Elevate Money Vs Fundrise: Which is the Best Investment Platform?

Crowdfunding platforms

To put it in simple terms, both Fundraise and Elevate Money are crowdfunding platforms.

Crowdfunding allows you to pool money together with other investors and be able to own shares in multiple different properties, which means that you don't need a ton of money to start investing in real estate. 

Crowdfunding makes real estate investing more accessible to ordinary people, especially if you live in the New York City area. If you're wondering how much money you need to get started on each platform, I have that covered.

Initial investment

With Fundrise, you can start with as little as $10. With Elevate Money, you need $100, which is more than Fundrise, but it's still pretty doable for most people. 

Liquidity 

Regarding liquidity, your Fundraise and Elevate Money investments are pretty illiquid, and that has to do with the industry. 

Real estate itself is a pretty illiquid asset

When investing in the stock market, you can usually sell your shares and cash out within a few days.

When it comes to real estate, properties, long leases, and just real estate itself, it does take quite a bit longer than that to cash out your money. Both of these platforms are pretty long-term investments. 

If you want to know how long you will need to keep your money in both of these before you can cash out, with Fundrise, we are looking at around five years. With Elevate Money, you only need to wait about one year to be able to cash out all of your money.

So with Elevate Money, you can technically cash out your money within the first year, but you do have to pay a 1% fee because that's the cost of doing business for them. If you decide to withdraw your money after one year, then there are no fees associated with that. 

With Fundrise, for the longest time, they had a 3% redemption fee if you were to withdraw your money before the five-year mark. Now, you only have to pay a 1% redemption fee if you decide to withdraw your money within the first five years. So it's the same fee as Elevate Money now. 

The waiting period is very different when it comes to investing, especially investing in REITs, so you do need to keep in mind that you should only invest the money that you will not need in the short term. 

App features and usability 

Let's talk about the fun parts, which are the actual apps. Specifically, I want to discuss the user interface and the overall features. 

Regarding the overall visual design and the user interface, I would say Elevate Money has a much nicer design. It's futuristic and modern, which appeals to the younger generation, especially Millennials. 

However, if we're talking about the overall features and usability, I would say the Fundrise app has more features, and there's much more to do with the app itself. This makes sense since they have been around for much longer than Elevate Money.

Fundrise has been around since 2010. Elevate Money has only been around for about two years, since 2020. I'm sure Elevate Money is still working on adding more features, but I don't know; that's my opinion. 

What I like about both Elevate Money, and Fundrise is that they both have investment dividend calculators, which I think is very motivating when you are first starting to invest.

It's always nice to see how much your portfolio could be worth in the long run if you invest an extra $100 or more per month. 

Credentials needed

You may wonder if you need to have certain credentials or if you need to have specific citizenship to be able to invest in Fundrise or Elevate Money.

When it comes to accreditation, you don't need to be an accredited investor, which, again, lowers the barrier to entry into real estate investing, but you do need to be a US. Citizen, a green card holder, to be able to invest on both platforms. 

Both of these platforms make real estate investing very simple and passive. In the case of Elevate Money and Fundrise, you have a team of professionals managing that real estate portfolio; all you need to do is invest your money and watch your investments grow and receive dividends. 

Types of properties each platform invests in

What types of properties does each company specialize in investing in? This is where it gets pretty interesting. 

If I were to look at my Fundrise app right now, I could see they have a diverse portfolio of properties. 

They do anything from single-family rental properties to multi-family homes to commercial properties, which is nice when you're looking to diversify your portfolio. 

Elevate Money primarily specializes in commercial real estate properties. When I say commercial, we're not talking about office buildings; we're talking about gas stations and stores.

While they don't have that many properties in the portfolio just yet, since they are so new, the advantage of investing in those types of properties is that they usually have much longer leases. We're looking at 5 to 20 years, which is way longer than a typical twelve-month lease on a residential property. 

Advisory fees

Both platforms charge you roughly a 1% advisory fee because they also have to make money.  

Elevate Money vs Fundrise

This is the basics of Fundrise vs Elevate Money. Check both platforms out and choose the best fit for your financial situation. Do you invest with crowdfunding apps? Share your experience in the comments below.