1. Not showing their listings on a MAP so people can select based on location
2. Not allowing filter-based search of their active listings based on criteria such as property type, minimum Year 1 cash on cash, etc.
3. Not forcing investment sponsors to present financials in a standardized format
4. Not providing a way to run side-by-side financial sensitivity analysis on their listings WITHIN their site — once someone toggles to Excel, they have effectively left your site. You might as well provide a link to your competitor’s site.
5. Not providing a way to compare their site’s listings to one another visually side-by-side
6. Not telling potential investors why their site’s listings are better than those of their competitors
7. Not being explicit and transparent about how they make money and why we should believe that they’ll still be around this time next year.
I know this is a nascent business, but let’s go, folks… You want our money? We want more from you.
Also, where the heck is the “Kayak for crowdfunding listings?” Is someone going to bring this to market? People don’t have time to go to 87 different crowdfunding sites.
Hey Bruce,
Great list! As the crowdfunding sites get more mature to achieve scale, I’m sure they’ll begin to roll these tools into the platforms. The big ones for me are #4 and #7. Retail investors need more efficient and transparent ways to understand the inherent risks in deals. I recently put together an investor checklist which is a good starting point for investors interested in investing in private real estate deals through crowdfunding platforms – http://astudentoftherealestategame.com/the-real-estate-crowdfunding-investor-checklist/
Bruce,
These are all valid points that all crowdfunding portals should strive towards when offering investment opportunities to accredited investors. As to your last point, we have created the aggregation platform for crowdfunding listings. This platform is called CrowdRabbit (www.crowdrabbit.com). We just launched earlier this week and we are constantly adding new features to help crowdfunding investors find new offerings and compare across platforms.
Excellent. Let me know how I can help you create a killer commercial real estate section.