CrowdStreet 2024 Comprehensive Review and Ranking

What is CrowdStreet?

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To avoid the financial conflicts-of-interests that are rampant on virtually every other review site, I DON'T accept any money from any outside sponsor or platform for ANYTHING (including but not limited to affiliate ads, advertising etc.). See code of ethics  for more.

 

Crowd Street specializes primarily in commercial real estate (CRE) investments (with a smaller amount of residential offerings). If offers both single property investments and multi-property funds, as well as both equity and debt deals.

They also boast one of the largest selection of available deals and an easy to use-interface. (More on these in the "pros and cons" section).

Update August 18, 2023: Investors have alleged that $63 Million was fradulently misappropriated by the sponsor (Nightingale Properties) on two CrowdStreet deals. One of the two office real-estate deals (Atlanta Financial Center) had been touted last year as the largest ever fund-raise on the CrowdStreet platform. Click here for more.

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What's the latest feedback on CrowdStreet?

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Yearly Investor Survey (updated August 30, 2023): Last year, CrowdStreet was upgraded one-notch to "Contender" (after being listed the previous 2 years as "on probation" due to investor allegations of extremely unacceptable customer service). Some investors continued to allege too many low-quality deals,over-priced deals, inadequate due diligence materials and CrowdStreet hidden fees. So we said we would be checking again to see if this improved. And a new investor survey was just done to see what the current investor sentiment is.
 

Survey takers alleged they currently have anywhere from $25,000 to more than $2,500,000 invested on the platform. And when asked the question "Would you recommend that your friend or family member invest with them?" the answers were:
 

• Yes: 16% (versus 50.1% last year)

• No: 48% (versus 28.5% last year)

• Not sure: 36% (versus 21.4% last year)
   

This was a sudden collapse in investor sentiment from last year, with unhappy investors outnumbering happy ones, by about 3 to 1.  

Some investors were positive about the huge number of deals on the site. For example:
 

• "Diversity of investments, good sponsors, informative overviews for new investments"

• "It's a great place to watch for deals and sponsors. They have (or had) a large selection of deals, and you could find some gems there."

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Others were more lukewarm/mixed. For example: 
 

• "I've found most deals on Crowdstreet for the past 6-12 months have at least 1 red flag for me."

• "Mixed deal and sponsor quality. High fees."

• "Most of their deals have very poor investor economics (especially in the waterfall space with many getting to a 60/40 or even 50/50 split very quickly). There are several sponsors that seem to exclusively post on CrowdStreet and I have done well with several of these, but there are many that seem to dump their bad deals that they couldn't get funding elsewhere on the more "newbie investors", like I was 3.5 years ago. "

• "I wouldn't be able to recommend it overall. But I might for a specific deal I already vetted."

• ""I recently had a deal on the platform (Inspire West Town from Bond Companies) go sideways without much involvement or knowledge of CS. The sponsor issued a 40% Cap Call with concerns from investors that they have loaded the project with a lot more leverage than what was disclosed to investors. If I see good deals, I may still invest, but I am no longer relying on any due diligence from CS."

• "Crowdstreet isn't a complete filter for what constitutes a good investment, but I use them to screen out 95 of 100 deals and then I do my own due diligence. Their main value to me is scrubbing the universe of many deals so I can then focus further. That's NOT to say every Crowdstreet deal is a good investment. We all know that's not the case."

• "My two investments have had widely mixed results. The first, an assisted living facility is likely a total loss. To be fair, Crowdstreet could not have foreseen the Covid pandemic. Still, it has since come out that they did not fully disclose key information about the sponsor's true equity position (it was a lot less than portrayed in offering material) and they have been almost non-responsive since the project begin to underperform. The second was a medical office (now paid off at about a 12% IRR). While this project also underperformed, the reasons were not Crowdstreet's fault.  I still believe that there are some acceptable sponsors and deals on the platform. However, based on my own mixed experiences, problems shared by other investors, and the mounting repetitional risk associated with high-profile problems of various deals on the platform, I am increasingly unlikely to risk investing myself with Crowdstreet or recommending others do the same."
   

Still more alleged strong disatisfaction. For example: 
 

• "I'm in the CS Blended Portfolio product. Terrible service, terrible communication, poor return, incompetent accounting and reporting. CrowdStreet's interests are clearly not aligned with the investor."

• "I've invested in 2 deals on this platform (and dozens outside of it). The 2 deals on CS are the only ones that so far have failed to perform. It seems CS did a poor job vetting the sponsors, and the lack of communication and outright untruths from the sponsors have made me choose to never do another deal with CS."

• "Change in strategy after committing funds, poor communication, late K1s that hold up my tax return every year (for a measly $25K investment), lack of distributions or any explanation ."

• "I am the CrowdStreet blended fund: bait and switch after fund launch on single K1 reporting that was advertised and change of fee structure (was 1% management fee then the management fee disappeared and a 1% audit fee was introduced when CrowdStreet advisors took over the fund), lack of and poor communication in the investor portal, etc. "

• "They have done a poor job of qualifying sponsors and checking their record. They have also failed to hold the sponsors responsible to their proforma before allowing them to pitch next deal on their platform. Also, when they have presentations for new deals the CrowdStreet rep handling the presentation is not professional, seasoned and savvy realestate professional but mearly a facilitaor and tough questions to sponsors do not get the time and scrutiny they deserve. To my knowdledge, a deal has never been withdrwan once sponsor has been selected by the management though he may have failed to answer question truthfully during presentation."

• "Very minimal diligence by CS or control on quality of offerings provided."

• "The ability to get updates and feedback from some of these sponsors is very difficult, and CrowdStreet does a poor job of facilitating this communication. They have recently created a "Premium Investor Group" to more effectively assist with this type of communication, but I have not had a reason to use it as of yet. Previously when you attempt to reach out, CrowdStreet will send one email on your behalf, but rarely will the sponsor ever respond.To me they feel as though they are more focused on their profitability than on the profitability of their investors."

 

According to the Wall Street Journal on Crowd Street performance:
 

• "The Journal analyzed data on expected and realized returns of 104 completed deals from the sale of property or investor redemptions, which the company posted from 2013 to August 2022. 
  
  The Journal analysis found that more than half of those investments promoted on CrowdStreet’s platform failed to meet their target returns.
  
  Hundreds of CrowdStreet users lost some $34 million on 19 deals that underperformed as of this July, according to the Journal’s analysis. A dozen of those deals lost nearly 100% of investor funds.

 

And several investors mentioned the recent Nightingale fraud incidents. For example:
 

• "Questionable vetting of sponsors. Invested in one of the Nightingale deals but having issues even beyond that one."

• "Why not recommend them? Of course the Nightingale debacle. Also, they have a tendency to broker deal with too much leverage, even now. "

• "I was quite happy with the platform until recently, but the news about Nightingale got me concerned that they are more aligned with sponsors than they are with the investors"
   

I was personally very surprised and disappointed with how CrowdStreet dealt with Nightingale, after certain investors informed them of material, regulatory improprieties with the deal.

Nightingale concealed significant losses from appearing in their performance record and gave the false impression that they had never lost investor money. And according to this securities attorney quoted by the Wall Street Journal, this is not allowed and both Nightingale and CrowdStreet had a duty to make sure it was corrected.

But despite multiple investor complaints, it took months before it was addressed. Meanwhile the deal continued to raise more more money from investors, until it shattered all previous CrowdStreet records. And only right before the WSJ exposé article was about to go out, were investors finally informed.
 

In my opinion, when any platform is informed by investors of material omissions they should require the sponsor to immediately correct it. And if they won't, then they should immediately yank the deal.

And in my opinion, it is not fair to investors when any platform  delays and/or sits on this kind of information (and while continuing to raise more money). 

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For all of the above reasons, CrowdStreet is being downgraded from "Contender" and once-again being placed "On Probation". And we hope they'll improve in the next survey.

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Update February 12, 2021: The biggest recurring complaint was over the Blended Portfolio (which is Crowd Street's offering that automatically invests a person across a number of their deals). Investors claimed that the platform had prominently marketed the fund as producing a composite K-1. This is when a fund pays all the state taxes on behalf of investors so they do not have to file individual K-1's. And since otherwise filing all of those K-1's individually can be very expensive, many said this was a key factor in them deciding to invest. 
 

But ultimately, Crowd Street announced it would not provide a composite K-1 and is now allegedly sending a large number of individual state K-1's (one investor claimed 17 this year). If a typical investor has to pay their accountant $200 for each K-1, then this is an extra $3400 per year cost to them. On a hypothetical $25,000 investment this would cause a -13.6% drag on the total return (which would be very significant).
 

Other investors alleged that there has been no real apology from Crowd Street for this change, nor acknowledgement of the pain caused, nor any help offered with the tax burden. Additionally one alleged that the fund now has to have an audit which will cost "at least" an extra 1% audit fee.

 

How does CrowdStreet work?

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Crowdstreet sources deals from third party sponsors, and then makes them available on it's site. So it does not originate its own deals, and instead functions like a crowdfunding version of Craigslist.

Some other platforms with this model charge investors a fee, and at one point Crowdstreet didn't which used to be a big plus. (It made its money by charging the sponsor).  But investors are reporting as of September 2020 that on some deals, they are now being charged a "technology fee" which means they are actually being charged.

Note that the investor still has to pay fees and compensation charged by the third-party sponsor, which vary from deal to deal. 

Another plus is that Crowdstreet allows the investor to interact directly with sponsor, rather than putting itself in between all communication like Realty Shares. This lets the investor conduct due diligence directly, which is much faster (and also avoids potential misinterpretation by the middleman). And if something goes wrong, the investor can go direct to resolve it (and avoid finger-pointing delays between the middleman and the sponsor).
 

What are CrowdStreet Pros and Cons?

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• Advantages: Substantial and growing investment volume. Sometimes no investor fees (unless investing in a fund with underlying fees). Excellent e-book.
   

• Disadvantages: Minimums are significantly above industry average at $25,000 (average is $10,000).
   

• Accolades: None
   

Crowd Street was already a strong contender in our last review and won accolades for significant volume (11 open investments during the sampling period). This year, they have exploded and almost doubled their volume (18). They now offer one of the largest selections of CRE investments in the entire industry. 

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Additionally, Crowd Street charges no platform fees to investors.

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The one downside is that minimums are significantly above the industry average at around $25,000 (versus $10,000).

However, for those who can swing it, the site's massive volume and diversity makes it a "must see".

They also have a very impressive 176 page e-book on commercial real estate investing (which you can download here). It's produced by a company selling a product, so investors may wish to keep in mind the inherent conflict-of-interest in the material (and ignore the first 26 pages or so that are essentially an informercial for using the site).   But despite it's flaws, it also has a lot of very helpful and comprehensive investing information.  I do personally have quibbles with some of the content (like how it glosses over the conflict of interest caused by a promote). But in my opinion, despite these shortcomings it's overall the highest quality educational content produced by any platform (and light years ahead of RealCrowd University)... and well worth the read.
 

For more raw data on the site (including investor and sponsor fees, legal structure etc.), or to easily compare it with the data of competitors, see the feature by feature comparison matrix.​​

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Is Investing In CrowdStreet Legal?

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CrowdStreet markets to investors under 506C, meaning that it's only available to accredited investors. Since it is not using 506B, new investors are able to view investments immediately and there's no 30-day waiting period. Since it is 506c, it also  requires investors to prove their accredited status (and update it periodically).

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What does a CrowdStreet deal look like?

 

Here is my step-by-step due-diligence on a random Crowdstreet investment. So it may or may not be a typical investment. Also I'm a very conservative investor, so something that's way too risky for me might be the perfect fit for someone else who is more aggressive. Finally, I'm not a financial advisor, attorney or accountant. So this is just my personal opinion and always consult your own financial professionals before making any financial decisions.
 

The investment is to construct a self storage facility in Seattle from the ground up and then fill it with tenants. The projected hold period is 10 years after which the sponsor hopes to sell it for profit. The minimum investment is $25,000, and the targeted investor IRR is 14.4% with a 9.9% targeted average cash yield.
 

The first step is to make sure that the asset class and strategy even make sense for my portfolio. (If you don't know how to do this, please see The Conservative Investor's Guide to Due Diligence).

This is an opportunistic investment, which is the riskiest of all four strategies, and thus inappropriate for my portfolio at this time. But let's ignore that and pretend that it does make sense for me, and dive in.

 

Experience:  As a conservative investor, I'm concerned about hiring inexperienced sponsors late in the cycle. So I want to see that a new sponsor has full real estate cycle experience in the specific strategy (in this case constructing self storage). And I also want to see that they didn't lose any investor money doing it. (On the other hand, a more aggressive investor may not care about some or all of this).
 

As usual, there isn't enough information presented in the pitch to answer this question for sure. "75 years of combined experience" is not much help. It could mean one guy who has been in real estate since 1943 (which would be very impressive). Or it could mean 75 employees who have been in real estate since 2017 (which would be pretty useless). So this is too ambiguous to answer the question.
 

The pitch says the firm was "started in 1994" and might be read to imply that they have been in self storage that all time. If that's true then they would have much more than full cycle experience, and would be a tremendous positive. However, digging further into their website, it's also could be read to say that they were actually focusing on other types of "growing cash flow and capital appreciation opportunities" in the past. It's not 100% specific.

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So if I were interested in this deal, I would contact them and ask them specifically about their self storage construction experience. And if they truly have full cycle experience, I would then ask them for their complete track record of those deals (both completed and uncompleted). Hopefully it would show that they didn't lose any money, and I would continue looking further. If not, I would be out. (A more aggressive investor may not care about this).
 

Skin in the game: 1.5%: $200,000. Skin in the game is vital to a conservative investor for overcoming the inherent conflict of interest in the promote structure. Typically it's anywhere from 5 to 15%. 1.5% is very low.

A young sponsor may not have the net worth to put in a huge chunk of money, and a smaller amount might accomplish the same purpose. But this sponsor is pitching themselves as ultra-experienced, so I'm evaluating them that way. Most very experienced sponsors (if they been successful) have significant net worth and are able to contribute substantial skin in the game on deals. So for me this low skin in the game is a red flag. However, more aggressive investors may feel differently and be fine with it.
 

Disclosure: The disclosure says that they have another deal on the crowdstreet marketplace, that closed back on 6/30/15. But it is not "paying distributions according to the pro forma". We are not in a downcycle, so a properly executed deal would be expected to be performing. So this is a yellow flag for me. If I were interested in the sponsor, I would drill further into why, and see if it was a concern for this project as well, or not (keeping in mind that when some sponsors really mess up, they do not easily disclose the full truth).

Debt: 67.7%. For me, I don't go over 65% LTV at this late stage of the cycle. This is a little bit over that but barely, so if I liked all the other terms the deal I would probably overlook it. 
 

Fees: 70% investor/30% sponsor after preferred return. This is fairly typical for self storage and not completely out of line. So this would be fine for me.
 

Cash flow: since this is construction, it will have no cash flow during that time. Construction is projected to last 14 months, and almost always construction runs late (assuming it is completed successfully and doesn't go bust due to unexpected problems). So if I were to invest, I would have to feel happy with no cash flow during that time. 
 

Then, after construction, they still aren't done stressing the cash flow because then they have to attract tenants with advertising, etc. and it takes time to hopefully fill up a facility to a reasonable occupancy. They are projecting that will be year 5, but projections are sometimes optimistic and it is very difficult to forecast something so many years in the future. Hopefully they were very conservative with their projections, and I would find out for sure in later stages of the due diligence. But at this stage, I would want to feel comfortable with reduced cash flow for at least a few years.

"Death by Google": the pitch says that they function under the Storquest brand name, so I did some quick Google snooping there.

A lawsuit search found that one of their facilities in Hawaii faced a $104 million foreclosure lawsuit from the bank of Hawaii. However, the article states that it was not owned by them, but only managed and using their brand name. If true, this probably wouldn't be a yellow flag for me. But I would still follow-up with the sponsor to ask about it anyway to see if that revealed anything else. (Sometimes when I ask a sponsor about one "uncomfortable" thing they will disclose others things while discussing it, and give me helpful information). A more aggressive investor might not consider this important enough to follow up on.

There was also another court case in California Northern District Court against the sponsor and several other defendants, but was dismissed. To me this is a non-issue (since frivolous suits happen all the time), but others could wish to follow up further.
 

If the investment passed all my initial checks, I would have dived in further to check out the sponsor, the property itself, the projections, etc. To learn how I do those things, check out The Conservative Investors Guide to Due Diligence.

 

Where can I discuss other CrowdStreet deals?

You can do this with thousands of other investors in the private investor club. While the club is free, membership is restricted to investors who have no business connections to sponsors or platforms. Also, all members must agree to keep all club info confidential by signing a nondisclosure agreement. Click here to join or get more info.

 

Who are CrowdStreet Competitors?

Here are the reviews and rankings for other similar sites.

 

• CrowdStreet

• 1031 Crowdfunding

• Real Crowd

• ArborCrowd

• Carlton Crowdfund

• Share States

• Roofstock

• Roofstock One

• SBRE Funds

• First Real Fund

• Realty Shares

• Equity Multiple

• Realty Mogul

• C.K. Mack

• Lending Home

• Holdfolio

• CityVest

• Prodigy Network

• Instalend

• Cadre

• All other sites (ranked and reviewed)
   

How do I invest in equity and/or debt?

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Looking to learn more about real-estate investing?

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• What are the 4 investment strategies? (Part 1: core and core+)

  • What are the 4 investment strategies? (Part 2: value-added and opportunistic)

• Should I invest in residential or commercial real estate? (Part 1: residential)

  • Should I invest in residential or commercial real estate? (Part 2: commerical)

• What is the difference between equity and debt?
   

Related:

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How to pick? Check out our step-by-step guide.
 

• The quick guide to picking conservative real-estate deals
   

• Top 100+ accredited investor sites (ranked and reviewed)