Estateguru Review 2024: Failed Expansion with EUR 130M at Risk for Investors!

Estateguru is one of the biggest crowdfunding platforms for property-backed loans in Europe. The platform, which is regulated at EU level, has achieved this status by offering a high portfolio quality since its inception in 2013. This has enabled investors to achieve a return of around 10% over many years.

The breaking point happened in 2021 and 2022, when Estateguru pursued an aggressive expansion strategy. This led to massive loan defaults in the following years, which particularly affected the German market. Due to little recovery progress and the introduction of new fee strcutures, the platform has been in decline ever since.

In this Estateguru review, investors get a detailed look at the platform and why it is currently not a serious alternative for investors to consider.

Keep in mind that all the information that are covered in this Estateguru review are based on my own research and personal experiences with the platform since 2018. Please make sure to do your own due diligence before investing on Estateguru or any other platform. More information can be found in the Disclaimer.

Further analyses of other platforms can be found on my P2P Platform Review page.

Summary

Before we get started, here is a quick summary with the most important information about Estateguru.

• Estateguru is an Estonian and EU-regulated crowdfunding platform where investors can invest in property-backed loans and earn a return of up to 12%.
• Estateguru’s vision is to become the leading marketplace for short-term and property-backed loans in Europe.
• With a track record since 2013, Estateguru is one of the most established platforms in the P2P environment.
• Due to aggressive expansion into new markets, especially in Germany, the performance of the loan portfolio has deteriorated massively and caused many defaults.
• The platform’s fee policy showcases a lack of respect for retail investors and also highlights the company’s difficult economic situation.

About Estateguru

Estateguru is an Estonian P2P platform, launched in October 2013, where investors can invest in property and development loans from Europe with a minimum amount of EUR 50. The interest rate is often around 10%.

The crowdfunding platform, which has been regulated at EU level since May 2023, pursued a sustainable and conservative growth strategy up until the coronavirus pandemic, making Estateguru a solid investment in volatile times.

The aggressive growth trajectory from 2021 onwards, particularly in Germany, has led to a massive deterioration in the performance of the loan portfolio. At its peak, EUR 130+ million of loans were in recovery, which affected more than half of the outstanding portfolio.

The outrageous pricing policy towards its retail investor base illustrates how difficult the financial situation at Estateguru must be.

The Origin Story

Marek Pärtel is an Estonian businessman who has extensive knowledge of the property sector, both as an investor and as a project developer.

After experiencing first-hand that property financing from banks was progressing very slowly and was sometimes not even approved despite sufficient collateral, he came up with the idea of founding an alternative marketplace for property financing.

Together with his two partners, Kaspar Kaljuvee (now CRO) and Marko Arro (now CFO), he then founded the Estateguru platform.

Ownership and Management

Who are the main shareholders and management executives behind Estateguru? Let’s have a look!

Estateguru Ownership

Who owns Estateguru? The Baltic-based P2P platform is operated by the company “Estateguru OÜ”. This company in turn belongs to the parent company “Estateguru Holding OÜ”.

If we look into the Estonian company register, we will find a large number of different shareholders for this company.

The largest shareholders include:

• 17.52% belong to “Meb Trust OÜ”, which is 100% owned by the Estonian “Kristjan-Thor Vähi”.
• 17.23% belong to “Euro Holding OÜ”, which is 100% owned by the Estonian “Marek Pärtel”.
• 11.09% belong to “Sparkle Holding OÜ”, 62.52% of which is owned by the Estonian “Marek Pärtel”.

In accordance with IFRS standards, Marek Pärtel is the ultimate beneficial owner of Estateguru.

Estateguru Management

Estateguru is led by CEO Mihkel Stamm. He has been working for Estateguru since January 2017, initially in the position as COO. In January 2023, he then took over the CEO position from Marek Pärtel, who moved to the Chairman position.

After completing his master’s degree in psychology, Mihkel Stamm worked his way up the career ladder in various positions in the finance and banking industry.

Business Model and Finances

Throughout the process of due diligence, investors should also have a look at the business model of a P2P platform as well as the overall financial situation. How does the company earn money? Does the platform operate profitably? And how well is the company positioned financially? In the following paragraphs of this Estateguru review, you can follow-up on those questions.

Monetization

How does Estateguru earn money? Estateguru generated EUR 8 million in revenue from its business in 2022. According to the numbers from the audited annual report, the platform generates a large part of its revenue through brokerage and commission fees from borrowers (65%). The percentage is between 2.5% and 4% of the loan amount.

Unlike in previous years, the management fee contributed only 1% to the turnover with EUR 117,235. Instead, many revenues sources have increased due to delayed loan projects. Prolonging fees, penalty fees, debt management and debt realisation fee contributed with EUR 1.8M in revenue.

Since 2020, Estateguru has also introduced fees that are charged to investors. These include a 3% transaction fee for sales on the secondary market (EUR 132,000 in 2022), an inactivity fee of EUR 10 per month (which is charged after 12 months without any transactions) and a withdrawal fee of EUR 3.

Profitability

Is Estateguru profitable? So far, the platform hasn’t been profitable for the past three years. Last year’s annual report stated a loss of EUR 5.88 million.

Sign Up and Bonus

On Estateguru, both natural and legal persons can register on the plaform. The only requirements are a minimum age of 18 and a European bank account. Funds are transferred directly to Lemonway, which is the platform’s partner bank that ensures a proper segregation of funds.

The registration process at Estateguru is very simple and intuitive. After opening an account via email, the KYC and AML questionnaires must be filled out. This is followed by the verification of identity and the declaration of tax residence.

Estateguru Bonus

If you are interested in signing up on Estateguru, you will receive a cashback bonus of 0.5% if you register via this link.

Investing on Estateguru

How does Estateguru work and what should investors know and consider when investing on the plaform? In the following sections of my Estateguru review you will find all the necessary information that you need.

Loan Offering

On Estateguru, investors can invest in three different types of loans:

• Development loans: these are loans used to finance either the planning process of a property or the development/construction of the property itself.
• Bridge loans: Also known as interim financing, these often short-term loans are used to bridge temporary liquidity bottlenecks. As a rule, these loans are usually redeemed by another loan after a short term.
• Business loans: these loans are used to support the day-to-day operations of a business, which may include, but are not limited to, business expansion, the purchase of equipment and goods, or to cover outstanding obligations.

Currently, Estateguru offers loan financing in eight different countries. In addition to the Baltic countries, these include Finland, Germany, Spain, Portugal and Sweden.

The biggest funding sources for the loan portfolio are private retail investors, high net worth individuals and family offices. The proportion of financing from institutional investors, which has risen steadily in recent years and in some cases accounted for up to 30% of the total portfolio, has now fallen to 5%.

Costs and Fees

There are many fees that have been added in recent years for Estateguru investors. Here is an overview:

• 3% Transaction fee for selling on the secondary market
• EUR 3 Withdrawal fee
• EUR 10 Inactivity fee (per month)
• 0.05% Assets under management fee

Especially the introduction of the assets under management fee, in October 2023, has caused dissatisfaction among many investors. As a result, investors have to give up up to 0.6% in annual returns on a properly performing portfolio. Considering the poor performance of the loan portfolio, which has already forced investors to adjust their return expectations downwards, the timing of this introduction could hardly be worse.

In addition, the withdrawal fee has also increased to EUR 3 from 1 June 2024. This is a clear indication that Estateguru wants to earn extra money from the exit of many investors. However, it should be questioned whether the additional income is in proportion to the reputational damage (see Trustpilot) and that this will probably scare away the last and undecided 50-50 investors who initially wanted to wait for the performance of the recoveries.

The full price list can be reviewed on this page.

Expected Returns

The historical return on Estateguru is 10.9%. However, my personal return after 5+ years is only 6.9%, which is lower than what the platform advertises. The loan defaults on Estateguru, which increased heavily in 2023, had a particularly negative impact.

Here is an overview of my personal returns achieved on Estateguru throughout the last few years.

Auto Invest

Investors have three different ways on how to invest on the platform:

• Manual loan selection on the primary market
• Manual loan selection on the secondary market
• Automated investing on the primary market

With the Estateguru Auto Invest feature, investors have the option to set predefined criteria for their loan selection, thus passively managing the investment. Possible configuration criteria include:

• Investment amount: From EUR 50 (but with limited filtering options)
• Interest rate: 8% to +11%
• Loan period: Up to 60 months
• Loan-to-value: Up to 75%
• Collateralization: First-rank or second-rank mortgage
• Borrower country: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Sweden

The full Auto Invest selection options can only be used with a minimum investment amount of €250 per loan. For those who have less money available on Estateguru, it is recommended to select loans manually first to achieve better diversification.

Liquidity

The average loan term is around 12 months, which is an average length for this loan segment. Those who need more liquidity can use the secondary market on Estateguru (3% transaction fee) or the instant exit option (for 35% discount). If this doesn’t offer enough liquidity for you, then you should look for other P2P platforms.

Estateguru Forum

If you have questions about Estateguru, other platforms or different p2p-related topics, you can join the re:think P2P Community on Facebook and engage in discussions with more than 1,000 other private retail investors.

In the forum, investors can share experiences with their investments and, in the case of Estateguru, talk about the development of defaulted loans, delayed projects or the risk of individual borrowers. Also other P2P platforms such as Bondora, Mintos or PeerBerry are covered as well!

Alternatively, you can get the latest Estateguru news and updates via my channels on Telegram or WhatsApp.

Estateguru Taxes

In general, interest income generated by loan financing is considered investment income and must be reported as such on the tax declaration. Unlike other P2P platforms, Estateguru does not withhold taxes on interest income.

Through the dashboard, investors can download an extract of the tax report for the given year, where the corresponding income is listed.

Estateguru Risks

Investors should look very carefully at the potential risk factors when evaluating a P2P platform in order to weigh them before making a potential investment. Here is what investors need to know about potential Estateguru risks.

Corona Crisis / Covid-19 Pandemic

Estateguru is one of the better platforms to come out from the Corona pandemic. The company reacted promptly to the events, initiated measures, implemented them right away and also informed investors immediately about new developments.

The platform responded in blog posts, webinars or Q&A sessions to the most important concerns of investors. The statements have been clearly articulated and potential risks were clearly addressed instead of playing them down.

“We have not suffered a capital loss since 2014 and the average return on loans collected is 10.4%. We expect partial capital losses in some loan cases this year due to the economic situation, but if the portfolio is properly diversified, this would not significantly affect the overall performance of investment returns.”

Measures implemented during the Corona pandemic included:

• Cost reduction of 30%: In particular IT expenses and investment costs for expansion.
• Adjustment of terms and conditions: Extension of loan terms and adjustment of repayment terms.
• Due Diligence: Adjustment of risk assessment for new projects. Increased focus on residential properties in more urban areas and growth regions, with financially strong borrowers and liquid collateral.
• Observation: Cautious approach before offering new loans to the platform. 

As a result, Estateguru has been able to grow its outstanding portfolio from EUR 93.3 million (April 2020) to EUR 113.8 million (December 2020) in just half a year. To put this in perspective, by the end of 2021 the portfolio under management was already at EUR 208.8 million.

War in Ukraine

At first glance, the war in Ukraine had no direct impact on Estateguru. Developments in the various borrower countries, which do not include Ukraine or Russia, were largely stable. In addition, there were also no operational restrictions for the Estonia-based platform.

In specially conducted stress tests, the platform concluded that property valuations in all markets would have to fall by approximately 45% for there to be a visible impact on the performance among investors.

“Our team executes regular stress tests and according to our current estimates the real estate markets in all of the countries in which we operate would need to go down an average of at least 45% before our investors’ portfolios are affected.”

Increasing Loan Defaults since 2023

The platform has increasingly struggled with loan defaults since the end of 2022. These include in particular the markets in Germany and Finland.

In June 2024, EUR 132M of funds have been in the debt collection process, which corresponds to a default rate of 52% of the outstanding portfolio. In Germany alone, more than EUR 77M are in the debt collection process. An absolute disaster for the platform, which saw Germany as a big market for its future growth.

Estateguru has deployed many resources to recover the loans in Germany. For example, the company has been working with “Steinberger” in Germany since 2023 to recover their defaulted loans. At the same time, the company has also deployed its own team of lawyers and risk managers. The annual costs for this amounted to EUR 1M in 2023.

As a strategic approach, the decision was made to process each defaulted loan individually instead of selling the entire portfolio at a larger discount of 40% to 60%. However, as the bureaucratic hurdles in Germany are correspondingly high, a recovery period of 3 to 5 years is now expected.

Based on the current market situation, CEO Mihkel Stamm estimates the losses at between 10% and 20%. In an optimistic scenario, however, it is still possible that investors will not suffer any capital losses.

We should also note that we are currently investigating possible violations of our internal regulations by some of our German employees in 2020 and 2021.

The investigations announced in January 2023 regarding internal violations by employees are now said to have been concluded. Although the company did not want to communicate more precise results, the CEO announced that external inconsistencies had been found and that the matter was being investigated further.

Is Estateguru Safe?

In a nutshell, Estateguru can be described as a safe platform.

• The platform holds credit financing licenses in all borrower countries where they are required.
• The platform cooperates with Lemon Way as a payment processor, which ensures segregation of funds.
• The platform is seeking to obtain the European Crowdfunding Service Provider (ECSP) license.

Nevertheless, investors should also pay attention to a few security-related issues: For example, there is no deposit insurance for the funds invested on Estateguru, credit defaults can lead to a loss of capital in case of default, and the economic stability of the platform can also have a negative impact on investors.

Advantages and Disadvantages

In this section, I have listed the most important advantages and disadvantages of Estateguru.

Advantages

• Track Record: With market experience since 2013, Estateguru is one of the more established P2P platforms.
• Regulation: The platform obatined European crowdfunding license in 2023.
• Estonia: The platform has a decent portfolio performance in its home market.

Disadvantages

• Performance: At its peak in 2024, there were more than EUR 132 million of loans in recovery.
• Liquidity: 3% sales fee via secondary market and 35% discount via Estateguru Instant Exit.
• Policy Violation: Estateguru is investigating violations by German team members from 2020/2021.
• Community: Estateguru ranked only 21st out of 30 P2P platforms in 2023 and 2024.
• Costs and Fees: A variety of fees have been introduced for retail investors since 2020.
• Conflicts of Interest: Loans with involvement of Estateguru’s management have not been repaid in full.

Estateguru Alternatives

Real estate platforms have a good tradition in Estonia and the Baltics in general. Some Estateguru alternatives to consider are Crowdpear and Profitus from Lithuania. Both crowdfunding platforms, which are controlled by the Lithuanian central bank and have a European Crowdfunding Licence (ECSP), offer many senior secured real estate projects on their site.

You can find other Estateguru alternatives on the P2P Platform Comparison page.

Community Feedback

For a long time, Estateguru was one of the most popular P2P platforms among private investors. In both 2021 (4.12 points) and 2022 (4.14), Estateguru achieved the second-best rating within my annual community voting.

However, due to increasing loan defaults and rather modest recoveries, Estateguru has been severely penalised in recent years. In the 2023 community voting, the platform only achieved a score of 2.63 points (21st place; 130 ratings), and in 2024 only 2.23 points (21st place; 197 ratings).

The most popular P2P platforms in 2024 have been Robocash, Profitus, Viainvest, PeerBerry and Esketit. The ratings are based on my P2P Community Voting 2024.

Summary Estateguru Review 2024

What is the final verdict of my Estateguru review?

For years, Estateguru has been an attractive option to diversify its loan portfolio with property projects. The platform was established, pursued a conservative risk management approach and delivered stable returns.

However, Estateguru may have ruined its own future with its too aggressive growth plans in the past. The platform’s defaults have increased to over EUR 132 million in 2024, while not delivering any progress on the recovery side. Considering these conditions, coupled with the investor-unfriendly fee structure, the expected returns on the platform are not even close to be competitive.

As long as there is no recognisable progress in recoveries, it is advisable to watch Estateguru from the sidelines for the time being.

If you still want to diversify your portfolio with property-backed loans, you should look at platforms such as Crowdpear or Profitus. The reviews for both Estateguru alternatives can be found on my blog.

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