WHAT IS HOUSERS CROWDFUNDING?
ARE THERE RISKS TO KNOW OR ALTERNATIVES?
MY MIXED OPINION ABOUT HOUSERS PUSHED ME NOT TO INVEST
HERE IS MY HOUSERS REVIEW, I REMAIN SOMEWHAT SKEPTICAL
HOUSERS CROWDFUNDING RISKS ARE CLEARLY STATED, NO SCAM, BUT I BELIEVE THERE CAN BE MORE CONVENIENT ALTERNATIVES ONLINE
Table of Contents
❌ No Housers promo code here
In this comment on Housers you will not find the promotional code.
If you still need a safe link to visit Housers.com use the one on this page.
Housers bad reviews? Why?
This Housers opinion isn’t only negative, because I do find some aspects that I like a lot.
I like this “democratization” of the online investments, I approve it, and Housers is a pioneer of a beneficial fin-tech revolution.
Being able to invest in real estate starting from 50€ is absolutely interesting and also brings ordinary people closer to the convenient opportunity to invest in autonomy.
Video Housers Crowdfunding on YouTube
Here is a nice video on Housers that explains in new minutes how does it work on YouTube:
Housers.com says it is “the first pan-European platform for investment in tangible assets”, the dream of investing in something “real” is now possible through the web.
What do you get on housers P2P?
Housers, in my opinion, is interesting, but what you get by investing, is a stake in a company that invests in a specific property or in several projects, You don’t own a house or a fraction of it.
The 4 ways of investing on housers
This was until some time ago. Over time, Housers offer has expanded, to date, there are four different types of investment:
Buy to let
Buy to sell
Development loan
Art (no longer available 2019)
2020 Update: Today there are mainly “development loans” on Housers that serve a fixed interest from 5% to 10% approximately.
Thia is absolutely a good thing for the investors since statistically this kind of loans is the less problematic on Housers.
Buy to let
When we talk about “Buy to let”, it is basically about lending money to a company that rents or sells properties. So you can earn both from the rents paid and from the revaluation of the property. You can virtually sell your share at any time. I don’t know how easy and quick the process can be, but I don’t believe there is already such a liquid market by now.
Buy to sell
The “Buy to sell” mode, on the other hand, is aimed at financing projects for the renovation or construction of new buildings with (or without) the aim of selling them. No rent, therefore, the amount invested and the interest will return to our disposal all together if the sale ends up successfully.
Development loans ✔️
“Development loan” is the third option available. It’s the option I like the most. Clean and transparent. We lend money for real estate projects under construction. The payment is monthly and starts immediately, there are no rentals yields and the capital borrowed is fully returned at the end of the investment period.
Art (?) deals
The great (old) news on Housers is the chance to invest in “art” with Housers. It is called a participative loan, it has a stated time horizon of 2/7 years and during this period the works are evaluated once a year by experts in the field. You are free to sell before you reach your goal, as long as you find someone willing to buy your stake.
To invest in the art market have always been a very difficult task especially for “non-experts”. (No longer available)
What is Housers.com?
Housers is one of the most popular real estate crowdfunding platforms in Europe. It was funded in 2016 in Spain. Today it has 116.000 users and a it has lended 108 million euros so far. Housers.com average yield is 9%.
I find that Housers currently offers few projects, and returns that are “not to write home about”.
Benefits of Housers.com?
- Minimum investment is only 50€
- It is actually a way to start investing in real estate
- Properties are geographically diversified
- Investment is rather hands-free
Is housers.com 100% safe?
Well, nothing is safe 100%, even less investing and even less P2P and RE investing.
Statistics say that Housers is delivering its promise but the main issue for investors are late loans. This affects performance even more than the hated 10% performance fee.
It is not always clear how the investments are property backed and if they are.
The worst thing on Housers.com?
Definitely the 10% performance fee and the late loans.
Housers reviews on Trustpilot?
Not good.
Unfortunately many reviews are bad and people complain about the missing early exit option and the late loans.
In fact there is a kind of secondary market.
Reviews on websites like Trustpilot are not written by experts, so take it for what they are.
Housers team. Who is behind Housers,com?
The two founders are Spanish and still today their headquarters are in Madrid.
Here are the LinkedIn profiles of the founder and CEO:
Alvaro Luna (Founder @Housers.com)
Juan Balcazar (CEO @Housers.com)
Housers how it works
All projects have an easy to read interface where the most important details are explained.
In the example above I can read that:
The annual yield is 9%
The location is in Spain
There are 37 days left for funding
210 investors have already invested
Super-important is the yellow card with an A inside that is indicating me that this is an “A” rated deal (which means rather safe compared to the rest).
What is EarlyYield on Housers.com?
I will explain you the housers EarlyYield in a second:
Imagine you invest in a project
The project takes some weeks to be fully funded
What happen to your money in the meantime?
You normally earn nothing.
With the introduction of the EarlyYield on some specific project investors can earn 10% for the period the project is waiting to be funded.
Here is a wonderful image to explain it:
What are “Flex” contracts on Housers.com?
This seems to be a way to do some make up to the statistics (like other platforms do) and also serve a smell extra-return to the investors.
This is the video where it is clearly explained what Flex contracts are:
Alternatives to Housers.com
I am invested in some real estate crowdfunding because the idea behind it is just fabulous for me.
Why?
because investing in real estate is definitely a good idea BUT it comes with a lot of problems in real life. The main issue is to finance the operation. Most real estate projects for beginners start in the bank where they ask for credit to finance the purchase. Normally it is very difficult to end up with a positive return after the interests on the mortgage, the tax, the expenses, etc.
Investing through online crowdfunding is just perfect because I don’t have to worry about dozens of problems and the starting investment can be very limited.
Moreover I can diversificate on many loans in many countries. Doing so I will lower my risk.
What are the best real estate crowdfunding websites in Europe?
I like a lot EstateGuru for their transparency and their size. EG is big (170 M€) end growing (12% yield).
I recently wrote an investor review about EstateGuru.
💅🏼Trendy or profitable?
These days “crowd” and “social” are trendy words, but when it comes to online investing I don’t look too much what is trending and what is not (a part from the stock market). So what I like the most as an online investment now, is definitely peer to peer lending.
I believe that in terms of diversification, liquidity and, above all, returns, Peer to Peer lending is still much higher and “tested”, because it has existed for many years.
Peer to peer lending tools allow me to achieve a good fragmentation, spreading my risk on many (even thousands) loans. It is obviously an effective way of reducing risk and real estate crowdfunding is limited it this aspect.
With P2P I have more data on which to develop strategies and many numbers, unlike real estate where we obviously talk about future price predictions of the properties . The real estate market is very attractive, but by now I overweight the “certainty” of loans while building my online potfolio.
For those who have a passion for real estate but do not want to buy a property, there are also REITs. These are real estate funds specialised in RE, that are liquid and accessible.
How safe are P2P lending and Real Estate Crowdfunding?
Conclusions on Housers
Going back to Housers, there is to say that the website is fabulous, modern, and eye-catching, the logo is brilliant. The information accompanying the single projects is detailed, and the photos are colourful and bright. The technology behind it must be leading edge.
At the end of the description of each Housers’ project (I appreciated the honesty) we are informed that the capital is at total risk of loss, the liquidity is not guaranteed and that the projects are not regulated by any government institution.
The Housers’ motto is one of the most effective we’ve ever seen: “Get the most out of your money”. Let us hope that this is the case.
Visit other best real estate crowdfunding in Europe.
Ask a question, smart people ask questions!
This blog has purely informative and educational purposes, read our legal disclaimer.
Nice contribution, sheding "transverse" light in the world of fintech.
What I’m really trying to understand is how this kind of investments can turn to be risky.
For example: let’s suppose there is a project for the requalification of an ancient castle with expected interest of 10% over 18months. I can figure out how it could go bad in the reality: you make extra luxury rooms which no one is going to rent in the next 2-3 years after the end of the works.
Fine. But…
…in such a view, the Houser is going realize that the investment is a failure much after the time scale of the loan, at least in my point of view… which means the there is virtually NO RISK for the investors (me)
BUT…
There must be a risk (otherwise there would not be such a high interest ratio).
So… in which kind of real-life events is the risk hidden?
How am I expected to realize that things are going bad?
What do you think?
Thank for you considerations again.
Michelle
Hi Michelle, in my opinion, real estate crowdfunding seems easier and safer than REITs investing (or traditional RE) but it brings along just different kind of problems and benefits.
Liquidity is an issue in any RE operation. I cannot trade my investment in real time. Excessive LTV is an issue.
There are people and teams behind this transactions, they might take untimely decisions. I have to be able to choose the right platform with low commissions. Not all tools allow me to spread the risk on many different properties, and some tools just don’t show enough data and stats.
New local laws and regulations can slow down, block or boost RE operations. Some investors might not be able to collect all the information needed to make an informed decision, this is another underestimated risk factor. Possibly bridge loans may be a less complex way to enter and understand RE investing.
Hi everyone,
Let me share my experience with Housers and actually, why I’m leaving this platform.
No-no, the platform seems good to me and the idea is really awesome. Starting investing in Spanish/Italian/Portuguese RE with just 50 EUR, it’s really cool! These were my thought 8 months ago, when I joined.
At that time, I carefully read the information given on the their website, in particular, an article or blog on why it’s much better to invest in any single project, at least, 1’000 EUR, because of rounding and so on.
So, having in mind a 10-15k EUR overall portfolio, I started building this, filling it with 1k EUR project. Bad risk management…..
Also, I used 2 types of opportunities: Development loans and Buy-to-Let, as the most understandable to me.
What I got in the end: about 8.5k EUR portfolio spread across 9 projects, majority of them being loans. I got these figures somewhere by end of March, when Housers started withholding the income taxes, so named IRPF, which is 19% out of the gross interest. Hmm. They started doing this without notice, w/o anything. Just a new deduction line in statement.
At this point, I’ve frozen any new additions to my portfolio. Decided to take a break and reshuffle the portfolio to get a higher return. I’ve sold almost all BTL and put the money in loans. Yes, BTL has a declared IRR bigger than loan interest rates, but waiting 5 years and having no clue on what’s going on with those real estates and the market prospective did not sound well.
So, why I’m leaving? Simple, seems a default of one of my 1k EUR project happened, which does not pay any interest for 2 months, and the last interest has been paid with 25 days delay. Obviously, you’ll say the investment in one single project is to high given the portfolio size (concentration risk) and you’ll be absolutely right. But, read the above statement about, at least, 1K investment…..
Indeed, I’ve made some mistakes in portfolio composition, and the first one is reading and taking as granted their calculations about single investment. However, there are other cons:
1. Low return rate after IRPF deductions. My country does not care what do I pay in Spain, they take 18% of my worldwide income. Thus, having an average 8.5% gross rate, I deduct 10% of this (0.85%) as Housers fee, and 37% as income tax (3.15%). It leaves me 4.5% net rate. Not too much.
2. Default risk. It’s a 3rd month in a row when the developer of defaulting project is struggling to pay out interest. Housers, after couple of inquires, said they’ve sent a letter to ask the developed to pay. Seems too fluffy for my money. Have no idea whether I can get my money back.
3. Lack of transparency and a hell of time to respond to inquires. In average it takes them, at least 2 days to reply. I had some e-mails, not even answered. The defaulting project status update has not been shared until 2 months of delay of interest payment.
4. Sophisticated structure of investments. You don’t get a piece of property, you get a loan agreement with their SPV who granted the loan to developer. The loan agreement, strangely to me, does not contain the default paragraphs. Also, Housers can send tons of letters, not even being obliged to starting suing the developer, because of the procedure of decision making process. It’s weird and complex and I don’t really understand why a voting is needed (which might be easily overridden by Housers, due to specific voting procedure) to start the default process.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t blame Housers or say they developed a bad platform. They have a very decent website, they are the pioneers of proptech in Southern Europe. But, I concluded that my money deserve a better approach. I don’t want to lose money. It’s simple. I found a better home for them. Hopefully, the lessons I learnt won’t cost me 1K EUR, really hope.
You definitely know how to keep a reader entertained.
Between your wit and your videos, I was almost moved to start my own blog (well, almost…HaHa!) Fantastic job.
I really loved it, and more than that, how you presented
it.
Nice review, but I still like Housers even after commissions and fees.
I’ve downloaded your free tutorial on P2P lending here http://eepurl.com/dDcQOz but, is this the only link? It didn’t work on Mozilla.
The link is the right one! ☑️ Thanks for writing, I’ll make sure it works on all browsers!
Have you ever before had issues with your webhost ?
I’m open for recommendations as my webhost is awful currently .
Well, this is a bit off topic, write me in private. BTW I’ve tried anything and now I strongly believe Siteground is the best ever for anyone starting a blog or a web business.
I am about to close my Housers account and move my capital to Estateguru since IMO it is better, safer and fast growing. Signup to EG from here to get a big bonus on your first investments.
My opinion? Housers not efficient, Crowdestate some late loans, estateguru is working well
The platform is really well done .I have invested around 5k (very diversified in 15 investments) , to test the how it works and the ROI. The results is that almost half of my investments are not returning the loans. So my opinion is that it is too risky , it is almost impossible, ma not only do some money but get back all your capital. I think that the real estate company that uses this platform to finance them self, probably they do not have the financial requirments to be be financed by a normal bank, other way i don’t see the reasons to use something like housers . Conclusion : find a better way to invest your money.
I personally prefer Estateguru.co they are keeping the promise on low default rate and 11% return since I started 3 years ago.
I was directed to this blog from your very informative blog comparing p2p lending platforms. I´m on the other side and looking to raise money to fund a new hotel that we are building in Spain. In the future, once building work commences, we´d like to raise funds through reward-based crowdfunding but we need to raise initial funds as the banks won´t lend. I have looked at Estateguru and all seems ok but as a novice with no real idea how these things work, I was wondering if you have a blog that looks at these platforms from the borrowers perspective? We have a mortgage free property that we would use as collateral. This is separate from the hotel. Any info, guidance or help would be very much appreciated.
Hi, if I were you I’d ask Housers or Brickstarter because they already ave operations in Spain.
I forgot to say, one branch of this big fraud is the fake comments they are posting in Trustpilot. With them they achieved 4stars already, but they are clearly fake, if you take a look to the profiles you will see clear patterns (all profiles review to the same companies, many of them come from Venezuela, some of them directly says the parcel arrived on time (but Housers does not send parcels! LOL)
Before investing, take al look to the platform of cheadted by housers in Spain: afectadoshousers
You are right, but it is also true that Housers is getting a little better now. Many bad comments are old and at the beginning many investors thought it was a risk-free investment. There is still a lot of room for improvement. Thanks for your comment, Alvaro.