For us, it was a natural progression to launch this website. Since we had already “paid our dues” so to speak through our existing real estate investment firm. A decade of hard work, relationships with investors, developers, and other stakeholders and over $500 Million in placements, gave birth to the idea of putting our expertise to good use. This is why we are working towards a higher goal by launching this site. Furthermore, why we are providing a new gateway for our existing and future investors to diversify their portfolios through multiple projects posted each month. Taking It Higher But how do we take this to another level? How do we ensure that DiversyFund not only serves the needs of our investors, but leverages technology, a new generation of shareholders, developers, architects, and the community at large to serve a higher purpose? In our pursuit to align ourselves with the ideas that originally pulled us in this direction, we wish to collaborate with passionate individuals and groups that wish to add value in some way, shape, or form- and well beyond the % of returns that equates to a dollar figure. We wish to create a movement in communities that need revitalization. We want to work with forward-thinking architects that deploy new technologies and energy-efficient planning to new projects. Our developers are to be screened to ensure that the utmost ethical standards are used when bidding on projects, structuring the finance side, and sourcing the right materials to be used during rehabs and new developments. New Doors Open for DiversyFund DiversyFund is currently posting projects for review by our accredited investors. We have opened up the doors for new developers/rehabbers to connect with us to present projects for our review. We take pride in the due diligence of reviewing each opportunity that comes our way. Hence the high yields enjoyed by our existing investors. And so, we (still) want to do more! We want to create positive change in all of the markets that we are actively investing. The next chapter for DiversyFund is upon us. As we set the wheels in motion to recruit new team members including, analysts, architects, and community outreach representatives. There is much to be accomplished. Starting from our own backyard in sunny San Diego to the many counties up and down the coast. Care to join our team that's working towards a higher goal? We want to hear from you!

Let's identify the most common traits among successful CEO and top executives. The following are the key characteristics: Visionary: ability to move forward regardless of setbacks and staying true to their vision. Fearlessness: in dealing with challenges and conflict head-on. Students of the “game”: whatever the game (industry) is. The successful CEO aims to stay ahead of the curve through a commitment to lifelong learning. Connector: Whether it’s connecting an idea to a plan, bringing the right people to support that plan, or simply connecting the product to the end consumer. Passionate: this one goes without saying, as it’s certainly one of the most common traits of any successful executive Health and Fitness Of course, this is a short list, and there are other key factors that play a role in the rise of any over-achieving professional. The one trait we haven’t touched on is perhaps as important as any of the above-mentioned- and that is the “healthy” or “fit” CEO or top executive. There is no doubt that a massive shift is- scratch that- has been in full effect when it comes to people caring about the way they look and feel. This shift is even more evident among successful people, and one can easily attribute being healthy to being motivated, driven, positive, and effective in other areas of life. When you think about it, the typical CEO is essentially in charge of an entire organization. He or she is in charge of its employees, customers, investors, products, and services. That is quite the burden for one individual. That is why executives are finding the direct correlation between staying fit through the adoption of a healthy lifestyle. With this tool, they are able to focus and energize in order to keep up with their hectic schedules, travel requirements, and everyday stresses. These fit CEOs head some of our favorite brands and companies. Nike CEO, Mark Parker and Tom Cook of Apple are both known to be early risers. They hit the gym at 5 AM every morning. Richard Branson, the founder of the Virgin Group, is in charge of over 400 companies. However, He doesn't take a day off from exercising. Richard Branson keeps fit by swimming, Bikram Yoga, running, rock climbing, and weightlifting. Our CEO Our very own CEO and founder, Craig Cecilio started his career in health and fitness before launching DiversyFund. Craig’s an avid runner who often heads out during the evenings for a 6-mile run. In the coming weeks, we will be featuring some of Craig’s health tips, exercise regimen, and thoughts on this matter. We’ll ask him how his healthy lifestyle allows him to lead his two companies. Consequently, how this affects his team while staying involved with his investors and other clients.

The fact of the matter is that the fundamentals of “crowdfunding” are not new. In fact, the practice has been around for decades. That said, the recent rise of real estate crowdfunding platforms has generated equally strong opinions by supporters and critics. Jeremy C. Stein, the Federal Reserve Governor recently addressed the topic during a speech in Washington, D.C. We find Mr. Stein’s thoughts to be interesting and worthy of sharing with our community. Here’s the speech in its entirety: Acknowledged by Governor Jeremy C. Stein At the Crowdfunding for Community Development Finance Conference, Washington, D.C. Good morning. Let me start by welcoming everyone to the Federal Reserve. Today’s topic of crowdfunding for community development finance is an important and topical one. And, I want to thank you all for helping us think through the challenges and opportunities presented by this new technology. Especially, as it relates to raising funds for local communities. This gathering is particularly timely for two reasons. First, in many communities, traditional resources for community development are shrinking. Additionally, the field is actively seeking to identify new sources of funding. Second, the Securities and Exchange Commission recently released its proposed rule under the Jumpstart Our Business Startups–or JOBS–Act. This is likely to influence the environment for crowdfunding in general and for community development finance specifically. Crowdfunding Continues to Expand To the extent that most people know about crowdfunding at all, they may associate it with tech startups or independent movie production. Since the press coverage has often focused on examples in these areas. These stories typically describe the use, and often successful, of crowdfunding, as aspiring inventors and artists. As they are able to tap the Internet to raise the money that can help make their visions a reality. The question for today is whether this power of the crowd can be harnessed to support community development, a field. One that has not widely benefitted from crowdfunding thus far. Indeed, when I say “power of the crowd,” it is worth noting that while individual investment amounts may be small, the total amount of funds raised from this source can be large. Although we lack reliable data on the current size of crowdfunding, some sources indicate that it’s a multibillion-dollar industry. Currently, with more than 1 million separate offerings each year. Even more so, that the field is growing rapidly. Learning From What Works While crowdfunding may not be as well known in the community development context, there are, in fact, existing models of crowdfunding for community development that we can learn from. I understand that several of these existing models will be discussed on a panel later this morning. One local example is Fundrise, an investment platform for commercial real estate that gives individuals the opportunity to invest directly in neighborhood businesses. Fundrise started on the H Street corridor here in D.C., and has completed 18 real estate deals totaling more than $10 million. For example, this platform attracted 361 people to invest a total of $350,000 toward the redevelopment of 906 H Street, N.E. Currently a vacant building, this property is located on the quickly revitalizing H Street corridor. Now, has the funding necessary to renovate the property and transform it into a restaurant or retail space. The Calvert Foundation’s Community Investment Note Example This is an interesting one because Calvert Foundation was essentially doing something akin to crowdfunding for community development before Internet platforms became available. As you may know, Calvert Foundation is a certified Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) that was established in 1988 as a 501(c)3. Due to, Calvert Investments finding a strong interest among its clients to invest directly in underserved communities. Since 1995, 13,000 people have invested in these notes, which provide a financial return while economically empowering communities.2 According to Calvert Foundation, these 13,000 individual investments have collectively helped to create 430,000 jobs for low-income individuals, built or rehabilitated 17,000 affordable homes, and financed close to 26,000 nonprofit facilities and social enterprises.3 Both the Fundrise and Calvert Foundation examples hint at the potential of scaling up crowdfunding for community development. What's interest does the Fed have in this topic? First, at a fundamental level, it’s important for us to keep our finger on the pulse of financial innovation and the changing dynamics of the financial services industry–even in those parts of the industry where we do not have a direct regulatory role. We know that financial innovation can offer both opportunities and pitfalls; by carefully and even-handedly studying each new product or service at an early stage in its lifecycle. Additionally, we can hope to better understand both the potential benefits, as well as any risks for adverse impacts on households and communities. Also, through convening like today’s event and by sharing promising practices, the Federal Reserve System has a longstanding history of supporting local and regional community and economic development efforts that contribute to economic growth and employment. To the extent that crowdfunding has the potential to bring new capital into low- and moderate-income communities, we want to be involved in helping the learning process along. Continuing Growth Expected As I mentioned earlier, many people associate crowdfunding with tech startups and art initiatives. However, there are ways that the community of development investing adopts this new form of fundraising. Given how wide open the issues are, today’s event is a working meeting with discussion groups. We appreciate your willingness to share your time with us, and we look forward to benefitting from your insights. Thank you.

In its new annual survey of recent homebuyers, the National Association of Realtors identified GEN Y also referred to as “millennials” (33 and younger) as the largest group of homebuyers in the U.S. The survey breaks down homebuyers by generation, and shows GEN Y leading by 31%, with GEN X (ages 34-48) at a close second at 30%. The survey also highlights an interesting fact- that millennials make up 78% out of all the first-time homebuyers. But there is another side to this story. Although millennials are eager to purchase their first home, the majority is challenged by a number of factors; and the single most challenging of all is the high amounts of student debt. Student Debt by Numbers: $1.2 Trillion: Total of outstanding student loans in the U.S. Source: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau $30,000: The average amount of student debt, when divided among 40 million borrowers. Source: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau 70%: The percentage of college graduates who leave school with outstanding debt. Source: The Federal Reserve of New York 20%: Percentage of households that carry student debt. Source: Pew Research Center And so this has caused a major shift in the past year. Lawrence Yun, the chief economist at the National Association of Realtors states that in the past six months, fewer than 30% of all home sales were to first-time homebuyers. Yun states, “Typically it should be about 40 percent to 45 percent. And I believe the key reasoning is that many of the younger households, they are saddled with student debt.” At DiversyFund, we offer great investment opportunities for the largest group of homebuyers as well. Real estate crowdfunding investment opportunities for all.

2014 started off slow with the perceived “cooling” of the real estate market.  Also, it started the end of Ben Bernanke, the introduction of Janet Yellen as Fed Chair, and job creation lower than previously expected. The housing recovery has pushed homes prices in most cities across our nation. Nationwide, prices rose by 10.9%, pushing the median price for existing homes up by $30,000 to $215,000. While prices continue to increase, homes are still affordable and on average 31.5% lower than their prices during the 2006 peak. Housing Market Increases Historically, low mortgage rates created a sense of urgency in 2013. Hence, traditional homebuyers took advantage of the still-affordable homes. This happened even as “good deals” were not available. Therefore, investors and other buyers were quick to engage in bidding while offering up cash for properties. Markets that were recently seen as “duds” quickly gained desirable status. One such city is Las Vegas which led the nation with a 32% increase in home prices. Market observers agree that home prices will rise in 2014, but at a slower, steadier pace compared with historical trends. Most analysts project that home prices nationally will increase by 3 to 5% in 2014. Finally, as we continue to see an increase in home prices, more existing homeowners will start selling and buying homes. CoreLogic reports that almost 3.5 million homeowners lifted out of negative equity between the end of 2012 and mid-2013. Nevada, Florida, Arizona, Michigan, and Georgia have the highest shares of underwater homeowners.

We are all fully aware of the often too easy process of getting a mortgage loan in the years prior. Especially relevant, to the reality of the most recent financial crisis. The irresponsible lending (and borrowing) that led to the inevitable crash as these subprime loans played a key role in the subsequent recession. The Dodd-Frank Act, drafted in 2010, went into full effect on January 10, 2014. The Dodd-Frank Act requires banks to adopt a more stringent process to ensure that loans issued are to borrowers that can actually afford the homes they wish to purchase. The rule of thumb is that your mortgage payment should not exceed 28% of your monthly take-home pay. Following the housing bust, the Dodd-Frank Act protects the consumers. The days of minimal paperwork stated incomes, and overnight approvals are gone. Lenders must now request all forms of documents, including pay stubs, verification of assets, and tax returns. Additionally, they must evaluate expenses in order to determine the debt-to-income ratio and justify the loan. Although this will require banks to invest in training, technology, and additional resources, we feel that the Dodd-Frank Act is a step in protecting the homebuyer. Even more so, it is guiding the market in the right direction.

During the last several years, we have seen real estate markets dramatically fall but then take an about-face with exceptional speed.  Other markets have returned to pre-2008 levels while some are still in recovery mode. After their first month in this New Year, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 5.2 percent while the S&P 500 declined 3.6 percent in January. This follows 2013 with double-digit gains for both. Especially notable is the market’s declines in the last week of January, which may have led some investors to scratch their heads as they think about 2014 investments. There could be a lot of confusion about where to invest their money. Investment Confusion Infuses Should they stay away from stocks? What about bonds?  Where should they invest? Help is on the way and one thought is prime real estate markets; they have recovered well as they were without exotic loans and areas. Other opportunities exist in regions that continue to be depressed as well. Whether as secondary markets or submarkets, such as Riverside County, CA, Las Vegas and Phoenix. They remain 20 to 40 percent under pre-crash levels. These markets not only provide an investment opportunity because of their prices but also from their historical volatility--they sit at the top. Getting Started Investors can take advantage of this through a few different ways but it’s important to start with some professional guidance. First, you will need to invest in either a professional or Fund Manager that brings experience in diverse markets. Review his past performance by learning about previous investments and asking questions.  These veteran professionals should not only know when to get into a market but also recognize the right time to exit. And most importantly, can they clearly show their success in this area through specific examples of projects, deals, and investments? Second, confirm this professional has “skin in the game.” In other words, if he makes a recommendation to you for a certain area to invest in, he should be investing in it as well. This term was coined by Warren Buffet and we all know how this has turned out for him. And third, conduct your own due diligence and determine if the professional’s company is legitimate. It can be as simple as administering an Internet search. Along with new laws, it has become easier to learn about fraudulent professionals quickly and online. But if you really want to feel comfortable with your representative or Fund Manager, maybe it's time to go old school. This means looking someone in the eye and shaking his hand before doing business with them!

In the last decade, real estate lending has undergone both its share of up and downs through change. A glaring one has been the process of obtaining real estate loans. Gone are the days of doing this in person. Nowadays, it’s automated and devoid of that personal touch. Yet, relationship investments continue to be the strongest investments we can hold for our investors. Advances in Technology Continue Another transformation is the advancement of lending into a corporate versus working class mentality. Remember the days when you met with your long-term local banker and discussed a loan? He would ask what’s new and how is your family doing? If you had a question or problem, he was there to guide you and help solve your issues. Today, we have “specialists” who contact us over the phone—sometimes even through email or instant messaging--and assist us either with our payments or a when a foreclosure is made. Our individual struggles, relationships, and reputations are less and less a part of the real estate lending equation. Smaller is Better for Relationship Investments But it’s not all doom and gloom. Today, we are seeing an increase of, and may still depend on boutique firms that still value long-term relationships and one-on-one service. As more and more banks become large corporate behemoths, the tide has turned for small and medium-sized real estate investment firms: more and more real estate investors are choosing to do business with local firms as they see the value of the "relationships." This works for a few reasons. These firms understand and value the relationship between investors, developers, and other parties involved in projects and transactions. They can help by serving as a partner to developers. This comes with a dual interest to not only succeed for themselves but also the other party; this reciprocal relationship is valuable. Understanding the Investor As a medium-sized real estate firm that has been active in this space for over a decade, we fully understand and have made it our mission to serve our clients- both borrowers and investors with the utmost personalized attention they deserve. Today, we are proud of the fact that over 90% of our borrowers and investors come back to us for their real estate lending and investment needs.

We’ve been talking about this new year with a lot of optimism. Fortunately, we’re not the only ones who feel this way. Some of this comes on 2013’s end with market participants pushing the S&P 500 to 16-year highs along with the Dow Jones Industrial Average hitting 18-year gains. Consumer confidence also concluded the year on a high note as well as real estate allocations. With these trends pointing toward another good year, one area that we’re obviously happy to see included is a global movement by institutional investors to raise their alternative investment allocations in 2014. Most notably, in real estate and real assets. This has been revealed in a new global survey released by the investment firm BlackRock. Survey Findings After speaking with 100 institutional investors across the globe, the firm disclosed the following survey findings for 2014: Approximately half of the respondents (49 percent) expect to increase their real estate allocations More than 40 percent suggested they will raise their real asset investments One third of the investors simultaneously plan to cut their cash holdings Approximately 30 percent intend to raise their hedge fund allocations More than 40 percent of American institutions will probably raise their hedge fund allocations (none are looking at decreasing contributions). While 35 percent from the EMEA (Europe/Middle East/Africa ) region will likely distribute less to hedge funds with just 20 percent allocating more. Approximately one-third of those surveyed expect to allocate more to private equity Building Better Portfolios Robert Goldstein, Senior Managing Director and head of BlackRock's Institutional Client Business and BlackRock Solutions, said in a press release about the survey, "Institutional investors are seeking to build portfolios better suited for an investment landscape characterized by low yields, sluggish growth, volatile markets, and rising correlation between stocks and bonds." He added, "Divergent economic and geopolitical conditions globally offer institutions a menu of real estate and real asset opportunities that meet a variety of investment objectives. In real estate, while core, income producing investments in developed markets are still in favor because of their liquidity and safe cash flows, we anticipate that institutions looking for income-producing alternatives will turn their attention to more opportunistic real estate investments outside their home markets." We enthusiastically agree with the survey’s respondents. Accordingly, we are preparing for 2014 real estate opportunities. As we introduce the “Privilege Plan,” a Real Estate Investment Fund as an option to this expanding landscape. This fund is accessible to accredited investors seeking alternative investment opportunities.

The year 2013 may be coming to a close, but investors are already looking toward the New Year. Even more so, wondering what 2014 crowdfunding real estate will bring. While the last few months have been rife with uncertainty, the recent decision by the Federal Reserve to begin cutting monthly bond purchases may well be a strong indicator that the economy is starting to gather upward mobility. As we move into a New Year. U.S. shares have also begun to shift into record territory. While the Dow Jones industrial average saw an increase of 62.94 points, amounting to almost 0.40 percent with a record close at 16,357.55. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 saw a gain of 5.33 points, nearing 0.30 percent to find a record of 1,833.32. An additional 6.513 points were added to the Nasdaq Composite for a record finish of 4,155.417. Anticipations Exceeded Much of that transition was supported by manufacturing data that proved to be stronger than anticipated. In turn, U.S. Treasury yields made the leap to 2-½ year record highs. When placed into a cumulative total, it would certainly seem as though belief is running high that the economy is on a course for what could be sustained recovery. Further positive economy data influenced gains for the U.S. dollar against several trading partners, including Japan and the euro zone. Sales of existing homes did fall for the third consecutive month in November to reach an annual rate of 4.9 million. The decline in November was the largest in more than 2-½ years. In other housing news; however, October sales reflected the highest levels since July of 2008. Personal Finances in 2013 Personal income was up slightly less than anticipated for the month of November. At an increase of 0.2% followed by a decline of 0.1% during the preceding month. At the same time, personal spending saw an increase of 0.5% during November. This increased represented the seventh consecutive monthly increase in personal spending. In the jobs market, the number of initial jobless claims rose, with another 10,000 claims added to the previous week's leap to 64,000. We believe that this increase is likely due to continued seasonal adjustments. Uncertainty Dissipates Overall, uncertainty regarding both legislative and fiscal policies has begun to decline. In the past, increased levels of uncertainty have proven to weigh heavily on gains in the stock market. As result, it is our conclusion that U.S. equities should prove to be positive over the course of the next few months. It would certainly seem that investors have staked their positions for the coming year. Like most other investors, we have been keeping a close eye on interest rate movements. With the Fed including, for the first time, a specific lower boundary for inflation under which rates will not be raised, we expect that 10-year yields will likely remain within range and will certainly be less volatile.

It looks like 2014 could inaugurate a new era of economic optimism in the US. Spurring on this positivity is the recent passage of a budget deal. After an almost default on government debt in 2011, a 16-day government shutdown in October, and absolute gridlock in Congress, a budget deal has finally passed and things are looking up. It looks like fear has finally been replaced by reason. Let’s take a look at all the things that are going well. Consumer Confidence Is Up It’s essential to remember that the consumer is the engine behind economic acceleration, driving more than 70% of GDP. Luckily, consumer confidence is on the rise and by all accounts, aforementioned confidence will continue to rise through 2014. Partly driving this increase in consumer confidence is a decline in consumer debt. The aggregate debt/disposable income ratio has dropped from 125% at the 2007 peak to 100%. Essentially, the 2002- 2007 credit expansion has been reversed. Therefore, households have more disposable income and are all around better positioned to participate in the economy and purchase more goods. The Real Estate Market Is Up The real estate market is recovering from the crash, slowly but surely. Foreclosures are on the decline, having returned to normal levels, and fewer Americans are underwater on their homes. Home prices in many areas should continue to rise in 2014. There is no wonder that the economic optimism is here to stay. Economic Optimism for the Unemployed? The pool of available labor is shrinking to a five year low and labor, in many sectors are in demand, including technology, construction, transportation services, restaurants, and durable goods manufacturing. This decline in unemployment is partly because of a notable upswing in manufacturing, which means more jobs at home and less abroad. It also looks like wages will rise in the coming year. The Federal Deficit Is Down While the US federal deficit was a staggering 10% of GDP just four years ago, today it’s less than 4%. If all goes well, it should be at just 3% by the end of next year, a substantial improvement. All in all, 2014 is shaping up to be a strong, economic year. Whether you are considering investing in a new business venture or would like to purchase new real estate, now is the time to do it.

So, you have decided to invest in real estate, but you are not certain where to start. There is certainly a wide array of options available. While real estate can provide numerous advantages, purchasing an investment property may not be the right choice for your situation. One option that can help you to take advantage of the benefits of real estate without the need to become a landlord is a real estate fund. What is a real estate investment fund? A Real Estate Investment Fund makes it possible for you to acquire a diversified portfolio of real estate assets while still taking advantage of tax-saving benefits. One of the great benefits available from investing in a real estate fund is that you are not alone. In most cases, when investors purchase an investment property, they are completely on their own. Benefits of a Real Estate Fund With a real estate fund; however, the properties are professionally managed by a team that is fully cognizant of the industry and the market. You are able to still benefit from excellent returns without worrying about receiving phone calls in the middle of the night to fix a leaky faucet. The professional, dedicated management team that is responsible for the daily operation of the fund is, therefore, able to provide you with an expertise that is beyond your own personal knowledge base. Along with professional management, a real estate fund also gives you the ability to limit your personal risk. When an investor wishes to acquire an investment property, it is often necessary to take on debt. This can leave you exposed to a tremendous amount of liability in the event the project is not successful. Investing in a real estate fund allows you to diversify your investments while still reaping the same rewards. You are able to leverage maximum return while benefitting from minimum risk. This unique allocation of assets also allows you to obtain maximum exposure to investment opportunities with a potential for high return. This is a benefit that would usually not be available when investing on your own.

So, you’re thinking of buying a home in need of some TLC, increasing its value by fixing, adding, and upgrading certain features, then selling it for a profit? Welcome to the Flip zone! In recent years, thousands of novice folks, have leveraged some fortunate (and often times unfortunate) times in the market to make hefty profits. In turn, they have made a nice living by flipping homes across the U.S. But like every business venture, there are inherent risks to consider when contemplating your first flip. At DiversyFund, we receive crowdfunding requests from countless investors. Many flip an average of 5-10 homes per year. We pass on over 99.9% of those request. When accepted, we work with them throughout the process of sourcing, bidding, purchasing, and renovations. Often becoming the lead developer or lead project manager. Over the years, we’ve heard some of the major “DOs & DON’Ts” from our top investors. Although we could feature a never-ending list of best practices, we’d like to start by covering the basics. Our Top 5 Tips to Flip a House Study the local market, as well as the surrounding areas in which you’re looking to buy your first investment home. The real estate market varies from region to region, and from city to neighborhood. Keep in mind that the market is cyclical in nature. Make sure you think in short and long-term, as well as align that with your immediate and future goals. As excited and motivated as you may be to get started, we recommend starting off on this path with a smaller, more affordable project. Chances are that mistakes will be made, deadlines may not be met, and that it may very well take longer to sell off your project. Lessen the stress by not biting off more than you can chew- at least not on the first feast! Hire Pros! Unless you’re truly the “Jack of All Trades” (and hopefully a licensed one), you should have a team of professionals ready to tackle everything from structural elements, to electrical, plumbing, and paint. Research and ask for referrals. Make sure all your permits are in order. One of the biggest frustrations for first-time flippers is the realization (usually an afterthought) of the headaches associated with not having, or waiting on the appropriate permits to move forward with your planned renovation(s). Get the numbers right… or as close as possible. We’re talking about all the numbers you need to consider when bidding on the home, the contracts/contractors, permits, materials, and of course the price at which the home will be listed once complete. Choosing to Invest If you would still like to pursue the "Flip Zone" then, by all means, go for them. But, If you simply want to Invest in pre-vetted development opportunities with higher returns- we’re an Expert. Our complete online crowdfunding real estate investment platform offers such passive investors with high quality, pre-vetted projects for investing. Through Crowdfunding platform and our Expert team with their skin in the game, you can lower the risk and increase your profits. Check out our current exclusive crowdfunding investment opportunities and Invest Now. Happy Investing.