Estateguru Review: ⭕️ +10,2% My direct €15,543 Experience

This is my Estateguru Review based on my direct experience on the platform.

Thinking of investing in real estate online, from your computer?

Well, I did it and it worked.

I’ve also made a global summary of what investors think about this tool.

Here is a bold Estateguru review.

In this post you are also going to read exactly why Estateguru crowdfunding is my best pick and how do I use it.

The best part?

I explain exactly how do I manage to have zero late loans on Estateguru. 

Here is my Estateguru review and my best setup.

Let’s jump in.

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This is intended to be the most comprehensive EstateGuru guide ever written.

The first thing I will do is to show you my own portfolio with very few late and defaulted loans:

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Table of Contents

What is EstateGuru Real Estate Crowdfunding ?

EstateGuru Crowdfunding is a marketplace for short-term, property-backed loans. 

It was funded in 2013 in Tallin, Estonia, and since then It has funded 638 M€ in loans. 

On Estateguru property developers can borrow funds from international investor and investors can invest in secured property loans.

At today investors come from 105 different countries.

Visit estateguru by yourself

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❗️EstateGuru Reviews on Trustpilot

73% of Estateguru users who have left a comment on Estateguru on Trustpilot wrote: it is “excellent” and that they are satisfied with the service.  14% of reviewers consider Estateguru to be “very good”.
Only 5% of people who have left a review on Estateguru say it is “bad”.
So I went to read all the negative opinions about Estateguru and here I report what I found.

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Estateguru Bad Reviews

90% of the bad reviews EstateGuru gets on Trustpilot are from users that have failed to comply with the KYC (know your customer regulation).

From my experience I can say that it is not at all difficult to fill in the KYC questionnaire correctly.
Another defect that is raised by some users is that the site is sometimes slow. This is quite true sometimes.

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Estateguru Reddit reviews

Most Redditors consider Estateguru an interesting investing tool.

Most discussions are about “is it too good to be true”?

12% returns make one suspect that this is not possible. In fact, the risks are those typical of an investment of this type.

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Estateguru comments on financial forums

Estateguru is mentioned in many investment-specific forums.
The people who write on these forums are often experts who offer opinions as advanced users.
The opinions of these users are generally good but they often focus on specific aspects which are not of much interest to users who are deciding whether to start investing with Estateguru.
Often on forums people compare Estateguru with the big real estate crowdfunding platforms in the UK.

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⭕️ Benefits of using EstateGuru

The main advantage of using the real estate crowdfunding are the high interest rates in relation to a reasonable risk.

Returns on Estateguru

EstateGuru average return for investors is 12,04% yearly [for the last 8 years].

This is not bad from an investor point of view for property backed loans.

Indeed, there are other platforms with high rates but not yet as established as Estateguru.

Track record

Estateguru was born in 2013 and has a loan book of more than 2000 real estate loans. The track record is quite clean and most loans have been successfully repaid during the years.

Why to invest on Estateguru?

So what pushed me towards EstateGuru was not only the will to know it better and write a review about it.

I wanted to invest in real estate in crowdfunding and I wasn’t able to find the right platform to do it.

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How to invest on EstateGuru?

Here is how do I invest on Estateguru here and get the best loans step-by-step.

There are two ways of investing in loans on Estateguru

• Manual investing
• Auto Invest setting

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🔴 How to use the Estateguru Auto invest©️

The Estateguru Autoinvest is the only way to automate the investment process and buy loans without any manual intervention.

There are two levels of auto invest:

• It is possible to buy loans fractions for 50€

Here are my settings.

Beware that they don’t differ much if not for the minimum investment allowed.

As you can see I value safety and diversification over maximum returns.

• Repaiment period ➡️  max 60 months
• Refinancing loans? ➡️ No thanks
• LTV? ➡️ Up to 65-70%
• Interest rate? ➡️ +8% is reasonable

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How to manually invest on Estateguru©️

• Everytime a new loan is published on the website, I can receive an email.
• It the mail I find most of the details about the loan and an image.
• If I open the email I get to the website and I can examine the project .

What are the most important things I check on a new loan?

How do I decide if to invest or not?

Here is my workflow:

Open the email wishing two days after receiving. Good loans get funded soon. Especially small ones.

How to get the best Estateguru loans?

The first things I check are:

• Country (I try to diversify on more contries when possible)
• Type of loan (I prefer bridge and development most to the times)
• LTV (Loan to Value, the lower the better)

If it looks interesting I click on it and I visit the website.

Here is how a new project looks on Estateguru:

The things I check on a real estate project are:

• Borrower (I prefer borrowers that have already lended money successfully on Estateguru, or older businesses when possible)
• Location (I prefer loans in town centers or nearby)
• Description (I prefer projects that are no for purpose of refinancing previous loans)
• Schedule type (Bullet and annuity loans are the best)
• Stages (In my opinion late stages can be safer, but there is no proof yet)
• Collateral (I avoid land)

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How to find out the location of a Estateguru loan?

I have been to Estonia and Latvia. Amazing people and both beautiful countries, but how do I know if a location is good or not for a real estate project?

Easy answer: I can’t.

I have to trust the Estateguru team that so far has been doing a great job.

BTW, I know that the best real estate projects may be in town centers, near hospitals, universities, big malls and airports.

To check if the location is good for me I click on the map tab on the bottom right, the way I do in the above image.

A Google Maps image is shown.

I want more.

I click on  ❐ “enlarge” and I get a full screen view of the location.

Now I select ↖️ “satellite” view and I can see if the project is in the middle of the woods, near strategic places or in city centers:

95% of Estateguru loans are repaid perfectly on time, so these are very advanced settings and most investors do not need to worry about it.

Even late loans are  recovered within few months on average.

One more reason why I invest on this website.

 

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Which are the best Estateguru loans©️

My goal is to avoid the less performing, even if I have proof that it doesn’t make a big difference. Late loans are scarce and recovery is fast in most cases.

I’ve studied the loan book, the public statistics, plus what’s on sale on the secondary market.

Here is what I’ve found out.

• The least performing loans in Estonia are the Business loans type. 8 loans are late now out of 493 outstanding.
• The least performing loan type in Finland are the business loans. 2 loans are late now out of 29 outstanding.
• The least performing loan type in Lithuania are the development loans. 4 loans are late now out of 99 outstanding.
• The least performing loan type in Latvia are the business/bridge loans. 5 loans are late now out of 181 outstanding.

2,8% of all loans is defaulted and on its way to be recovered.

The data above is getting old and I promise to update it soon.

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Secondary market estateguru (How to)©️

The secondary market on Estateguru is improving day by day.

Since investors can sell their loans applying a discount up to 10%, there might be nice deals around…

Here is one of the possible estate guru secondary market search settings:

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How did I start on Estateguru?

My first time workflow on Estateguru was:

1. I visited their website
2. Collected information
3. Wrote them some email to find out more
4. Checked the team professional profiles
5. Checked the old statistics

And then:

1. Decided it was right for me
2. I got verified
3. Transferred the capital I wanted to invest
4. Activated the Autoinvest and also bought loans manually
5. Added more capital

Today,  I cash in the interests and sometimes I keep buying new loans (also) manually.

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🔦 Worst things on EstateGuru

There are two things that may be improved.

• Autoinvest should not be limited
• Projects should be in many more countries

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Limited Autoinvest

One feature that I value a lot when investing in loans online is the chance of investing in loans on autopilot.

Military call it “fire and forget”.

I say “invest and forget”.

The flow is: take action, forget about it and see the results only later in time.

1. Subscribe
2. Transfer money
3. Setup auto-invest
4. Forget while accruing interests

Yes, EstateGuru also provides the auto-invest option with a minimum investment of 250€ per loan.

250€ allows a reasonable diversification only to investors with bigger pockets, I’d say investing above 5.000€.

Why 5.000€?

5.000€ / 250 = 20 (filtered) loans that is enough diversification for my standards.

So if I invest less than 5.000€ on Estateguru I may get a limited diversification using only the auto invest.

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Geographical limitation

The second thing “I won’t call home about” concerning this tool is the low Geographic diversification.

The loans available are distributed in 7 countries which seems ok.

But..

But the reality is not so diversified.

At today, 60% of the outstanding loans are originated in Estonia and Latvia.

Only approximately 40% of loans are from borrowers in:

• Finland
• Germany
• Portugal
• Spain
• Lithuania
• Spain
• Sweden

⚠️ Due to bad statistics, I avoid German, Finnish and Lithuanian loans. This is something that changes over time.

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Collateral effect of the limited auto invest on Estateguru

Manual loan picking

Honestly, I like to pick out loans here.

I keep the auto-invest with limited powers and then I buy the rest of the loans manually.

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Know what you buy – EstateGuru loans definitions

(This section is more suitable for advanced investors, skip down to “how to use” if you feel falling asleep while reading…) There are only 3 loan types here:

• Development loans

A development loan is a loan used to develop real property. It may also include excavation, infrastructure such as storm sewers and roads, and the holding costs of the property.

• Business loans

The property backed loan is used to release equity capital and increase the operating capital of the real estate company.

• Bridge loans

A short-term loan used to meet current obligations before securing permanent financing, enhancing value or also selling an asset.

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🎥 Video Estateguru Crowdfunding on YouTube 

Here is a recent video where it is clearly explained how it works and what are the advantages on Estateguru.

Video of how it works Estateguru on Youtube:

This is a video on Estateguru how it works.

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🔎 EstateGuru default

In my opinion, the numbers about their loans are good so far. More than 800 loans were financed and new loans are added weekly. Cash drag on EstateGuru is not a problem at the moment and money is invested quite fast. It is also not reasonable to compare it with the liquidity of P2P Lending tools since real estate deals are much bigger and complex than personal loans. Here is a EstateGuru statistics table:

From this data, I’d say it is rather safe (for my risk appetite) investing in most of these loans. Latvia loans might have the best numbers so far, but more data is needed to draw conclusions.

Occasionally, a personal guarantee is acquired from the borrower which is an additional security for the investors. In the unlucky event of a total default, the property will be sold and EstateGuru with its lenders has the first rights.

Are there enough loans for me? Cash drag is a serious issue for some P2P lending platforms. EstateGuru is coping very well with this since the growth of the loans on offer is pairing with the grown of the investors. Too many investors often ends up in some cash drag. Too many loans can bring to loans not reaching complete funding.

Note: in the past months real estate market is experiencing a bad period. Inflation and geopolitical challenges in the Baltics have impacted some Estateguru loans, especially in Lithuania, Germany and Finland.

I managed to protect my portfolio by avoiding most loans from these countries and by sticking to the common sense rules I wrote about above.

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Buyback or property baked loans?

The guarantees to which I am accustomed as a p2p investor here has a different form.

In most P2P lending website the loans are bought back from the loan originators after 30/60 days of late payments. That is nice since I don’t even realize there is a late payment and I get refunded with interests.

Here I have a property behind my loan that is solid stuff, potentially even more reliable than a small loan originator guarantee. Selling the property can take time, but from the information I get this it is seldom required and parties come to an agreement well before.

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EstateGuru tutorial 🛠  How to filter loans The primary market?

The most asked question is: Can I use auto-invest but also spot and buy loans by myself?

Yes.

Auto invest does not conflict with manual investing. When I want to  participate in a loan it is enough that I head to the “primary market” section:

There is a way to filter out loans on this list on the top right corner: To invest in a loan is a matter of seconds, but I always spare some extra time to go through the details, acknowledge about the collateral, perform a web search with the name of the business, check the registers and then proceed.

To be honest I haven’t found any suspicious thing so far with any of the projects I was involved. It would be suspicious for me if, for example, the borrowers were the same 3 or 4 refinancing their loans in a loop.

Here is an example of a typical loan I can partecipate on EstateGuru: An appraisal report of the collateral is available to download but it can be in foreign languages. However, the main information from the valuation report (valuator, collateral value, property details) are presented in the loan description separately as well.

Once I decide the loan is right for me, I write the amount, in euros, I want to invest and then I review and confirm the operation. When the loan is fully invested it goes into the next steps but from now on, I don’t have to worry much about it.

If a loan does not get funded the money is given back immediately to investors.

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🛡 Is EstateGuru safe?

[bctt tweet=”There are not safe investments in this world” via=”no”]

Real estate investing can be risky but what I like to do is to take all the measures to make it safer.

So, yes, safer investing is possible even here on EstateGuru. EstateGuru is a large company with critical mass born in 2013.

⚠️ I never forget that Estateguru loans can default, get delayed and experience issues.

EstateGuru is currently holding €145,596,978 in collateral.

The advantage here is that loans are all property-backed, but for me is not enough and I want also avoid the remote chance of waiting for the collection.

The main number I check to make safer investments on EstateGuru is LTV.

The lower the better.

It means that theloan amount is smaller compared to the value of the same loan collateral. This means that there is a higher “buffer” on top of the loan amount, should the collateral property be sold.

One more smart thing to do is not be overexposed on few loans, but invest in more loans of different types in different countries. Most loans are in Estonia, but I find it great to diversificate on all countries whenever I can.

Interest rate is not that important because in any case, it is very high, so I will overweight diversification over maximum yield. The total default rate on the platform from all loans is: 2,5% and picking out my loans carefully I aim to lower this percentage even more.

So far I have zero late loans on this website.

Question about safety on EstateGuru: What is the maximum Loan to Value? EG only offers ‘conservative’ loans. 

All loans are secured by physical assets at a maximum LTV ratio of 75%, and an average of 58%.

This gives a substantial cushion of at least 42% should the value of the property fall. Lately I noticed an average LTV higher than usual, but never above 70%.

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Where are the loans? Geographic diversification is improving and there are 7 countries so far: I’ve also spotted loans in Portugal and Germany lately.

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Who are the people behind it?

On the “about us” page there are details about them, an email button and a working link to their LinkedIn account. Most of them have a background in real estate and banking. They have teams in 3 countries including the UK.

I met a few of them at the P2P conference in Riga and I was impressed. They don’t avoid answering questions and they seem to be a team focused on making it work.

Lately I had the chance of asking a few direct questions to the COO Mhikel (the third on the right). It’s a cool interview with the questions an average investor would ask.

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🔓 Who can invest with EstateGuru?

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Do I really own something with RE crowdfunding?

Not exactly. By lending, I sign an agreement with a business company involved in one or more real estate projects.

The loan is backed by one or more properties. The terms include a fixed interest rate that will be paid to me. If you want to “Own” a participation in a property business you may be interested in Real Estate Equity.

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How much to invest in real estate crowdfunding like EstateGuru?

Diversification is important, so I never invest more of 50% of my assets in P2P lending and real estate crowdfunding.

On average, 50% invested this way is already a really high portfolio share for any ordinary investor with an ordinary risk appetite. Real estate crowdfunding is very rewarding, I love it, but it is not 100% risk-free. I’d try to use more websites for RE crowdfunding. Another one that I like is Crowdestate (14% average return on the past 163 projects). Reinvest24 offers a different formula (equity crowdfunding) for long term investors.

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EstateGuru for beginners?

I don’t give investment advice.  This is at the base of this blog. I freely share what I do because I know a lot of people struggle to find a balanced and informed way to invest in autonomy.

If I should take into account the ease of use, EstateGuru is one of the best websites I’ve interacted with, so far.

I found very easy to transfer money, to get verified and to invest in loans. Should I evaluate customer service and investor relation, this aspect was also covered nicely. Subscribing is free and doesn’t bring any obligation to get verified immediately or to invest.

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Estateguru referral code

Estateguru offers a referral program.

There is an additional 0,5% paid to investors that use a referral code on Estateguru.

Here is the one I’ve used successfully:

  EGU61231

The same 0,5% additional return applies to those who register through this link (the referral code is inside).

Do not register only to get the referral code benefit. Register if you believe Estateguru is right for you.

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📌 Investing in real estate with little money

It is possible to invest in real estate with little money using crowdfunding platforms like EstateGuru.

Minimum investment per project is just 50€ and the duration of the loans is, on average, rather short (12 months). So, yes, it is possible to become a real estate investor starting with as little as 50€. The advantage compared to a real-life deal is that not only the minimum capital invested can be limited, but also that I will start to cash in interest from the beginning.

On average after one month I will start to see my cashflow (if loans are bullet).

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EstateGuru alternatives and competitors

The 5 most popular alternatives to EstateGuru (12%) are:

• Reinvest24 (14%) ⭐️
• Property Partner (7%)
• Housers
• Rendity

• Bridgecrowd (8%)

Amongst the non-real estate websites I find Robocash P2P a good investing platform to associate to this one (read the Robocash review).

Who is the “real estate guru” platform in Europe?

CrowdEstate Vs EstateGuru

CrowdEstate is small but fast-growing in 3 countries and offers very high yields. It may be a more aggressive alternative / complementary choice to EG.

It is important to note that aside from the secured loans, Crowdestate’s range of loan types is higher and they also offer unsecured loans and loans that are secured with other securities, other than real estate.

Hence, the difference in returns. I had the pleasure to meet some of the staff, they made quite an impression on me.

Housers Vs EstateGuru

Housers is the most popular choice for sure. I don’t use Housers, I don’t like the statistics so far, some users complain about some defaults.

Yields are lower than 10% with a 10% performance charge. Normally I like to learn from others mistakes (like I successfully do with Bondora), here I don’t find a way to get a nice risk/reward ratio for my taste.

Property Partner Vs EstateGuru

Property partner is a UK giant for buy to let. It is large, established and open to investors out of the UK. In the name the destiny: EstateGuru is, by far, one of the best p2p website names ever invented and it is indeed a successful one, so far.

Bridgecrowd Vs EstateGuru

Bridgecrowd is a great tool, but it is in GBP and it is designed for large investors.

Now it’s your turn.

What is your opinion on Estateguru?

Write it in the comments.

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My direct questions to EstateGuru CFO about their loans

What are loan stages?

Stage loans are used to continue construction works. 

To raise the capital of a  very large project is not easy. This is why “stages” are needed.

EstateGuru only lends against the current value of the collateral not the future value. This is where stages come in.

My question:

Can it happen that a certain stage loan (that is not the first) is just a loan that is helping to repay the previous one that is about to default?

How can I know that this is not happening?

Answer: Stage loans are not used to repay previous loans on EstateGuru, as they are solely with the purpose of financing a next stage of a development / business process.

Loans used for refinancing are separate and are called business loans with a subtype other – used for refinancing purposes. This info is always brought out in the loan description as well.

However, a refinancing loan is not done with the purpose of saving a defaulted loan – normally it is to give the borrower a little more time to ensure their business plans are fulfilled successfully. If a loan is about to default and we see no perspective in saving it, then a refinancing loan is not something we practice these cases.

However, once a loan is refinancing, it is very clearly marked in the loan description.

What stage is the riskiest?

Risk level between the stages does not differ and the stage should not be the main indicator.

Each project is worth to take a look and each criterion has to be analyzed separately. There is no maximum stage number, it all depends on the project. The main risk evaluation is presented with LTV (loan to value).

All stages of the loan are secured with the same collateral, hence the investors are all in the same position, no matter whether you have invested in the first or the last stage. Some of the names that are not in use anymore on EstateGuru are “reconstruction loans” and “refinancing loans”.

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Risk: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Average return: 12,04%

Easy to start:⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

 

Go to EstateGuru website to see the properties

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Conclusions and Recap ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

EstateGuru is one of my successful DIY investing tools with zero default so far.

11% interest on average per year with such a good transparency is ok for me.  

• Where is it: Estonia
• Birth: 2013
• Free or pay: Free to use and to invest
• Currency: €
• Minimum investment per loan: 50€
• Interest: 7,5% – 13%
• Loan duration: 1/2 years on average
• Secondary market: Active (2%)
• Guarantee: Property backed
• Auto-invest feature: yes 
• Minimum investment per loan: 50€
• Bonus: 0.5% cashback on investments made in the first 90 day

What I try to do is to compare the P2P tools and find out the best ones, then make good use of it without excess and controlling greed.

Now, forget about me and visit EstateGuru on your terms.

P.S. Have I missed something? What is your ESTATEGURU REVIEW?

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Estateguru FAQs and dictionary