Roofstock has hired Jason Altieri as its chief legal and compliance officer; Altieri served as general counsel at Lending Club until October and still remains an advisor for the firm; in his new role he will lead the legal and compliance efforts for the emerging real estate company; the firm matches sellers of single-family rental homes with interested investors and facilitates all of the transactions through a digital marketplace. Source
Fundrise began its crowdfunded initial public offering (IPO) on February 1; the investment has been oversubscribed and the company has paused the offering due to high demand; it has reported it will increase the available shares to three million from two million; in an updated offering circular the firm says it will offer three million shares at a price of $5.00 which brings the total expected fundraising to $15 million. Source
A report from Crowdfund Insider says AssetAvenue has stopped originating loans; the California-based marketplace lender was providing property loans through its digital platform; firm raised $11 million in a Series A funding round in 2015; the firm's loans were primarily averaging approximately $2 million and the platform was open to all types of investors. Source
Los Angeles-based Patch of Land has expanded its executive leadership team to help manage and continue business growth and market positioning for the online real estate platform; the firm has hired Robert Greenberg as its chief marketing officer and Min Lee as its chief financial officer; over the past year the firm has been building a strong leadership team with a number of new hires including CEO Paul Deitch; the firm's founders, Jason and Brian Fritton, have substantial growth prospects for the firm and expect to continue building on the firm's compound annual growth rate of 290%. Source
The UK government has released a white paper discussing its real estate property development initiative; UK P2P lenders continue to support the initiative through alternative funding for real estate borrowers; the government will also manage a 1 billion British pound ($1.25 billion) fund for financing specialized real estate developers; the UK is targeting 200,000 new homes. Source
Real estate marketplace lender Better Mortgage has raised $15 million in a new funding round bringing its total valuation to $220 million; the funding was provided by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Pine Brook Partners; the firm seeks to offer fast approvals for home loans and uses advanced algorithms to match borrower attributes with lending criteria from 20 large home loan buyers; launched in January 2016, the firm has funded over $500 million in home loans and is targeting $1.5 billion in originations for 2017. Source
Lend Academy shares details about some of the emerging platforms in the real estate market; new platforms have been providing innovative services to help make real estate transactions easier and make homeownership more affordable; companies mentioned are offering lower down payments and some participate in purchasing equity of the home; new platforms are also significantly reducing the expected transaction time for buying and selling a home. Source
Money360-affiliate M360 Advisors has registered with the South Korea Financial Supervisory Service; the registration allows institutional investors from South Korea to invest in the firm's real estate fund; the fund invests in secured US commercial real estate properties through bridge loans and offers global investors a high yield fixed income alternative; the fund has already received $65 million from a South Korean institutional investor and is planning for investment of $250 million in the first half of 2017; the fund is managed to provide international tax efficient investing along with high yield fixed income returns and has a number of other foreign investors including investors in China, Singapore, South Africa, Europe, Canada, the Netherlands and Kuwait. Source
Online mortgage lending has helped to revive the market for mortgage loan securitizations; new online mortgage lenders are providing a new wave of mortgage loan securitizations for the market specifically with fix and flips; these loans are attractive to investors because of the high yields and offer investors shorter duration investments because of the fix and flip focus; despite defaults and structuring inefficiencies created from the 2008 financial crisis, institutional investors are placing confidence in these investments; LendingHome has been leading the market with steady issuance of fix and flip loan securitizations and the products have been performing successfully for investors indicating the niche investments could begin to scale more broadly. Source
PeerStreet is a platform founded by Brew Johnson? and Brett Crosby; initially launched to take advantage of inefficiencies in the real estate market, the platform has grown to service a wide range of accredited investors; the platform has originated over $200 million in real estate loans; it attributes its success to the platform's focus on short-term, first position lien loans, and a robust legal and compliance team; Brew Johnson will be speaking at LendIt USA 2017 on a panel discussing "Residential & Commercial Real Estate: What's next for real estate crowdfunding?" Source