Contributor, Benzinga
May 9, 2024
Casa Shares Assets
Overall Rating:
securely through Casa Shares Assets's website

Casa Shares is a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)-qualified real estate investing platform that makes real estate accessible to everyone. Real estate is an integral component of a well-diversified portfolio, especially considering its resistance to inflation. Yet, high entry costs pose a significant obstacle for many potential investors, including young and beginner investors.

Casa Shares aims to democratize real estate investment, making it accessible to millions without the necessary funds, time or knowledge to venture into property investment independently. You can buy shares in prime income properties within minutes via Casa Shares with as little as $100 and earn passive income as they appreciate. The platform allows you to bypass the typical challenges of real estate investment.

Pros
  • Innovative and hands-off approach to real estate investing
  • Low entry barrier or investment minimum of $100
  • Offers similar tax benefits as traditional investment property ownership
  • Flexible and easy means of earning passive income via rental dividends
  • Fast and seamless signup and investment
Cons
  • Limited investment offering

Casa Shares Assets Ratings at a Glance

Benefits
Fees and Costs
User Experience
Customer Service
Security
Overall

What is Casa Shares? 

Casa Shares is an innovative SEC-qualified real estate investment platform founded by Mirza Beg and McKay Francis. It allows investors to access real estate opportunities with buy-ins as low as $100, offering fractional shares in high-earning properties managed by the platform. This approach enables investors to earn passive income and benefit from property appreciation while bypassing common barriers in real estate investment. 

Casa Share's mission is to democratize real estate investment, making it inclusive and accessible for individuals who may not have the funds, time or expertise to invest in traditional property. The platform's debut aligns with a growing market trend towards convenience, asset diversification and location flexibility in investment options. 

With a focus on providing an engaging and user-friendly investment experience, Casa Shares is poised to expand its portfolio and refine its services through ongoing development, including the upcoming release of an iOS app. The platform recently closed a funding round of $1.5M, which will help accelerate its growth. 

How Does Casa Shares Work?

You can buy real estate shares via Casa Shares and start building your portfolio. To get started, you need to sign up by providing your name and email and setting a password. This takes under a minute. 

Upon completing your registration and email confirmation, you can complete the investor questionnaire (an SEC-mandated KYC process) and start investing. This involves first browsing through Casa Shares' available properties. Each property is hand-selected by the Casa Shares team, and its details, summary and offering breakdown are well outlined. 

While the summary describes the location and content of the property, the details highlight its details and the offering breakdown outlines all the relevant costs, including purchase price, sourcing fees, holding periods and IPO price per share (minimum investment). Reviewing this information for each property is crucial to determining which is most suitable for you. 

The minimum investment is significant as it determines how many property shares you can buy. For example, Casa Shares’ premier offering, The Lorene, a premium condominium in Rexburg, Idaho — an up-and-coming college town and home to Brigham Young University-Idaho — has an IPO price per share of $10. That means you can buy 10 unit shares of this property for $100. 

Upon choosing this property, you select the number of shares you want to buy based on your financial situation. Then, review the terms, sign electronically and fund your investment. It’s that simple. Casa Shares streamlines the process, making real estate investing accessible and straightforward.

Benefits

Casa Shares offers beginners and seasoned real estate investors many benefits. 

Potential Rental Income 

Casa Shares enables you to earn passive income via potential rental dividends. This income is generated from the performance of each property within Casa Share's portfolio, allowing you to benefit from real estate income without the direct responsibilities of property management. You can track and receive dividends based on the rental income generated by the properties you invest in through Casa Shares.

Potential for Appreciation 

Your real estate investment on the Casa Shares platform has the potential to appreciate over time, leading to capital gains. Appreciation is driven by the growth and value increase of properties within Casa Shares’ portfolio. As you hold your shares, you can benefit from the increased value of the properties, enhancing your overall investment returns.

Flexible and Low Investment Minimum 

Casa Shares lets you invest as little as $100. This initial investment minimum is affordable, even for the most undercapitalized investors. Significantly lowering the entry barrier to such a low price is part of Casa Shares’ core strategy of democratizing real estate investing by making it accessible, flexible and engaging. You can start with the minimum and gradually increase your investment as you see fit.

Portfolio Diversification 

Unlike the crypto and equity markets, which easily get battered by inflation, real estate is inflation-resistant — rental income typically rises alongside inflation. Real estate is an essential hedging instrument for a well-diversified portfolio. 

Casa Shares not only provides you with a means to expose your portfolio to real estate for diversification but also helps you invest in different properties or real estate across multiple markets. By spreading your investments across different types of properties (residential, commercial) and various geographic locations, you can reduce risk and potential losses associated with economic downturns or local market fluctuations in a single area or property type.

Hands-Off Management

In addition to providing a platform, Casa Shares oversees the management of the properties. In other words, you do not have any further obligation on the property upon investing in the platform. The Casa Shares team handles day-to-day responsibilities, including marketing, tenant communication, rent collection, repairs, insurance and other landlord duties. 

The team also ensures properties are well-maintained and profitable, providing peace of mind to investors. Casa Shares is a low stress way of earning passive income while doing nothing. 

Tax Benefits 

Investing in Casa Shares provides investors with tax benefits similar to traditional property ownership. This includes deductions for mortgage interest, property taxes, depreciation and other expenses related to property investment. These tax advantages can help reduce taxable income and improve overall investment returns, making Casa Shares a tax-efficient investment option if you seek to maximize your financial gains.

Fees and Costs

Casa Shares offers affordable and transparent pricing, ensuring that you understand the total cost of your investment upfront without any hidden charges or surprises. The minimal investment is $100 or 10 shares per property. All other fees, including asset management, sourcing and holding costs, are built into the share price. 

Review the offering breakdown on each property page to understand precisely how the funds are allocated. That'll provide clarity. Casa Shares does not charge additional costs besides the share price except when investing with a credit card, in which case a processing fee is applicable. 

You can connect your bank account and transfer via ACH or use a credit card to fund your account. The ACH method is preferable since it does not involve a credit card processing fee.

User Experience

Casa Shares delivers a fantastic user experience. The website is minimalist but intuitive, with just the suitable features and content, making navigation a breeze. Casa Share's upcoming iOS app will further enhance user experience. Still, even without it, their beginner-friendly website already ensures a hassle-free investment journey. 

You can sign up and buy your first real estate share — it's that simple. The customer support is also very responsive and efficient, contributing to its excellent user experience. You don't have to take any extra action besides investing — it is completely hands-off, allowing you to relax and enjoy your rental dividends.

Customer Service

If you have questions about Casa Share's services or encounter account issues, contact customer support via LiveChat or by filling out the online contact form. Benzinga recommends LiveChat because the support agent responded to their questions on multiple occasions efficiently and professionally. Response time was also fast, below two minutes. Another efficient approach is to review the Help Center. 

It contains a comprehensive collection of potential questions and answers covering various aspects of the platform's services, including account management, security, taxes and wallet management. You're most likely to find answers to your questions there, and even if you don't, it doesn't hurt to check before contacting support. You can also connect with the Casa Shares team via Facebook, X, Instagram and LinkedIn

Security

As an investment platform that handles clients' data and funds, Casa Shares understands the need for robust security measures in a dynamic online environment. It is well-regulated by the SEC, which means it adheres to strict standards for transparency, investor protection and regulatory compliance. Your investment in the platform is structured so that even if Casa Share fails, it'll continue to operate. 

This is because each property is housed in its own standalone series LLC, which maintains its own bank account and separate ownership structure. Investors own property directly via the series LLC, with Casa Shares retaining no material ownership. So, your investment continues to hold value, provided the underlying property maintains its value. 

The platform also ensures investors complete the suitability questionnaire before accessing investments on its platform. This SEC-mandated KYC process aims to prevent fraud by verifying the identity of all investors and assessing their risk profile. 

Regarding client data, Casa Shares employs standard encryption and security protocols to safeguard personally identifiable information (PII) and other sensitive information at rest or in transit across its network. 

Casa Shares will never lend, sell or share your data with a third party without your consent except in accordance with judicial precedents. You can review the company's privacy policies to understand its approach to protecting your data and your responsibilities.

Overall

Suppose you're a young or beginner investor looking to build your real estate portfolio. In that case, you need a simplified, hassle-free and cost-efficient platform. Casa Shares delivers. Its innovative approach to real estate investment, particularly its low entry starting at just $100, is commendable. It allows you to buy fractional shares of real estate property and diversify across multiple real estate markets. 

The platform's hands-on management of properties and promise of passive income through potential rental dividends make it appealing, especially for passive investors. Moreover, the SEC regulatory compliance and transparent fee structure increased its credibility, making it an attractive option for investors seeking diversified real estate opportunities. Casa Shares is just the right platform for many different real estate investors. 

Casa Shares vs. Competitors

Casa Shares has many competitors, including Stessa, Roofstock and BiggerPockets. Although these platforms offer real-estate investing services, their approaches differ. Stessa is more about finance. Its free cloud-based software system simplifies property finances for single-family and multifamily real estate investors.

Roofstock lets investors buy turnkey single-family homes and small multifamily rental properties with existing tenants. BiggerPocket is a community-oriented platform where beginners and seasoned real estate investors interact, connect and make deals.

Casa Share lets investors buy fractional shares of properties, facilitating diversification across multiple properties and offering a lower entry cost than buying entire homes. The platform is more oriented towards diversified real estate investing at a low upfront cost. 

The SEC qualifies all Casa Shares assets through Regulation A crowdfunding, meaning accredited and non-accredited investors can participate in single placement assets.

Frequently Asked Questions 

Q

What are the risks associated with Casa Shares investments?

A

Casa Shares takes all vital measures to secure clients’ investments; however real estate investments carry risks, including market volatility affecting property values and potential tenant issues impacting rental income.

Q

What properties does Casa Shares offer?

A

Casa Shares offers investors fractional shares of various income-generating properties. It doesn’t focus on specific property types but lets investors buy into multiple properties for diversification.

Q

What is the maximum number of shares I can buy on Casa Shares?

A

The maximum number of shares you can buy for the Lorene property is 979, equivalent to $9,790 in investment. The maximum will typically vary from property to property as the platform adds more homes.

INVESTMENTS IN PRIVATE PLACEMENTS, START-UP INVESTMENTS IN PARTICULAR, ARE SPECULATIVE AND INVOLVE A HIGH DEGREE OF RISK. INVESTORS MUST BE ABLE TO AFORD THE LOSS OF THEIR ENTIRE INVESTMENT. OFFERS TO SELL, OR THE SOLICITATIONS OF OFFERS TO BUY ANY SECURITY CAN ONLY BE MADE THROUGH OFFICIAL OFFERING DOCUMENTS THAT CONTAIN IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT RISKS, FEES AND EXPENSES ASSOCIATED WITH THE APPLICABLE SECURITIES. INVESTORS SHOULD CONDUCT THEIR OWN DUE DILIGENCE, NOT RELY ON THE FINANCIAL ASSUMPTIOS OR ESTATES DISPLAYED HERIEN, AND ARE ENCOURAGED TO CONSULT WITH A FINANCIAL ADVISOR, ATTORNEY, ACCOUNTANT, TAX ADVISORS, AND ANY OTHER PROFESSIONAL THAT CAN HELP YOU TO UNDERSTAND AND ASSESS THE RISKS ASSOCIATED WITH ANY INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY. PAST PERFORMANCE IS NOT INDICATE OF FUTURE RESULTS. THERE IS NO GUARANTEE THAT A DIVERSIFIED PORTFOLIO WILL ENHANCE OVERALL RETURNS, OUTPPERFORM A NON-DIVERSIFIED PORTFOLIO, OR PREVENT AGAINST LOSS. CROWDFUNDED SECURITIES ARE GENERALLY OFFERED BY EARLY STAGE COMPANIES ANDINVESTORS SHOULD BE PREPARED TO LOSE SOME OR ALL OF THEIR INVESTMENT. INVESTORS SHOULD READ ALL OF THE RISKS AND DISCLOSURES PRIOR TO MAKING INVESTMENT DECISIONS. RIALTO MARKETS LLC – FINRA MEMBER BROKER DEALER: RELATIONSHIP SUMMARY.

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