BulkEstate review

Table of contents

Illustration for the "Kr. Barona Street 30" project

BulkEstate's overview

BulkEstate features only real-estate projects. Interest rates typically vary from 12% to 14% (recent projects were more speculative than early ones); interests are usually repaid in full at the end of the loan, at the same time as the principal.

My opinion on BulkEstate

I used to prefer CrowdEstate over BulkEstate, thanks to the superior interface and much larger loans volume. However, after more than two years on both platforms, I can’t help but notice that the performance of my BulkEstate portfolio is much higher.

Moreover, BulkEstate’s track record is basically spotless, while CrowdEstate is struggling with late or defaulted business loans.

Overall, the platform’s projects offer a good risk/reward ratio for investors who want slightly more speculative loans than at EstateGuru.

Detailed ratings

Actual performance

The large range of interest rates will appeal to most investors’ profiles, from conservative to speculative.

Loans liquidity

BulkEstate doesn’t add projects as frequently as most competitors.

Reporting

BulkEstate’s reporting is rather basic – but has improved over time -.

Transparency & reliability

Transparency is BulkEstate’s weak point. Indeed, I would appreciate more information regarding the platform or the overall loans portfolio, as well as more detailed projects descriptions.

Website ergonomics

The website is easy to use, and the translations have been greatly improved.

BulkEstate's pros & cons

Pros

  • Great returns
  • Solid track record

Cons

  • Limited amount of projects
  • Very few loans offer monthly interests repayment

Loans characteristics

Loans durations

Long-term : more than one year

Loans kinds

Real-estate

Minimal investment

€50

Buyback guarantee

Buyback guarantee NOT AVAILABLE

Currencies

EUR – Euro

Overview of BulkEstate's loans

Interest rates for BulkEstate loans usually vary between 11% and 15%. Their durations are usually around one year. Several projects offer a bonus to investors who invest a large amount (for example 2% for an amount larger than €25,000 and 1% for an amount larger than €10,000).

Nearly all financed projects are located in Latvia, most of them in Riga. A recent exception was a property on a Finnish island.

BulkEstate's recent projects

One important point is that both principal and accrued interests are usually repaid at the loan repayment date. Indeed, there’s no monthly interest repayment for most of them – although several loans with monthly repayments were introduced in late 2019 -.

The loans are secured by first-rank mortgage. The LTV The LTV (Loan-To-Value ratio) is simply the ratio between the loan amount and the collateral value, expressed as a percent. Smaller values indicate safer loans, where the collateral value greatly exceeds the borrowed amount. LTV values around 50% – 60% are usually regarded as safe. usually stands around 60%, which is a reasonable level. Several loans even had an LTV of 30%, making them really safe.

Many projects are funded in several stages. This is a common practice for real-estate developments. Before investing in a project, don’t forget to check whether you already invested in a previous stage. This will prevent your portfolio from being over-exposed to a given borrower !

The minimum investment is €50, which is higher than for personal loans but rather common in real-estate financing. there’s one exception, though. A very large project was financed in late Spring 2021, for an amount of €1,600,000. The first funding round was only available to a restricted number of investors, as its entry ticket was a whopping €25,000 ! As a result, only 17 investors managed to fund the whole sum.

Later round are expected to be available with the standard € 50 investment threshold.

It’s worth noting that the invested sum doesn’t have to be a multiple of €50, which allows to quickly reinvest interests.

Loans volume

There are usually 2 or 3 new investment opportunities each month. The financed amounts usually vary between one and two hundred thousand euros. Projects tend to get filled up rather quickly, regardless of their size.

Platform’s transparency and reliability

On one hand, I regret that the platform doesn’t provide more information about the overall loans portfolio. However, in my mind, this aspect is more than compensated by the platform’s excellent great record. Let’s examine these aspects in detail !

As a side note, in late 2019, anonymous Twitter account Roasted PeerDuck listed BulkEstate among his top 5 suspicious platform. It stood right with Kuetzal, Fast Invest, Envestio and Grupeer ! However, he has since changed his mind as he tweeted in April 2020 that the platform got “promoted to normal”, which makes me feel much more confident.

BulkEstate’s background and team

BulkEstate was founded in 2016. They have their offices in Riga, Latvia – where most projects are also located -.

What sets BulkEstate apart from competing platforms is that in addition to their crowdlending activity, they also provide the opportunity to buy an apartment in Riga through bulk deals. The discount based on the average market price stands between 19% and 38%. The resulting prices range from €514 and €1,254 per meter square, depending on the property’s standing.

Part of the team is introduced on the BulkEstate’s website. There’s no direct link to the employees’ LinkedIn profile, but many can be found at BulkEstate’s LinkedIn page. The top management has a lot of experience in real-estate.

Loans descriptions

The projects descriptions are overall very basic compared to those are CrowdEstate or EstateGuru. They provide the following information :

  • Loan amount, interest rate and duration
  • LTV (loan-to-value) ratio
  • Loan purpose and object
  • Valuation of the property
  • Property location on a map

The valuation of the property (which is used to compute the LTV) is assessed by an independent firm. For example, for the recent project “Kr. Valdemāra Apartment No.34a”, it was appraised by Ober Haus, a large Latvian real-estate company. The valuation documents are available for download.

I appreciate the fact that investors can ask questions in the forum regarding their investments. Although the platform usually sometimes a few days to reply, they do a great job at giving precise answers.

Q&A regarding one of BulkEstate's project in the platform's forum

Reporting & statistics availability

The platform’s website lacks public statistics regarding the loans portfolio. It doesn’t even disclose the overall loans volume ! Similarly, as an investor, it’s quite hard to follow the projects’ life. Indeed, late loans aren’t identified as such in your portfolio’s summary. Fortunately, the communication regarding delayed or defaulted projects is usually detailed enough.

Track record

One of BulkEstate‘s strengths is that the platform’s selection of projects seems rather solid. Overall, out of 85 funded projects at BulkEstate, around 50 were already repaid.

In March 2021, BulkEstate co-founder Igors Puntuss gave a summary of delayed and defaulted loans. 5% of all outstanding loans have defaulted, while 5% are delayed. It’s a great result, even compared to EstateGuru‘s track record. Indeed, around 9% of the projects have defaulted there, and 7.5% are delayed.

It’s worth noting that the current loans include extended ones, which are usually full-bullet.

The statistics for my own portfolio are as follows :

  • Twenty one projects were fully repaid. The overwhelming majority of these were repaid on time, or even earlier. The greatest delay was 3 months. It was caused by the borrower’s death.
  • Two projects have defaulted, and the recovery process was concluded with a 3.5% final annualized return (more on this below). These two projects were actually granted to the same borrower. It was a mistake on my part to invest in both as it increased my exposure to a single borrower !
  • Roughly five loans were extended for one year
  • Several other are slightly delayed – from a few weeks to a few months –

It’s of course always annoying to have late repayment or extended loans. However, this track record is overall very good when taken in consideration the bad shape of the economics.

All defaulted loans were actually granted to the same borrower for a project called Aleksandra apartments. The platform started the recovery process by setting up a forced auction. However, it was expected to result in a loss for investors – 18% of the loan amount -. As a result, instead of continuing with the auction process, the borrower refinanced the loan at CrowdEstate. The whole process took a while and concluded in summer 2021. Investors managed to recover the whole principal, as well as a small part of the accrued interests. The final XIRR was 3.5%, which is obviously low but still positive.

Such refinancings aren’t uncommon. Indeed, one of Crowdestor‘s projects already got refinanced at EstateGuru. They’re an interesting alternative to the more classical auction process, as the financial outcome is usually better for investors.

In addition, the platform’s due diligence process has prevented one fraud attempt. Indeed, they detected the use of fraudulent documents in order to obtain the loan. The loan was of course pulled back from the platform, and investors were reimbursed in full.

In contrast, several loans at CrowdEstate and one loan at Crowdestor proved to be frauds.

Finally, it’s worth noting that detailed statistics about the platform and projects are expected to be available in 2021. In addition, financial reports should be provided as well.

Communication about delayed or defaulted projects

Although it partly depends on the borrower’s willingness, communication regarding delays is usually very good. The platform seems to transmit information as soon as it’s available. However, in some cases, investors will only learn about the delay on the expected repayment date, or even a few days later.

When it comes to the progress of recovery processes, BulkEstate could communicate more timely.

Platform's features

Early exit

Early exit NOT AVAILABLE

Investing methods

Auto-invest

Manual investing

Secondary market

There’s currently no secondary market. BulkEstate is supposedly working on it, but didn’t provide any timeline.

Manual investing

BulkEstate usually announces projects a few days before they are available for investing. It gives just enough time to transfer funds if necessary. For a long time, it was easy to invest manually. However, due to the platform’s popularity, it’s now often necessary to be in front of the computer when projects open. Indeed, because of the platform’s large investors base, most projects sell out in a few hours – sometimes even less -.

Auto-invest

Opportunity to use auto-invest was added in April 2018. It’s really easy to configure it; the required inputs are maximum investment amount, minimum return and maximum term.

BulkEstate's auto-invest

One drawback of BulkEstate‘s auto-invest algorithm is that any change to its configuration will put you back at the end of the queue. As a result, if investors who didn’t modify it choose to invest a large amount, you may not get your share of the project. In late June 2020, two roughly similar projects were scheduled for the same day at noon. The system allocated me the requested amount for the first one, and I immediately received a confirmation. However, it didn’t invest in the second project – but I still managed to invest manually two minutes after it was available -.

I really prefer the way CrowdEstate handles this aspect, as it basically guarantees that anyone gets their share.

As a result, I recommend investors not to modify their auto-invest settings unless it’s necessary. Moreover, it won’t hurt to be in front of the computer at the right time and try to invest manually, just in case !

Website’s ease of use

Languages

English, Russian, Ukrainian, Estonian, German

Funding methods

Available languages & translations quality

The quality of the website’s English translations has greatly improved over time. Although they’re still not perfect, they’re good enough to be pleasant to read.

BulkEstate's registration process

BulkEstate now uses Onfido for the KYC KYC (Know Your Customer) checks are procedures used by financial businesses in order to verify the identity of their clients. Most Crowdlending platforms will require a copy of an identification document (identity card, passport, driving licence); an utility bill or bank statement may be necessary as well. check. I found the process less streamlined than on platforms using Veriff. Indeed, I couldn’t complete it entirely on my PC and also needed to use my phone in order to take a picture of my passport. Validation was very quick, though. It was literally a matter of minutes.

Account funding and funds withdrawal

Initially, investors didn’t have the opportunity to fund their BulkEstate account; money had to be wired at time of investment. This could cause troubles if the transfer took too long, and was overall bothersome. Fortunately, an upgrade introduced the opportunity to send funds ahead of time, like most competitors allow.

However, one slightly annoying aspect remains. Before transferring money, it’s mandatory to generate an invoice on BulkEstate’s website, by inputting the transferred amount ahead of time. This is slightly inconvenient, and apart from Crowdestor, no other platform requires it.

Website’s design and ergonomics

I was initially not very satisfied with the usability of BulkEstate website. However, things have improved and it’s now much more pleasant to use.

One slight glitch remains, though. Indeed, the “login” button sometimes fails to display the login form, which forces to refresh the page. This happens mostly when using a having a bad internet connection, or opening too many tabs at simultaneously.

Reporting

The investments list used to be rather basic, providing very little details; however, it has improved as BulkEstate added new features. For example, it’s now possible to view the payment schedule, although it actually has to be downloaded as a PDF file.

I also recently discovered that the dashboard got a nice upgrade in term of reporting. Indeed, there’s now a chart displaying the repayment schedule, roughly similar to the one provided by CrowdEstate. It’s a very handy feature, which allows to visualize future cash-flows effortlessly.

Although it doesn’t give much detail, a recent blog post hints that further improvements are planned in 2021 for the investors’ cabinet.

Documentation

While the How investing works document isn’t detailed enough, the very extensive FAQ A FAQ is simply a compilation of Frequently Asked Questions provides many details regarding the investing process. Most investors are likely to find answers to their questions there.

Communication & support

When it comes to e-mail communication, BulkEstate won’t clutter your inbox ! Indeed, you will only receive notification when a new investment is made through the auto-invest feature, when a project is fully funded, and in order to announce new projects.

One essential feature that’s missing is receiving a notification when capital is reimbursed. As I don’t often log in to my BulkEstate account, I regularly have the (pleasant) surprise to discover idle funds there ! There was one exception, though. Indeed, I received an e-mail from the platform in order to inform me that the late loan in my portfolio finally got reimbursed.

BulkEstate also launched a blog in late June 2020. The first article introduced the three largest properties funded through the platform. It wasn’t exactly thrilling, but I appreciated reading about the projects I invested in ! More recently, another post summed up the year 2020 and introduced the planned changes for 2021.

2020 saw Telegram‘s discussion groups and channels grow in popularity among peer-to-peer and P2B investors. Indeed, groups have been created for roughly all platforms. Most platform use this opportunity to communicate directly with their investors.

For example, Robocash has an official channel for announcements, and PeerBerry‘s Head of Marketing and Communications answers questions daily in the relevant discussion group. For BulkEstate, a good way to ask questions is the BulkEstate discussion channel, where the platform’s co-founder often answers interacts with investors.

Official BulkEstate pages on social networks

Support

In terms of support, there’s no live chat available. I got in touch with BulkEstate by e-mail regarding account statements for tax purposes. They answered quickly and were very helpful : in a few hours, I received the statement by e-mail.

Actual performance of my BulkEstate portfolio

7,95%

At the end of July 2022, the XIRR for my BulkEstate portfolio was 7,95%.

Interests for most BulkEstate's loans only get reimbursed at the loan's repayment date. As a result, it took time for returns to attain a decent level. However, after a bit more than three years on the platform, my performance is close to double-digits.

Don't hesitate to read my most recent crowdlending portfolio review for detailed platforms performance comparison as well as historical performance.

For a detailed comparison of the different real-estate and business crowdlending platforms, check out this article.

Portfolio creation date

I created my BulkEstate portfolio in September 2017

BulkEstate's main competitors

BulkEstate's facts & figures

Location

Riga, Latvia – Tallinn, Estonia

Founding year

2016

Number of investors

8,346

Loans amount financed

€22,507,835

As of November 2021

Who can invest at BulkEstate

Any company or any person over the age of 18 can invest in any of the active investment opportunities on the BulkEstate platform.

BulkEstate FAQ

In conclusion...

Several aspects of the website could be improved. Indeed, I would enjoy better projects descriptions, as well as public statistics on the platform's loans portfolio - such as those provided by EstateGuru. In addition, most investors would appreciate a fairer auto-invest algorithm.

However, I greatly appreciate the platform's track record as well as BulkEstate's proactive communication regarding the delayed projects. As a result, I plan to allocate slightly less than 10% of my crowdlending portfolio there, mostly at the expense of my CrowdEstate portfolio.

Disclosure

Please note that this review may contain affiliate links. It means that I will earn a commission if you decide to invest after clicking through the link – at no additional cost to you, of course -. Please understand that I have experienced all of these companies, and I recommend them because they are helpful and useful, not because of the commissions I make if you decide to invest through my links.

5 thoughts on “BulkEstate review”

  1. Hello,

    I find it very profitable real estate platform, however it lacks some features (reports, etc) in the platform as you mentioned. The volume of loans is very small, I think they do not generate any profit at least until now, they should increase it. One more thing, are you sure it is not backed by real estate collateral? I got the answer from them half a year ago.

    Do I understand it right that you offer only mortgage backed loans? Who is responsible for collecting default loans? Did you have any default loans yet?

    Yes, we only provide loans, if these are secured by a real estate mortgage. All investment projects are carefully selected before made available to our investors. Every Bulkestate deal goes through a rigorous and consistent evaluation process by Investment committee, which is a team of highly experienced real-estate, investment and finance experts. Bulksestate’s partner in evaluation process is BDO – an international network of public accounting, tax and advisory firms.

    Bulkestate holds all mortgages and executes them if loans are defaulted. Luckily, we have not encountered any defaults. Procedures will depend on situation. If there will be problems to repay the loan, we will work very closely with the debtor to understand the situation and find the best option for all stakeholders. In most cases, we will aim to achieve a negotiation solution and avoid direct take-over of properties, but that will be done only if necessary.

    Reply
  2. I am a Singaporean. Can I sign up as investor. Any difficulties in depositing and withdrawing of funds. I have no problem with Mintos.

    Look forward to your reply.
    Thanks

    Henry

    Reply
    • Hi,

      According to the FAQ you should be able to invest there, but I remember an American reader who had trouble with many similar platforms, although they stated they were open to everyone. BTW, how do you fund your account in this case ?

      Have a great day,

      Jérôme

      Reply
  3. Hi Jerome,

    Thank you for some really useful reviews. I have read through a couple of them now, and I am wondering how the actual performance of your portfolio is always much lower than the interests the projects have. For instance, Bulkestate has interest rates from 14%-17%, but the performance of your portfolio is only 9.02%.

    I probably missed something, but could you please spell it out for me? 🙂

    Best,
    Henrik

    Reply
    • Hi Henrik,

      Most BulkEstate projects I invested in are “full bullet”, which means both interests and principal are repaid at maturity date; loans with monthly interests repayments are very rare on this platform.
      As a result, my XIRR stays low until most investments are over; until now, about half of them got reimbursed. Most of the remaining is expected to be repaid this summer, so the returns should get closer to their theoretical value at that point.

      The same goes for CrowdEstate; on the other hand, most of my EstateGuru loans repay interests monthly.

      Have a great day,

      Jérôme

      Reply

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