Tuesday, August 07, 2012

Want to Own a Piece of H Street's Future?

Here's the full press release for a very interesting new program that enables DC and Virginia residents to become investors in a piece of H Street's future. You can buy a share in the company (Fundrise) for just $100. Thus far they have 35 investors, and have raised $73,500 of their $325,000 goal. Fundrise owns 30% of the potential profits of Maketto, and the real estate located at 1351 H Street NE (future home of Maketto). Maketto is an innovative new venture from Erik Bruner-Yang of Toki Underground and the guys behind local clothing line Durkl.

Here's a description (from the Popularise website) of Maketto:

The concept will be based around an inviting market place environment spearheaded by collaboration between the creators of DURKL and Toki Underground; combining both fashion and food, while at the same time giving local vendors an opportunity to market and sell their products. 

We believe that H Street is ready for something new and different. A space that will operate both day and night, during the week and on weekends, providing an offering as diverse as the neighborhood itself. We think of it like a new age Eastern Market. We are excited about the potential possibilities for this project, and look forward to further developing the concept with the input and support of our future customers.

There's a great deal more information about Maketto (and the team behind it) on the Fundrise website.

Fundrise Launches Online Investment Platform To 'Build Your City'
New venture will allow individuals to invest directly in their communities

August 7, 2012 9:02 AM EDT

WASHINGTON, Aug. 7, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Fundrise, LLC ("Fundrise") today announced the launch of its website, Fundrise.com, providing an online platform that democratizes real estate investment, by empowering local individuals to purchase securities representing shares of ownership in local real estate and share in potential profits of new businesses.

Debuting its first investment offering in Washington, D.C.'s Atlas District, Fundrise is offering D.C. and Virginia residents the opportunity to purchase equity in Fundrise 1351 H Street, LLC, which owns The Maketto Building -- the future home of Maketto, a hybrid food and fashion market by the teams behind the restaurant Toki Underground and DURKL, a D.C. -based American streetwear company. The money raised will be used to renovate the building and install the interior infrastructure for Maketto. The fashion and food destination plans to open in early 2013. Fundrise 1351 H Street, LLC aims to continue to involve shareholders after the offering has completed, inviting them to participate and engage in the restaurant's development process.

About Fundrise

Fundrise is an online investment platform that lets local individuals invest in, own and build local places, such as real estate, restaurants and small businesses. Fundrise selects potential investments and offers securities to the public through its online investment management site.  Headquartered inWashington, D.C., Fundrise was founded by brothers Benjamin and Daniel Miller, along with team members Kenny Shin and Brandon Jenkins. Benjamin and Daniel are also Co-founders of Popularise (https://popularise.com), the online neighborhood crowdsourcing site, as well as Managing Principals at WestMill Capital Partners. To learn more about Fundrise, please visit https://www.fundrise.com
 

About WestMill Capital Partners

WestMill Capital Partners is a real estate investment company focused on the acquisition, financing, and development of retail-entertainment and urban, mixed-use properties in Washington, D.C. To learn more about WestMill Capital Partners, visit http://www.westmillcapital.com.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Daddy 's little boys run out of money already ? Or they realize Yang isn't a good investment? Some ". contest", more like, hey do a business plan and get investors just like ANY OTHER spot.

Anonymous said...

Ding, ding, ding...We have a hater in the house.

Anonymous said...

@Anon 8:22 aka Hater - if my thinking is correct, there is no way that $325K is all they need to get this place going, that's a low number. I'm sure that they already have other funds/equity. Companies/Business get money from many sources (ex. stocks, bonds, owners contributions). This is probably only one source.

heyktb said...

i don't get it...where is the return?

Dave b said...

Maryland residents need not apply?

Regardless I can't wait to eat ramen served in a sneaker that I get to keep at 4 am while listening to video game music

Anonymous said...

I read through some of the offer documents and it's not clear to me how this works. There appears to be a clause that allows the owners to buy back your "shares" whenever they want, as well as a provision for members to be asked/required to contribute further funds under certain circumstances. I'm no lawyer but it looks like a whole lot of CYA without much information about how profits would be realized, or how investors could choose the time and/or manner of cashing out.

I'd love to hear a lawyer or investor opinion about this. I was pretty excited about this upfront but after reading through the documents I'm less so.

Anonymous said...

Lots of management type fees too. I'm passing.

Anonymous said...

wish them the best but without seeing budget and forecast figures, I'd pass.

Anonymous said...

I like the idea. It definitely needs to be more clear on their website...yeah it just reads/screams ponzi scheme.

Anonymous said...

This is a super interesting idea, but surely the cost of servicing dozens or...hundreds? of shareholders would eat up the potential return. How are they planning on administering this?

Even at 10% yearly ROI, that's less than $40,000 total- and surely they'd need to pay somebody this much in salary and benefits to administer an investment group of potentially several hundred people. I'd love to have somebody from Fundrise come on here and answer all the questions raised.

Unknown said...

We created Fundrise to allow the community to invest in real estate and businesses in their neighborhood and to help drive development decisions. We thought H Street was a great place to start since it has such an active community and history of supporting local development and business.

Raising money from the public has been more costly and slower than traditional methods, but we want to develop local, direct investment as an alternative source of capital since we believe in the power of having local investors support local business.

We're happy to discuss the investment in more detail--email us at support@fundrise.com or message us at @FundriseSupport with any questions. We make sure to respond to every email so don’t hesitate to reach out.

In terms of administrative fees, they're set at 1% of equity raised. We've applied technology to create an organized accounting and investor management system, creating scale at the back end to keep costs low. In addition, Fundrise is a direct investment platform—direct from user to the property without any middlemen—so we believe the investment has lower fees than traditional Wall Street real estate investments.

Again, please email us with any questions! We hope to have you all as investors in our first Fundrise offering.

Best,
Dan
Co-Founder | Fundrise

Anonymous said...

Even with the buzzword-filled explanation, I don't see how Fundrise is better than (or even as good as) Lending Club or other microloan sites. At least there, I'm very assured that I'll see a return and I'm able to view lots of information (employment, credit info) of applicants looking for cash. And, while it's not an investment site, Kickstarter provides some kind of instant reward.

Anonymous said...

Still wondering why it's not open to Maryland residents. Don't they want our money?