I have been lending on Estateguru since May 2019. Five bank transfers, €14,985 in total, the last one in March 2022. I have never withdrawn a single euro since.
That account is worth €22,153 today. It has earned €11,891 in interest, bonuses and penalties, and it has destroyed €2,602 of my capital on loans that went bad. My annualised return, measured on actual bank transfers rather than on marketing material, is 14.15%.
Meanwhile the platform I am describing has 65.4% of its total loan book in recovery and is voted the worst crowdlending platform in Europe by more than one investor community. Both statements are true at the same time. This review is about why.
Read this before anything else
Older versions of this page said things like “zero defaults so far” and “95% of loans are repaid perfectly on time”. Those sentences were accurate when I wrote them and are badly wrong now. I have rewritten this review from scratch against a full export of my account, and I have deleted every claim I could no longer prove.
My account, fully exported
| Deposited (5 transfers, 2019 to 2022) | €14,985 |
| Withdrawn | €0, everything reinvested |
| Loans funded in total | 1,176 |
| Capital cycled through the platform | €112,434 |
| Interest, bonus and penalties earned | €11,891 |
| Capital permanently lost | -€2,602 |
| Account value today | €22,153 |
| Currently defaulted or late | 79 loans, €1,658 |
| Weighted average LTV | 47.5% |
| Annualised return (XIRR) | 14.15% |
How €15k funded €112k of loans
This is the single number that explains my return, and almost nobody talks about it. I deposited fifteen thousand euros and I have subscribed to loans worth one hundred and twelve thousand. Loans run twelve to eighteen months; when principal comes back I lend it again, together with the interest it earned. Over seven years the same money went around roughly seven or eight times, compounding at every turn.
Compounding is the engine of the result and the reason my exposure is at its maximum.
The vintage effect nobody measures
Reviews of Estateguru argue about one number: is the default rate 16%, or 50%, or 65%? The question is badly posed, because a loan book is not one population. It is a stack of vintages, each originated under a different credit policy. Split my 1,176 loans by origination year and the argument dissolves.
Two bad vintages, then a clean break. This is my data, not a platform press release.
An investor who joined in 2021 and an investor who joined in 2024 are not using the same product. They are using the same website. That is the honest answer to “is Estateguru still worth it”, and it is why aggregate default figures are close to useless for anyone deciding today.
Where my bad loans actually are
Geography of my stuck capital, July 2026.
I used to write that I avoided German, Finnish and Lithuanian loans. The export says otherwise: I own 24 bad Lithuanian loans, almost as many as German ones. My filters were less effective than my memory of them, which is exactly why I now write these reviews from a CSV rather than from impressions.
What a 10% yield actually implies
A developer paying 10% a year is a developer no bank would fund at 4%. That spread is not generosity, it is the market pricing default risk, and it means defaults are a feature of the product rather than evidence of failure. The useful question is not whether loans go bad but how many, and how much comes back when they do.
At a 55% recovery a 10% book absorbs roughly 22% defaults before it loses money.
This chart is why my account earns 14% while carrying 79 bad loans, and also why anyone concentrated in the 2021 vintage is deeply underwater. Same platform, opposite outcomes, and the deciding variable is which side of that break-even line your particular loans sit on.
Run your own numbers
Property lending outcome calculator
Interest accrues only on the performing share. Time spent waiting for recoveries is ignored, so real-world results are slightly worse than this model suggests.
How I pick loans now
- LTV below 60%, in practice I rarely buy above 55%. My weighted average is 47.5% and it is the single most protective setting available.
- First-rank mortgage only. Second rank means being paid after somebody else out of a forced sale that already disappointed.
- No stage loans. A half-finished building site is not sellable collateral.
- No refinancing loans. A loan repaying a loan tells you the project is not generating cash.
- Buildings, never bare land. Land in a frozen market loses value far faster than a flat in a city centre.
- €100 maximum per loan. With over a thousand positions, no single failure moves the needle.
Honesty requires me to add that these rules were broadly in place in 2021 and they did not save that vintage. When an entire national property market seizes up, loan-level selection matters much less than the diversification across countries and across years that you happened to have.
Fees and liquidity in 2026
| Registration and deposits | Free |
| Withdrawal | €3 per transaction |
| Secondary market | 3% paid by the seller |
| Management fee | 0.05% per year on assets |
| Inactivity over 12 months | €10, rising to €50 after 24 months |
The inactivity fee deserves comment because it lands hardest on exactly the wrong people: investors who stopped adding money because their capital is stuck in recovery. You can avoid it by withdrawing your available balance, which is a fairly blunt way to push disappointed users out of the door.
On liquidity, do not plan around the secondary market. Performing loans sell at a modest discount; defaulted ones sit unsold even at 40% off. Treat every euro as committed for the full loan term and, in the bad cases, for years beyond it.
Property lending versus REITs
If the goal is exposure to real estate rather than to this particular platform, the honest comparison is against a REIT ETF: listed companies that own and rent buildings and distribute most of their profits.
One is illiquid and looks stable. The other is liquid and looks volatile. Only one of those appearances is informative.
The deeper difference is epistemic. A REIT ETF reprices every day, so you see losses as they happen, which is unpleasant and honest. A loan book looks perfectly stable right up to the moment a borrower stops paying, at which point you discover it had been illiquid for months. Apparent stability is not lower risk, it is just the absence of a price.
For most people a REIT ETF is the better default, with property lending as a small satellite for those who genuinely accept multi-year illiquidity. I still use both, and I compare the lending side against other options in my P2P lending comparison and my roundup of the best P2P lending tools. General background on the asset class is well covered by Investopedia.
Alternatives worth a look
I keep Reinvest24 for its equity-based model, which behaves differently from lending in a downturn because the return comes from rent rather than from a borrower’s promise. Outside property, Robocash remains a reasonable diversifier. I no longer recommend Housers, and I have removed the older comparisons on this page that were based on statistics from 2020.
For context on how the Estateguru team thinks about recoveries, my old interview with their COO is still worth reading, with the obvious caveat that it predates the German collapse.
Where I stand today
- No new money since March 2022. The account has funded itself for four years.
- I still reinvest everything, because turnover is what produces the return.
- I am considering a partial withdrawal. A 14% return that has never left the platform is a number on a screen, and at some point it should become money.
- I treat the €1,658 in recovery as half gone. At my historic 55%, roughly €900 should come back eventually.
- This is a small slice of my overall portfolio, which is the only condition under which I would touch the asset class at all.
- I reassess in 2027, when the 2025 and 2026 vintages have matured and the new credit policy has actually been tested.
If you have a solid base, a long horizon and you want a small allocation to mortgage-backed lending, what you are looking at is a platform with a heavy credit history behind it and a recent book that is performing. That is a defensible bet, provided it is called by its proper name.
FAQ
Is Estateguru a scam?
No. It holds a European crowdfunding licence, publishes audited accounts and segregates client funds with Lemonway. The failures are in credit underwriting, not in misappropriation, and that distinction matters: you can lose money on a completely legitimate platform.
What is the real default rate?
There is no single figure, which is why older versions of this page quoted three contradictory ones. Platform-wide, 65.4% of the outstanding book is in recovery, but roughly three quarters of that sits in Germany and Finland where lending has stopped. In my own account the rate is 32% for 2021, 27% for 2022 and under 6% from 2023 onwards. Pick the number that matches the vintage you would actually be buying.
How much do you recover when a loan defaults?
On my closed recovery cases, 54.6%. That is €4,054 returned out of €7,427. It is the most useful figure on this page because it is measured on completed outcomes rather than on projections. Budget for losing about half of any loan that goes bad, over timelines that in my worst cases exceed 1,300 days.
Why does your account beat the platform average by so much?
Three reasons, only one of which is skill. Selection: a 47.5% average LTV, first-rank only, no land, no refinancing. Timing: I started in 2019 and had three good years of compounding before the trouble arrived, which someone starting today does not get. Turnover: seven years of reinvesting meant the same capital worked many times over.
When is a loan declared defaulted?
Estateguru can begin terminating the loan contract once an interest payment is 45 days overdue. Enforcement and sale of the collateral follow, and that is where the multi-year timelines come from.
Bullet versus full bullet?
With a bullet schedule interest is paid periodically and principal at the end. With full bullet, both arrive at the end. This matters more than it sounds: full bullet loans give you no early warning signal, because there is no payment stream to miss.
Are you lending on Estateguru? Tell me in the comments how your portfolio is doing and, more importantly, which year you started. That second detail is missing from almost every discussion of this platform.
What is your opinion on EstateGuru vs EvoEstate ?
Hi,
Thank you for your review.
Do you know if there are plans to release a secondary market?
Regards,
Horia
Thank you,
I am in the process of doing research for choosing one of the RE P2P platforms, and so far I’m liking EstateGuru’s size and history. On the other hand, Flender’s bonus is no joke – that alone can add up to a half year’s worth of interest income, if I read correctly.
Regards,
Horia
I have 4 late loans on Housers and 1 on Estateguru.Is there something I can do?
Investing in loans is rather scary, let’s be honest, we don’t know these companies. Estateguru has a decent track record but I won’t go beyond 10k anyway for now
Great tips, it makes sense, unfortunately I am already done with my EG portfolio and I have a little of everything (auto invest active at 250€)
Followed your newsletter suggestions revenueland. Few business, few Estonian, yes first rank. I get 11% and only one late loan after 6 months. I’ll keep you updated
Great! Happy you liked it! Keep us updated, Neville!
thanks. I have 71 projects on Estateguru and only 2 are late following your indication. 11,73% return yearly. excellent
WOW, these are good stats. I will add that so far 100% of the time the late loans got back on track within a few weeks.
I am not so sure whether the “refinancing” option actually works properly.
I have identified several business loans with sub-type ‘Other’ or ‘working capital’ in which the loan amounts are used to refinance another EstateGuru loan. Hence, financing the money owed to other EstateGuru investors.
I dislike these type of loans but I cannot properly identify them via a filter in the auto-invest function and cannot deactivate business loans.
Do you have an idea what to do (besides manual investing) and I would be curious what’s your opinion on these type of loans?
Also they require 250€ min. investment before I can edit my search criteria.
Welcome Seb. The word “refinancing” is not the most beautiful word when we talk about loans. I also spotted a few of these but to be honest not many. Estateguru performance is good and also improving from last year but you (advanced investor) do the right thing picking only the best loans. I do the same and I proudly have zero late loans on EG. The EG auto-invest is very basic and there is no way to add complex filters yet. Yes, 250€ is still the min. Unfortunately there’s no way around. Manual investing is the way to go if you are “picky”. What I do is a mix of manual and ai. I normally prefer specific bridge and development loans and if you’ll give a second look to the table above you’ll find out more. BTW, I will update that table very soon with more data.
Hi guys,
I do have a question relating to P2P Lending and Real Estate Crowdfunding when it comes down to doing taxes and such. I am new to this all, but this would be cleared up much more quick with guys like yourself, who have been around for a long time.
The most plain question, where do you pay your taxes? You invest in for example Estonia, Spain, Finland, Romania, you name it – but where do you have to pay dividends and income tax? I might start investing on 4 platforms, EstateGuru, Crowdestate, Mintos and Bondora. I have saved a fair amount over the last 10 years, but never actually done something with it, rather than putting it in the bank. Doing so with these platforms, I probably will stop working, as even an average of 8.5% would be sufficient to live a decent life from.
However, as I am nomadic, but don’t want to get in trouble, I just want to know where you guys do your taxes when investing? If I would start for instance an LLC in Bulgaria, which is a low tax country in Europe – the corporate tax (10%), dividend (5%) and income tax (10% flat) are all there.
However, are there any duties to be paid in for instance Estonia, when the platform is registered there? Or if I have done my taxes, do I need to provide a statement to the platform in case something will backtrack them?
Thanks a lot for the input!
Jay
Hi Jay. Tax is delicate and subject to too many factors. It’s good to search for optimizations within the law in the way you want to do it.
Let’s start at the bottom. From what I know there are no taxes to pay in countries where platforms are registered.
If you are nomadic I might know a website that seems to share quite reliable information (write me).
I wrote something shallow about digital nomads investing and taxation some time ago along with something more specific about p2p taxation in Europe.
Don’t trust what I write and what you find on the web, every situation may need to be evaluated by a specialist.
Moreover, the platforms you mentioned are among the best, but I would not invest 100% of my assets in P2P. It is safer diversify into more asset classes.
Hi Sal, thanks for getting back to me. I just stumled upon your response actually. Is it not possible for the responses, to send out a push message to emails? I know my email is hidden here, which is a good thing – but I nearly missed out on your valuable info, without receiving a push message in my email that you had responded to my question.
Could you please provide me with the website please? I have no idea how to write you other than here.. and as mentioned, I didn’t receive a push message in my email that there was a supply.
I hope it’ll make my way! Thanks in advance :).
Hi Jay. I’ll figure out something for the responses. Unfortunately it is not automatic anymore. In truth I don’t like to send out too many email.
On this page there is a contact form.
I am also adding money to Estateguru. During the recession that is about to come I feel much safer with property backed loans.
Great review.
I’ll adjust my auto invest right today to the settings you explain.
You are right, business loans are the most sensitives.
God bless you for this information.
https://estateguru.co/en/investor-referral/?switch=en&userPromotionCode=EGU61231
9,98% average yearly return after 3 years. My opinion as a user on Estaetguru is good
Can you compare estateguru to crowdestate and crowdestor please
Never buy refinancing loans if not protected by first rank mortgage. This is my 2 cent
Dear, you have the limits of the auto invest showed inverted. advanced auto invest start from 250. I know, because I have set it.
Hi Drap. My advanced autoinvest limit is 50€ and not 250€ just as shown in the screenshot. Most investors have 250€.
70% of my investissements are late…
Estateguru is become the worst european platform !
It is enough to avoid investing in German and Finnish loans to have a much lower delay/default rate.
Moreover, when I invest in high interest loans I know well that there is risk.
Risk and delays are part of the game.
I understand your disappointment, but I believe you’d better avoid the crowdfunding industry and P2P lending if you can’t wait for late credits to be recovered.
I consider Estateguru a long term investment platform because it is normal that a percentage of loans run into problems.
Still, it is one of the best investments of my life after 7 years investing.
The autoinvest minimum amount will be lowered from 250 to 50€ until February. I am testing it and very happy in general about EG. Great review BTW
EGU61231 is the invitation code I have used to register on Estateguru and get 1% additional interest 🔥
It worked.
Estateguru is the worst crowdfunding platform ine Europe ! Too many defaults and lates projects. Don’t trust them, it’s all Fake like this positive review…
Socrates, I can’t agree with you.
If you only had read this review before investing, you would have made better choices.
It is enough to avoid investing in German and Finnish loans to have a much lower delay/default rate.
Moreover, when I invest in high interest loans I know well that there is risk.
Risk and delays are part of the game.
I understand your disappointment, but I believe you’d better avoid the crowdfunding industry and P2P lending if you can’t wait for late credits to be recovered.
I consider Estateguru a long term investment platform because it is normal that a percentage of loans run into problems.
Still, it is one of the best investments of my life after 7 years investing.
Watch reviews in Google and trustpilot….
Hi Hector, thanks for your comment.
What I believe the most are my stats, and after all, those are still good:
Wait and see ….
Yes, sure. And while I wait and see (I am doing it since 2016) I have earned thousands of euros in interest!
I know some users are disappointed and that is mostly because they had lots of German loans. It is good to make sure we focus on the best performing loans. The German loans were too big and suspect form day 1, no surprise. So I understand and respect your disappointment but there are ways to make it very profitable and a bit safer.
We all know these are high risk investment, that is why they pay good interests.
This is an interesting article. I have been following your blog for a while and I think you have some great insights. Keep up the good work!
Great! Thanks!
What do you think of their recently added policy and disclaimer that claims repeatedly that no matter how good the LTV (presumably even when a member of the board ensures the loan) the loan is a risk and could quite possibly return nothing back to the lender despite the efforts from the team to collect on collateral?
In recent months i have seen my extremely diversified portofolio end up with 18 defaults originating in nearly every country they opperate in (the majority have fantasticly low LTV). That constitutes just over half of my investments, very curious how this will turn out and the reaslns behind it.
It is fair, all loans, even if collateralised, bring a high risk of losing money.
Investing in more loans makes things a bit safer for me.
Avoiding Finnish and German loans does the rest.
I have 3% default rate now, that is very good
3% defaults in 2023 ! Lol ….
https://www.revenue.land/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/eg-portfolio-default-rate.jpg
You said 3% defaults and you have 5% on picture
Yes Stef, as you also know, things change. It was much less before and it may be much more in the future.
I am ok with that because all the other loans I have (hundreds) keep paying me interests above 10%.
EG and real estate crowdfunding is a risky business, I accept it as it is and 5% defaults after 6 years investing is just what I expected.
Moreover, I’ve never recommended any investment to anyone, including EG (which I still like).
What I have been doing, and what I keep doing, is to share how do I setup my auto invest to pick only the safest (whenever possible) loans.
Most readers are ultra-happy with that and read my newsletter regularly.
How do you feel about investing in Stage loans? I’ve got a lot of cash drag and looking for a relative safe way to expand my auto invest strategy without incurring a lot of risk. Thanks
Stage loans ar fine to me. I only limit the number and the total exposure to one single borrower.