Fundrise, a Chinese-owned online real estate company, is emerging as an important part pertaining to what looks to be a takeover of the American real estate market; evidence has emerged that the company was enriched by US government funding through the PPP loan program.
Pension funds and private equity firms in the United States are currently pushing up pension funds by outbidding middle-class families and owning up to 24% of properties in some areas, which they then rent over, alarming those who wish to buy their own homes.
According to a 2014 Bizjournal.com story, Fundrise is a Chinese-owned company that allows social media users to buy real estate:
As for why a Chinese social media company with 206 million users would want to invest in Fundrise, it’s a little hard to say beyond the most obvious reason that Renren, which is the Chinese word for “everyone,” clearly thinks Fundrise is a winning choice to put money into. Many of it might come from the broader interest by Chinese companies in investing in U.S. companies and real estate. It could also be the crowdfunding aspect that is a fast-growing part of the market, not only for personal projects but also for major hardware like the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset or the recent solar-powered highway.
They obtained a PPP loan, according to Fundrise’s 2020 investment update page:
We were extremely fortunate to receive an SBA Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan.”
Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) An SBA-backed loan that helps businesses keep their workforce employed during the COVID-19 crisis.
It says on their Wikipedia page:
“Fundrise is a Washington, D.C.-based financial technology company founded in 2010 that operates an online investment platform. Fundrise has been labeled as the first company to successfully crowdfund investment into the real estate market”
Bizjournal published an article in 2014 on the Metro locations where the group had the most success:
Fundrise has pretty inarguably already become a success story, with close to a million dollars pledged through its platform every week, more that $15 million from over a thousand investors since the company began in 2010. Projects in not only the D.C. area, but New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit and San Francisco as well have all been funded by the platform.”
The Fundrise co-founder Ben Miller said, “This raise represents Wall Street’s and Commercial Real Estate’s embrace of crowdfunding as the future of real estate finance and investment.”
Sources: thegatewaypundit.com, fundrise.com, en.wikipedia.org, bizjournals.com
