“Over the past six months, RealtyShares aggressively pursued a number of financing options to continue growing the business,” RealtyShares wrote in an email to customers on Wednesday. “Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, we were unable to secure additional capital. As a result, we will not offer new investments or accept new investors on the RealtyShares platform.”

Click here to read the full story on The Real Deal.

UPDATE 5/13/19:
Real Estate Crowdfunding: iintoo Acquires RealtyShares Assets

HomeFundMe users are incentivized to complete homebuyer education or housing counseling in exchange for a grant opportunity ranging from $1000 to $2500. The counseling fee is covered, and once completed, HomeFundMe will match donations at two dollars for every dollar raised up to the qualified grant limits. There is no fee to crowdfund, 100% of the funds raised go to the recipient. Additionally, contributors have the option to make their gift conditional to the home purchase.

Click here for more information at HomeFundMe.

Click here to read more on RealtyCheck.

“Commissioner Piwowar’s remarks were cause for optimism,” said Burton. “The SEC appears poised to take steps to improve the regulatory environment for entrepreneurs, to democratize access to high return investments and to enable Fintech innovation. I am glad to see that the SEC is thinking seriously about how it can remove regulatory impediments to financial innovation, entrepreneurial capital formation and economic growth”

An audio version of the interview is linked to the article for more detail.

Click here to read the full article onCrowdfundInsider.com.

The fintech industry has been growing in waves but things seem to be coming full circle. While at first they seemed to offer change, the margin of difference seems to be shrinking.

The first wave was disruption. Fintech came in an offered an alternative to traditional banking. Things got cheaper and more collaborative, but they didn’t change things all together. The banks are still here, still functioning as they were before, mostly. However, the fintech startups did manage to make the banking institutions take notice.

In the next wave, the startups that survived really brought the collaborative aspect to bear. They started innovating and making more experienced hires; further, after raising a lot of funding, these companies became regulated and integrated into the financial ecosystem. During this stage, the banks began to work together with the fintech startups to work together. Gone is disruption, welcome collaboration.

The last wave, which we are steadily approaching, seems to be that the fintechs are becoming that which they sought to replace. The startups are going to either absorb their competition or become hybrids. Don’t believe it? Zopa and Number 26 have applied for full banking licenses. At the very least, the financial ecosystem is becoming more competitive.

“Real estate crowdfunding continues to be a dynamic and ever-evolving industry, growing to an estimated $3.5 billion in 2016. By 2025, the crowdfunding industry as a whole is anticipated to be valued at more than $300 billion and online real estate marketplaces are primed to capitalize on that explosive growth.”

The three trends to watch are:

• Institutional capital takes center stage
• Non-accredited investors and eREITs gain steam
• Consolidation allows the key players to emerge

Click here to read the full story on Forbes.com.

1. Renaud Laplanche resigned as CEO from Lending Club
   • Both surprising and disappointing, we were sad to see Renaud go, as he was one of the original industry leaders. It did have a negative impact on some of the lending platforms for the final quarter or so.
2. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency announced a new, incoming for 2017 Fintech Charter
   • The OOC is seeking public comment on the fintech charter and it can potentially create a new or modify the current regulatory structure for market place lending.
3. Goldman Sachs Launches Consumer Lending Platform, Marcus
   • An example supporting the following point the hybrid is taking over
4. The Pure Marketplace Lending Model is Dead the Hybrid Takes its Place
   • This is an opinion supported by many of the leaders in the industry due to the disruption in the capital markets. In all, this would make sense, as the Hybrid model would represent a synthesis of how lending was done previously and how we’ve been doing it more recently.
5. Supreme Court Denies Petition to Hear Madden v. Midland
   • For those of you unfamiliar, this case is about whether or not an issuing bank can use their (typically) home-state interest rate cap in other states. While this is viable in some cases, wherein the state they would be exporting the rate to has a higher cap than their own, often times, the usury cap for the 2^nd state is lower and that’s where the issue arises. So, because the Supreme Court refused to hear it, the Second Circuit’s decision is what we are left with and all loans are being kept in NY, CT and VT.

And there you have it, the top 5 interesting events to happen in the industry during 2016. Have some different conclusions or events you think were more important? Let us know what you think!

If you’d like to read more, please check out Lend Academy.

Click here to read the report on Crowdfundinsider.com.

Click here to read Crowdfund Insider’s Fact Sheet

Our first stop was the home domains for the respective candidates’ policies: Donald Trump’s site and Hillary Clinton’s site. After browsing through prospective categories that our two keywords and concerns could fall under, we didn’t find much. Sure, there were the typical, “We’ll change what’s currently wrong with the system,” types of proposals to regulations, but there were no hard stances on crowdfunding or peer to peer lending regulations to be found. Further research lead to a similar conclusion: we have yet to really hear either of these candidates talk on these important issues such as the Jobs Act (which neither of them were around for creating) or the Fix Crowdfunding Act currently in Congress. Thus, it is up to us to do a little conjecture about where they might stand or go in to the voter booth blind. Fortunately, one of our favorite resources, Crowdfund Insider, already did a lot of that work for us.

As far as Donald Trump goes, one might guess that he would be a fan of crowdfunding and peer to peer lending, given his investor/entrepreneur background. Additionally, he has affiliated with the crowdfunding platform, FundAnything for a time. While he no longer appears to be as enthusiastic about it as he used to be, we’re pretty sure he’s still pro-crowdfunding. However, we can’t really get any more specific than that.

In terms of Hillary Clinton’s position on crowdfunding, we know even less. She wasn’t serving in the Senate during the creation and subsequent passing of the Jobs Act, nor are these issues particularly featured during the live debates that have been available for public viewing. Now, we know that, during the primaries, Hillary was pushed much further to the left on many issues by her opponent, Bernie Sanders. We do know that Sanders wasn’t much of a fan of the Jobs Act originally, but that he eventually came around; additionally, we do know that he is still influential in the party. Also, we know that Hillary’s husband, Bill Clinton, is a supporter of crowdfunding, thanks to his efforts with the Clinton Global Initiative. However, given their past and the simple fact that they are different people, it would be unfair to think that his views represent her views. Further, the progress that’s been made for the future of our industry has been made under the Obama administration, which Hillary is both a part of and endorsed by. Perhaps if we were to average these views or stances previously mentioned together, we might find ground closer to where Hillary stands?

Honestly though, it looks like, unless someone brings it up at the last debate, we aren’t truly going to know where either candidate stands until after they’ve been elected and begin to take action.

“[A house flipper] crowdfunded nine deals totaling more than $9 million through RealtyShares over the last two and a half years. A July deal for $1 million took him just 12 hours.  “Generally, raising money takes so much time….This offers so much flexibility and time savings.  It’s so much better than going to family offices, banks or Wall Street firms.’’

Click here to read the full story on Bloomberg.com

The current crowdfunding set up is new; it’s shiny, it’s financially progressive and it’s ready to be used! Or is it? At the moment, I would beg to differ. While, yes, it does increase the opportunity for companies to raise funds for their products without having to hunt around for a small pool of investors with a lot to invest, it does put a limit on just how much can be crowdfunded on both sides of the equation. As far as the companies go, the crowdfunding is capped at $1 million; while on the investor side, the cap is at $2,000.  Additionally, as it stands right now, companies are only allowed to have 500 investors be a part of their crowdfund; that means every single one of them has to invest their full crowdfunding $2,000 into that particular fund and as you know, diversity is an investor’s best friend. So, while crowdfunding does currently “work” in the US, and as big of a proponent of it as we are, I would think that it would be best to hold in the current climate.

Now, as for what’s coming, there are a particular pair of bills recently passed by the House FSC: the “Fix Crowdfunding Act” (how aptly named) and the “Supporting America’s Innovators Act”. Once these two bills pass, the Crowdfunding atmosphere will open up quite a bit. To quote Entrepreneur.com  “One will remove some of the more onerous public reporting requirements for startups; the other will allow unaccredited investors to pool their investments in what are called Special Purposes Vehicles.”

These are good improvements, but for now, it seems wise to hold, or perhaps dabble to get a feel for it while you wait for even better iterations of regulation crowdfunding in the US.

Read more:  “The Crowdfunding Landscape Is Evolving: Should Entrepreneurs Be Worried?” Entrepreneur 8/9/16

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