Glossary

Collective Lending:

A form of financing that is facilitated through a pool  to fulfill a borrower’s financial request at an agreed upon sum for a specific rate. By getting a loan from a collecting lending fund, the borrower obtains the necessary amount of capital much faster and easier than in the case of traditional financing. In return, this method allows the lender to receive much higher returns in comparison to what investment instruments offered by banking institutions would provide.

In collective lending through debt methodology, the investors, instead of owning a stake in the business, allocate funds into a single asset limited liability company (LLC) backed by commercial real estate loan. A debt loan is very different than an equity investment. It’s a specific amount of money repaid over a defined term by executed contacts underwritten by legal and real estate finance experts. Investors earn a return via a fix interest payable on the loan.

Debt vs. Equity:

In real estate financing world the debt method refers to the lending process in which the development firm takes out a loan from a capital source to collect the funds needed for their targeted construction project. This makes the developer a borrower, while the capital source that issues the loan is referred to as the lender.

Lenders can have no claim to the profit that the development firm makes. The only return that concerns the lender side is the interest which the original financing agreement states. However, the interest rate, stated in the loan agreement, forms the key advantage for the lender in this relatively more straightforward methodology. Repayment of the loan is not tied to the success of the targeted project. It has to be repaid no matter what, and this is one of the most important advantages of the debt methodology from the lenders’ perspective.

In the equity methodology, the development firm, that is the sponsor/owner of the project, gives investors shares in their company’s ownership in exchange for capital. There are no documented promise made for the repayment of the investment unlike the way in which loan arrangements function.

In this method, the investors expect to earn an acceptable profit by the end of the targeted project, which would justify the risk taken during the investment period. Therefore the investor makes money in the form of a return-on-investment instead of an interest rate.

From the developer’s point-of-view, equity financing means issuing shares to an investor. Equity investors become owners of the company. This maybe a considered a potential advantage since they would be making more profit in the future in case the company further prospers in the aftermath of the initially targeted project. However, unlike the borrowers in the debt methodology, the business owners in an equity deal are usually not required to pay back their investors in case their project fails to make a profit. This also enables them to utilize the working capital freely as there are no monthly loan payments.

Debt methodology, on the other hand, comes with strict conditions and a specified date for the payment of the loan. Failure to meet these requirements result in severe consequences. This certainty should be considered an advantage for investors who collectively become lenders in a debt deal.

Gateway City:

A city that serves as a point-of-entry to a geographical region. Gateway cities have either an airport or a seaport that serve as a primary arrival point. These urban areas are known to have a lively property market due to the presence of industrial complexes and business centers that are positioned in the hinterland of the ports. The real estate development projects featured at Investors’ Harbour are conveniently located at gateway cities of Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the Unites States.

Accredited Investor:

For most individual investors, the SEC defines accredited investors as a natural person who has individual net worth, or joint net worth with the person’s spouse, that exceeds $1million at the time of the purchase, excluding the value of the primary residence of such person; or a natural person with income exceeding $200,000 in each of the two most recent years or joint income with a spouse exceeding $300,000 for those years and a reasonable expectation of the same income level in the current year.