From the pyramids to the Empire State Building, the world’s largest structures have typically been financed by the superrich. New York-based Prodigy Network, best known for marketing the Trump SoHo hotel condominium, is now trying a different model: It’s bringing crowdfunding to real estate, soliciting thousands of investors to buy slices of a skyscraper in exchange for a share of rents and property appreciation. “The big difference from traditional real estate is that instead of buying into a fund with a pool of assets, people invest in a single asset,” says Rodrigo Niño, Prodigy’s founder and chief executive officer. “It lets them control the risk.”
Prodigy has wanted to try crowdfunding almost since its founding seven years ago but didn’t get a chance until it stumbled on the derecho fiducario, a little-known financial instrument in Niño’s native Colombia that allows individual investment in isolated real estate projects. In Colombia, Prodigy has crowdfunded a building called BD Bacatá that will be the nation’s tallest. About 3,100 investors kicked in $171.8 million (COP308 billion) of the $239 million needed to build the 66-story skyscraper in downtown Bogotá. Investors can also buy and sell shares through a resale program, which functions like a secondary market.
Read more at Bloomberg Businessweek
