Ben Miller, CEO and Co-Founder of Fundrise, talks with Matt about Fundrise and his vision for disrupting the real estate industry with his online, direct-to-consumer, low-fee real estate (and now also venture capital) investment funds.

Recorded live at Ben’s office on Dupont Circle in Washington, D.C. on April 23, this conversation is a fascinating exploration of what it means to pioneer a new thesis and challenge the orthodoxy around traditional thinking in the real estate business.

Fundrise has about $3B AUM of investor equity with a total of about $6-7B AUM of assets under management, with 2M users and half a million active investors. If you do the math, that means an average investment of about $8000.

Fundrise also now owns and manages their real estate positions directly versus through operating partners. We spend a lot of the conversation talking about their operating platforms and how they compare to traditional owner-operators.

Ben’s argument is that at least in the major real estate food groups, the low-fee indexed approach will lead the pack, versus the kind of bespoke managers who we, to be honest, celebrate in our industry and on Leading Voices. The conversation with Ben felt like a conversation with John Bogle back in the day when Vanguard was disrupting the mutual fund business from bespoke, actively managed funds to the index fund-driven business that we know today.

This conversation is unlike any other on Leading Voices, and I hope you enjoy it.

Resources:

• Fundrise
• Ben Miller | LinkedIn

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