Investing in real estate crowdfunding in France (or crowdlending ‘immobilière’) is getting exponentially popular in France during last years. Specially when interest rates were historically low, or negative, (before 2022) and investors were looking for alternatives to make their money grow.
Crowdfunding was answering this need to many. Even now, with higher interest rates, there are few investments options in the market with such a high yield like crowdfunding. But you should not rush before learning the key points explained in this blog… Let’s start!
Table of Contents
What is 'crowdfunding immobilière' in France?
In plain words, crowdfunding is when you (and many more) are lending money to a building constructor for an exchange of an interest rate. But wait, isn’t the role of banks to do so?
Yes, but banks will fund max. 80% of the total capital required for the project. Hence, crowdfunding platforms collects money from particular investors (like you and me), to cover the missing 20% for the constructor.
In exchange, you earn some attractive interests and the constructor can use better its capital to build multiple projects at the same time and not just few ones. So basically investing in real estate crowdfunding in France is meant to be a win-win-win situation (constructor, crowdfunding platform and you).
How does it work?
Constructors will submit their project to a crowdfunding platform who will analyze its feasibility, validate constructor’s papers, and sometimes provide project risk ratings (A,B,C,D,E). Normally these platforms should filter already the ‘bad projects’ and validate just the good ones.
Once the project is selected, the platform will define a publication date and time when investors can provide their funds online, the interest rate, duration and more details. Normally the minimum ticket to be able to participate is 1000€.
If a minimum amount is collected, then they will proceed with the project and transfer the funds to the constructor who will proceed with as per the planning. The platform will keep you updated if any news during the project execution. Once finished, they will collect the capital and interest to distribute across investors.
Is real estate crowdfunding investment in France worth it?
There is an interesting debate about this question. If you consider its high rates, relatively low effort and short term return, one could say it is the best investment ever. However, you would need to subtract the risk involved and the fact that capital is locked during the lending period (you will not be able to withdraw that money).
Benefits and constraints of investing in real estate crowdfunding in France:
Benefits | Constraints |
High yield (7%-11%) | High risk. You can lose up to 100% of your capital. There could be delays as well. |
Low effort (contract signature and project selection are online) | Constant monitoring of new project releases (sometime they reach the target in few minutes) |
Short term (1 to 3 years) | Low liquidity (capital blocked) |
Investment in real life economy | No special tax benefits (except if done within your PEA-PME) |
We believe that this kind of investment could be interesting when looking for diversification, or to provide a sense of your money by investing in the real economy, or just to spice up your portfolio.
Maybe allocating a limited amount of capital (say around 5 to 10% of total capital), invested in multiple and well diversified projects could be a winning and less risky strategy (not financial advice, do your own research).
Crowdfunding ‘immobiliére’ vs SCPI?
Even though both are related to real estate, they are different financially speaking. With crowdfunding you are lending money and expecting back interests (obligations), whereas a SCPI you are owning shares of multiple real estate investments and you will benefit from rents collected as dividends.
Crowdfunding vs SCPI… Who wins?
Criteria | Crowdfunding | SCPI |
Performance | Winner. Average return rate is around 9% (year 2021) | Loser. Average around 4,5%. However, the share value could increase the final RoI. |
Risk | Loser. You can lose 100% of your capital. You can mitigate your risk by diversifying in multiple platforms and projects, as well by selecting projects with guarantees. | Winner. Even though you can still lose 100% of your capital, the odds to happen are way lower compared to Crowdfunding. |
Liquidity | Loser. You will receive your money back once the real estate project has been commercialized and the builder can pay you back. | Winner. Even though reselling your SCPI shares could cost you some important fees, you can get your money back whenever you wish. |
Effort | Loser. You would need to subscribe to a platform online, monitor new projects, sign the contracts, track the project status. | Winner. Even though not all SCPI are available for subscription online, once it is done you can forget about it. Very much hands free. |
Fees | Winner. Some platforms will charge you some few euros. Others will charge the builder. | Loser. SCPI are heavelly charged (from 8 to 12%) entry fees. Then, they take a commission from rents collected. |
Taxes | Winner. Flax-tax of 30%. If done within a PEA-PME then only 17,2%. Loses can be deducted from future earnings. | Loser. Dividends will be subject to your TMI rate (could reach up to 62,2% for high revenue families). Some ways to minimize this could be investing with your ‘Assurance Vie’, or in European SCPI, or ‘démembrées’. Read more about here. |
What are the real estate crowdfunding risks?
Basically you could lose all the capital invested. Ok, let’s not be so dramatic. According to ‘Hellocrowdfunding.com’ site (a local aggregator of all crowdfunding platforms), the default rate is close to 0 (only a couple of contractors went bankrupt till early 2023).
However, the payment delays are becoming very common after the central bank interest rate hike in 2023. Even if this happens, you are still earning interests.
In addition, we should expect an increase on the default rate by 2024. This is due to the fact that raw material high inflation impacted some projects and that there are way less real estate buyers in the market. Maybe constructors will not be able to honor their debt.
Recommendations to minimize risk
- Use multiple platforms. Do not forget to check the ORIAS certification. You can normally find the certification number on the footer of the platform website.
- Invest your capital in multiple projects, diversified by type of project, location, and more important by Constructor / builder. You will be overexposed if you have many projects with the same constructor.
- Check the loan guarantees. There are many ways for a constructor to provide a loan guarantee to lenders, but it seems the best one will be the ‘1st range’ (meaning you will get paid 1st if there are any other parties).
Which real estate crowdfunding platform is the best?
There are more than 38 platforms in the local market. We have selected 4:
- Clubfunding. The largest platform with almost 1 Billion euros collected, and more than 800 projects funded by Q2 2023.
- Wiseed. A large platform as well. Good offer of new projects. Possibility to invest with only 100€.
- Raizers. Well diversified portfolio of projects, including outside France. Web site in English. Subscribe and use our referral code econtessigarcia-30087 to get benefits.
- Homunity. The 2nd largest platform in the market but mainly co-invest in very large projects.
All these platforms are ORIAS certified, with good user experience (everything online) and good reputation in the market. However, we invite you to do your own research based on your criteria.
Check our ‘good deals‘ page to find referral links and get benefits when registering in our preferred platforms.
myFrenchMoney tip
You can invest in real estate crowdfunding using your PEA-PME wrapper, in order to reduce taxes almost by half and therefore maximize our returns. Boursobank offers an smooth integration with Homunity (paperless).
Our strategy about investing in real estate crowdfunding in France
Even though investing in real estate crowdfunding in France proposes an interesting return in a short term, we would limit this asset type to a maximum of 5% of our portfolio. It is a relatively new investment vehicle in France with only around a decade of history. So it is important to watch it evolution in coming years.
We like as well its decorrelation from stock market and other asset types. During Covid crisis, crowdfunding was little impacted and demonstrated its resilience during that difficult period.
2023 context
High interest rates conditions is impacting real estate crowdfunding in France. People are struggling more and more to get access to credit and therefore, promoters are finding it difficult as well to sell properties. We start seeing some delays, and maybe soon some project defaults.
In addition, during post covid era there has been supply chain issues, impacting construction delays. Even further, remote work policy from large companies has created an office buildings surplus. This is not helping much the construction sector.
However, having said that, we will continue investing in crowdfunding but being more selective on the projets chosen. We will avoid large residential projects, office buildings, or complicated constructions.
We will give preference to the so called ‘marchand de biens’ which are constructors buying existing properties, refurbishing and resell it. Another strategy could be focusing on small projects (1 house for example) in secured areas with high demand (like Paris, Lyon, etc.).
Finally, we will keep an eye as well on the default rate and the market evolution to make our investment decisions.
Hope you have a better understanding on this subject, and in case you want to get more support please contact us.
Good luck with your investment!
Very interesting, had no idea this existed. Thank you for this great insight!
Thanks Rolo. Indeep this is an unknown investment for lot of people, including locals.