EstateGuru Review
Table of Content
Investing in properties is everyone’s big financial goal. With the current property prices in Europe most people can’t afford to invest in properties. Fortunately, there is a solution – EstateGuru.
EstateGuru is an Estonian P2P lending platform (crowdlending) that offers you investment opportunities in property-backed loans. Meaning, you are investing in housing projects, backed by collateral, personal guarantees, and mortgages. In fact, more than 95% of the projects listed on EstateGuru are secured by a first-rank mortgage.
Anyone over 18 years of age and a European Bank Account can sign up on EstateGuru and invest. Even investors from the UK or the USA are eligible to join EstateGuru. For transferring funds to EstateGuru I use TransferWise, as well as Revolut account and it doesn’t take longer than 2 days to transfer the funds.
You can start investing on EstateGuru from only €50 into a single project. Your money is secured by real value – in most cases: collateral, personal guarantee of the borrower as well as a mortgage.
EstateGuru is suitable for any investors who don’t mind locking their funds for at least 12 months. However, in exchange for a secondary market fee, you can withdraw your money sooner.
Is investing on EstateGuru safe?
Since I have joined EstateGuru I never had any defaulted loans that had not been recovered. In fact, no investor ever lost money on EstateGuru so far.
EstateGuru is doing a great job of protecting your money. I have visited their office myself and conducted an interview about the risk and securities for investors on EstateGuru. Read the report here.
As mentioned before, all your investments are backed by property. The P2P lending platform does not list development projects with a higher LTV than 75%, meaning the real-estate developer needs to pay at least 25% of the property value from its own funds.
EstateGuru has experienced risk managers on board, that make sure, that only those projects are listed on the platform, who can afford to take the loan.
That being said, it doesn’t mean that there won’t be any defaults. In fact, there are plenty of projects which are currently in recovery and 0.01% of EstateGuru’s portfolio could not be recovered (bad debt). You should therefore always check the statistics and verify the information about the borrower before investing your funds.
If you don’t have time for that, you can also pick the “Conservative Investment Strategy” which will limit your risk and automate your investments on the platform.
| EstateGuru Statistics | |
|---|---|
| Operating since: | 2014 |
| Investor’s earnings: | + €37 M |
| Total loan value: | + €500M |
| Amount of investors: | +113.000 |
The investor base of EstateGuru is growing rapidly. What I appreciate the most is that EstateGuru is doing a great job in finding suitable development projects, while maintaining the quality of the investment.
I get daily emails about newly listed projects – which isn’t the case with every platform that offers property-backed loans. I suggest you turn on the notifications in order to not miss out on attractive deals.
For more details and financial KPIs, refer to the EstateGuru’s latest annual financial report.
Let’s have a look at the reasons why you should invest on EstateGuru as well as some potential issues that you should be aware of.
Pros
- Secured investments
- Higher liquidity with the secondary market
- Very good due dilligence and risk assessment
- Easy Sign-Up and fast money transfer
- Sign up Cashback Bonus of 0.5% during first 90 days
Cons
- 2% fee for secondary market trades
- Not suitable for short-term investments
- 35% fee for early exit from selected loans
- More funds are required in order to achieve solid diversification
Watch the full EstateGuru review here:
⚙️ EstateGuru Diversification
EstateGuru offers moderate diversification options when comparing to other P2P lending platforms.
However, if we look at their mission, which is funding real estate projects, the diversification options are quite impressive.
The minimum investment amount of €50 is a bit higher when compared to the competition (P2P marketplaces) that lists short-term loans, which makes it harder to diversify your investment.
Currently, EstateGuru offers you the following diversification options:
Minimum Investment: €50
9 Countries: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Spain, Finland, Portugal, Germany, Netherlands, UK
Loan Period: 6 – 36 months (most of the loans have a loan period of 12 – 24 months)
Surety: personal surety, first-rank mortgage, second rank mortgage
Buyback Guarantee: No
Auto Invest: Yes
EstateGuru’s new Automated Investment Strategies allow you to choose predefined strategies or customize your diversification settings according to your preferences. If you are just starting out, the “Conservative Strategy” is the one I would recommend, unless you are an experienced investor and prefer to set up your own loan criteria.
Personally, I use the “Conservative Strategy” but also invest manually when I spot good deals. I often look at the payment history of the borrower and the location of the property which is tied to the mortgage. You can expect annual returns of around 9.5%. My default rate is typically between 0% and 2%, which means that EstateGuru is working hard to recover the debt for loans that have been flagged as “defaulted”. So far I have not lost any money on EstateGuru.
Some investors complain about many delayed or defaulted loans in their portfolios on EstateGuru. This can be very well avoided if you happen to educate yourself about the loans in advance and analyze some of the loan statistics that EstateGuru is offering.
🛡️ EstateGuru Risk & Returns
The P2P lending platform EstateGuru collaborates directly with the borrower which is not that common in the P2P lending industry.
Most platforms such as Mintos or Peerberry work together with loan originators which take a cut from the interest that is being charged to the borrowers.
The real estate projects on EstateGuru are further secured by mortgages as opposed to unsecured personal loans on other platforms.
The risk of losing your investments on EstateGuru is naturally much lower as compared to loans that aren’t secured by any collateral, which makes EstateGuru a great Mintos alternative.
The historical annual return from investments on EstateGuru is 11,88% which is more than most of the P2P platforms offer. You can influence the interest by investing manually into individual loans. A more realistic return is around 9% per year under the current market environment.
The ratio between the risks and returns compared to other P2P lending sites is very competitive. Earning more than 9% of interest on your investments in property-backed loans is still a very attractive deal in 2022.
👍 EstateGuru Functionality
EstateGuru’s interface is quite intuitive if you are already familiar with other P2P lending sites. The platform is fairly simple to use and it does not include any complex features.
Here are some of the features that you will find on EstateGuru.
1. EstateGuru Investment Strategies
The Automated Investment Strategies are some of the best tools in the P2P lending space. There are plenty of options to filter loans based on certain characteristics which can lower the total risk of your portfolio. You can set up your maximum investment amount per project, per loan, per borrower, or define the loan types, repayment types, period, or LTV. You can basically take full control over the diversification of your portfolio on EstateGuru.
2. Secondary Market
This feature has great potential for those who are looking to withdraw money from EstateGuru.
There are, however, a few things to keep in mind when using the EstateGuru Secondary Market.
Investors can currently buy claims on the Secondary Market manually. Investments in the Secondary Market are not automated via Auto Invest.
Sellers will be charged a 2% fee when using the Secondary Market and buyers won’t be able to sell their claim within 30 days from the purchase on the Secondary Market.
3. Early Exit Option
If you happen to invest in loans from the Baltics, you can also exit them before the end of the loan term. EstateGuru has introduced an Early Exit Program in 2021 which allows you to sell your loans immediately back to EstateGuru with a 35% discount and exit the platform. Keep in mind that this is really only an option in “emergencies” and that it’s valid only for loans from the Baltics (you won’t be able to use the early exit for loans from Germany).
The benefit of this feature is that you don’t need to wait until someone buys your loans on the Secondary Market. The loans that you sell to EstateGuru will be purchased from EstateGuru’s reserves (which are limited). Another use case for this feature would be in the scenario where you are certain that the debt from the loan can’t be recovered and that you will suffer a bigger loss than 35% of your invested amount.
Personally, I think it’s good to have that option, but since I joined the platform in 2018 I can’t think of one scenario where I would need an early exit.
☎️ EstateGuru Support
So far I haven’t had any major issues. All of the questions were answered within a few days. You can contact EstateGuru’s support via email at info@estateguru.co.
EstateGuru was also keen to invite me to their office in Tallinn and visit some of the funded projects in the area. If the pandemic allows it, I am planning to visit them again in 2022 to see what has changed.
My overall impression of EstateGuru is very good. It is certainly one of the leading P2P platforms.
EstateGuru’s main focus is to fund real estate projects via crowdfunding and give smaller investors the opportunity to benefit from the positive trend in the real estate market.
I am not familiar with any better platform with the same vision.
📁 My EstateGuru portfolio
I started investing in the Estonian peer-to-peer platform EstateGuru on the 27th of February 2018 and I haven’t had any defaulted loans (that were not recovered) since then.
Currently, I have an active portfolio of more than 100 projects on EstateGuru.
Since I have signed up on EstateGuru the P2P platform underwent a major revamp in design and user experience. EstateGuru is now much more user-friendly and you will find all of the information in just a few clicks.
EstateGuru proved its concept and so far I have not had any bad experiences with the platform.
Having the opportunity to participate in the real estate market and benefit from its increasing trend, with relatively small capital and risk, is a huge benefit in my opinion.
If you want to invest in the real estate market but fear the risk or don’t have enough capital yet, sign up on EstateGuru and invest in secured real estate projects.
If you want to get notified about the latest news surrounding this platform, check out the latest review on P2P Empire.
FAQ
What is LTV?
LTV represents the ratio of a loan to the value of the asset. If you as a borrower want to borrow €50.000 for the purchase of a house worth €100.000, the LTV will be 50% (50.000/100.000*100). This metric is mainly used by the peer to peer lending platforms within the real estate niche.
What are Full Bullet loans?
Full Bullet loan on EstateGuru is a loan, where the full amount, as well as the interest, is being paid at the end of the loan period.
What are Bullet loans?
Bullet loan on EstateGuru is a loan, where the full amount being paid at the end of the loan period while the interest is paid according to the loan contract, mostly monthly or every quarter.
EstateGuru Review Summary
My experience with EstateGuru was up until now very positive. I also value the fact that there are always available loans to invest in.
This isn’t the case with all P2P platforms that are focusing on a specific loan type such as real estate investing.
That means that your money won’t sit in the account due to insufficient loans on the platform.
EstateGuru is a trustworthy P2P lending platform with a solid track record. I myself visited their office in summer 2019, which resulted in an amazing interview about the risks connected to P2P lending.
If you have some saved money and you don’t know where to invest, EstateGuru gives you a good opportunity to let your money work for you and earn up to 11% of interest every year.
The main reason to invest on EstateGuru isn’t only the high interest. It’s the security that comes with your investment. Your money is protected by real estate and therefore real value. Not every P2P lending site can say the same.
Use my EstateGuru referral code to get a cashback bonus of 0,5% on your investments on EstateGuru.
What you think about buying in second market of estate guru? Is it worth? Thanks.
Depends on your strategy. If you are joining the platform and you have a bit of experience in the field, you can buy loans on the secondary market to avoid cash drag. This way you will build a diversified portfolio faster than just waiting until new loans come to the platform which can cause cash drag.
Estateguru ! SCAM
Too many defaults and lates projects….. Read reviews on Google.