BRICKOWNER REVIEW

Brickowwner Overview

Brickowner is a relatively new property crowd investing platform in the UK. With just 100 GBP, it lets you own a portion of property investment in the UK. The interesting thing about Brickowner is that they invest in institutional grade real estate projects small investors wouldn’t have access to under normal conditions. They act as an aggregator of investors funds, and with these funds, it invests in parts of large property development projects. The projected returns on the investments start from around 8% and go up to 20% per year. Typical investment periods range from 1 to 5 years. 

Key highlights

• invest in institutional level real estate development projects
• returns from 8% to 20%
• loan terms from 1 to 5 years
• minimum investment 100 GBP 

Who can invest in Brickowner

Anyone in the world (except US residents) can sign up on Brickowner. At the time you actually want to do an investment, they’ll ask you for a proof of identity (passport or ID card copy).

How do you fund your account

You’ll need to fund your account either by bank transfer or debit card. Credit cards, like the cards from Revolut, don’t work. 

Is it safe to invest

Brickowner is authorized and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) from the UK. So far, the UK is the only country in the EU that has specific regulations for crowdlending and crowdfunding, the others have generic rules that apply to crowdlending platforms as well. Your investments are kept separate from Brickowner in a UK limited company (Special Purpose Vehicle), specially designed for these types of investments. This means that if Brickowner goes bankrupt, your investment will be managed by a different entity and your investments won’t be tied to Brickowner. The money you have in your account is kept in a separate online wallet by MangoPay, an electronic money institution from Luxembourg. So, the main risk is the actual investment you make in the real estate project. In the investment documents, each property is ranked with a risk level from 1 to 7, based on how illiquid your investment is and how much your capital might be affected by market fluctuations. 

Are there any fees

Brickowner states that each property investment has its separate fees. The only property I’ve invested in had a 3.5% funding fee and a 0.75% yearly management fee. There’s no fee applied when you exit your investment.

Exiting your investment

You can only exit your investment at the end of the investment term. There’s no secondary market or the option to sell your shares to Brickowner. 

Investing on the Brickowner website

There’s no secondary market or auto-invest tool, so in this matter, the platform is rather simple. You can view the current and previously funded investments, pick the ones you’re interested in, and dive deeper. 

Conclusions on Brickowner

There’s more to Brickowner than meets the eye. I was thinking at first that it’s just another UK property crowdfunding platform, but it turns out it’s more than that. Unlike Property Partner or British Pearl, other UK real estate crowdfunding platforms I’m invested in, they don’t invest in small residential or commercial properties, but they participate as institutional investors in large projects I’d normally not have access to and they offer higher returns. They have some rather high fees and they take it even if the investments are not profitable. In contrast, British Pearl has a 20% success fee on exit, but only on the profit you gain from capital appreciation of the property. Property Partner has no fee on exit. Also, the projects I’ve seen so far pay out investors only at the end of the investment term. There’s no monthly, or at least quarterly dividends paid that you could cash out or reinvest. Your investment is locked for the entire period.