My favourite crowdfunding company I have been investing with a number of Peer to Peer and Crowdfunding sites for the past few years, but my favourite is CrowdLords. The returns on offer are very good, and have, in my experience, actually paid out the indicated amounts - although not necessarily on the date originally planned. As is often the case with property development, be prepared for timescales to change - but when this happens CrowdLords is good at keeping investors informed, and normally manages to negotiate an improved payout to compensate for any delay. The fact that investments are secured on property (rather than, for example, loaning money to a company, with just a director's guarantee) gives me more confidence that I will actually get my money back. CrowdLords also offers a range of investment types - from low risk loans (which can optionally be held within an IFISA wrapper), to more adventurous "full equity" investments which provide an opportunity to achieve high rates of return if the development makes a good profit - but could lead to a loss of capital if the project were to run into problems. Be aware that there is no secondary market for these investments - so once you invest in a project, you won't be able to access that money until that project has been completed - but for money that you are not going to need in a hurry, I think CrowdLords offers an excellent investment choice.

2 year review I have been investing via Crowdlords for 2 years. Some of the earlier investments have matured and have paid out correctly. I am not aware of any default situations at Crowdlords (unlike some of the P2P platforms I also invest via), so I cannot comment on how rubust their recovery processes will be. I intend to be continuing to invest via Crowdlords as all experiences to date have been very satisfactory. There is a fundemental difference between Crowdlord's equity offerings and P2P loans. The equity gains are Capital Gains rather than interest, so are tax free if all your Capital Gains in a Tax Year are below the Capital Gains Tax Allowance (£11700 in 2018/19). I see the equity offerings (like Crowdlord's) as a higher risk than P2P as there is little security. Diversification remains key.

Highly recommended I've been using Crowdlords for a couple of years now. They are a brilliant investment platform I would highly recommend for those that are confident in assessing property development deals. Having said that, their communications & website have become much better in this time & choosing investments is straightforward. Their due diligence is thorough & easily laid out, reassuringly. All the important financial considerations & pitfalls addressed. & although there will always be minor niggles & things that slow down developments, I have found Crowdlords always really fair in their dealings & great at keeping you in the loop.

I invested for 24 months and made a 10… I invested for 24 months and made a 10 percent return on my investment Richard was wonderful and kept me updated throughout

Going from strength to strength From a small start crowdlords have gone from strength to strength. A small minus is that their timescales on projects seem to be over optimistic. Reporting on progress of developments though improving is still bit basic. Proper project programmes need to be provided to show real status and possibly a dashboard type of reporting set up for more complex projects