EstateGuru’s overview
My opinion on EstateGuru
While the interest rates offered by EstateGuru‘s projects are lower than at Envestio or BulkEstate, they provide great investment opportunities for those who want a more conservative portfolio. It’s also an excellent complement to CrowdEstate‘s real-estate loans.
EstateGuru’s long list of successfull investments (as well as the way they managed their only defaulted project) help build confidence in this platform. It took me a long time to invest there, as I initially targeted more speculative loans. However, I’m planning to grow this portfolio regularly, in order to have a more balanced loans portfolio overall.
Detailed ratings
Interest rates
Loans liquidity
Reporting
Buyback guarantee
Website ergonomics
EstateGuru’s pros & cons
Pros
- Large loans volume
- Long history of successfully reimbursed loans
Cons
- No secondary market
Loans characteristics
Loans duration
More than 1 year
Loans kind
Real-estate
Minimal investment
€50
Buyback guarantee
NO buyback guarantee
Currencies
Euro
Real-estate loans
Unlike what the platform’s name implies, EstateGuru‘s loans aren’t all real-estate related. Many of them are also used to finance businesses.
Overall, they have rather diverse purposes, such as :
- development loan
- business loan
- bridge loan
- reconstruction loan
Loans durations are usually above one year; their yearly interest rate is around 11%. While the financed amounts vary greatly, they recently ranged from €25 000 to €440 000.
For investors with large amounts available, a 1% bonus is available for selected loans when the invested amount is above a given threshold (usually €10 000 or €20 000).
Buyback guarantee
There’s no buyback guarantee. However, EstateGuru‘s website lists a long string of successfully repaid projects. As I’m writing this article, there were 184 repaid loans, 4 defaulted ones and 1 recovered. The recovered loan didn’t incur any loss for investors. On the other hand, as the public auction is still being set up by the bailiff’s office, we don’t know what the outcome for the defaulted loans will be.
Investors who are curious to know what happened when a loan defaults should read their blog post about their first defaulted loan.
Platforms features
Secondary market
NO secondary market
Auto-invest
Auto-invest available
Secondary market
EstateGuru doesn’t feature a secondary market.Manual investment
Due to the auto-invest restriction evoked below, I only invest manually at EstateGuru. Investors are notified of new loans availability by e-mail. Although they usually get filled up quickly, it’s totally possible to manage a portfolio manually.Auto-invest feature
For some reason, if you choose to invest less than €250 per loan, you don’t have access to detailed criteria; you can only choose the maximum loan duration. Otherwise, you will be able to use many criteria including interest rate, LTV, loan type and loan security type.This restriction will unfortunately force most investors to invest manually.
Website’s ease of use
Languages
English, Estonian, Latvian, German, Italian
Funding methods
Registration process
Opening an EstateGuru account is rather quick, in spite of the additional KYC (know your costumer) checks.Investors first need to provide basic information about themselves. The second step is to take a picture of themselves using a webcam, as well as one of some identification. Checking the documents is supposed to take as long as to days, but in my case my account was ready after a few minutes.Account funding
Account funding is done via a SEPA transfer only. As usual, the platform provides you with an identifier that you have to use as the reference for the transfer. The funds were available on my investor’s account two business days after I sent them, which is the standard delay for processing incoming transfers.Website’s design and ergonomics
EstateGuru‘s website’s was redesigned in late 2018. It’s now much more readable and its usability was greatly improved.Reporting
The reporting is rather complete : transactions list, portfolio, account balance… I especially appreciate the fact that data can be exported as PDF, CSV or Excel file.Actual performance of my EstateGuru portfolio
In early March 2019, the XIRR for my EstateGuru portfolio was 9.62%. This value is lower than expected, as it should be above 10%; indeed, I invested by mistake in one loan yielding quarterly interests. As a result, my returns are slightly irregular.EstateGuru’s competitors
EstateGuru’s facts and figures
Location
Tallinn, EstoniaNumber of investors
15 481Loans amount financed
€ 80 434 507Historical return
12.29%As of October 2018
Who can invest
You must be at least 18 years old and have a bank account any of the EEA member states or in Switzerland in order to lend through EstateGuru. We also have to perform certain “know your customer” checks on you before you can start investing on EstateGuru.EstateGuru FAQ
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.