EstateGuru Review

In this EstateGuru we will be taking a look at the rates, loans, bonus offer as well as the risks associated with using the platform. Also I want everyone to know that this is an independent and unbiased review.

What Is EstateGuru?

Founded in 2014 and based in Tallinn, Estonia, EstateGuru is a crowdfunding platform that offers the opportunity to invest directly in real estate, property-backed loans. They have facilitated over 1,050 loans worth more than €151 million. EstateGuru has over 32,500 registered investors from 45 countries. Currently, the borrowers and properties are in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania whereas investors come from 45 countries. The minimum investment in a single loan is €50 and all loans are listed in EUR.

Rates

Rates on EstateGuru start from 9% and can be as high as 11.75%. Some projects also give you the opportunity to earn a bonus if you invest large sums (over €75,000).

Loans

All loans on EstateGuru are real estate and property-backed. What I like about the real estate projects on the platform is that the Loan-to-Value is usually pretty low, sometimes as low as 12%, which is amazing. The terms of the loans are between 12 and 24 months. There is also an appraisal report available to each loan but they are not available in English but I like the level of transparency and with a little help from Google Translate you can get more details about the loan.

Loan liquidity

Loans on EstateGuru are limited and are funded fairly quickly as soon as they go live. So most likely you will experience some cash drag but EstateGuru will notify you with an email when a project is about to go live.

Buyback Guarantee

EstateGuru does not offer any form of a BuyBack guarantee as all of their loans are backed with real estate and they have a first or second rank mortgage on behalf of the investors.

Auto-invest

EstateGuru offers the options to use the Auto-Invest but since the projects are limited and EstateGuru sends alerts when a project is about to go live I don’t think its necessary to use. I generally don’t like auto-investing anyway so I might be a bit biased but to each his own.

Risks

Since EstateGuru doesn’t have a BuyBack Guarantee there is always the risk of default. EstateGuru’s long list of successful investments is a great track record for them. There is only one default so far back in November 2017 but they were able to repay the loan back to investors including interest and overdue charges within a month of the original default. It is important to note though that this fortunate ending is of course not guaranteed. In the event of a default, they start the sale process of the collateral real estate. This means that if the borrower is unable to pay back the money he borrowed, then after the passing of 2 months since the last payment, they start the realization of the collateral. For that, first the bailiff forwards the borrower a letter demanding immediate payback. The borrower has 30 days from receiving the letter to pay back his due amount. If not, then the collateral building goes up on public auction and gets sold – the sales revenue is then allocated to investors in the required amount. Also, I want to note again, that there is no loss of capital since the platform started in 2014.

Secondary Market

There is no Secondary Market offered on the platform. There is also no way to exit an investment before maturity with an early exit option that some other platforms provide. This is not nessesarily a bad thing since these platforms change a huge fee for that. Usually, between 5% and 15%.

Fees

No service fees are paid by the Investors. This is quite common with crowdlending platforms.

EstateGuru Sign Up Process

The sign up process is pretty simple. You can click here (by doing that you will also earn 0.5% additional cashback) and go through the steps as they are on the screenshots below. On the final step you will need to verify your identity by taking a picture of your ID card with a webcam from either your PC or smartphone. The entire process is pretty simple and it shouldn’t take you more than 5-10 minutes.

EstateGuru’s Competitors

EstateGuru’s main competitors are CrowdEstate, BulkEstate, Envestio, Crowsestor and also Grupeer. You can click here to check platform reviews and here to see the bonuses that some of them provide.