BuyProperly began as an accessible entry point into fractional real estate, and the platform's own disclosures describe structural characteristics that prospective investors may want to understand before committing capital. These include ongoing fees that accrue over multi-year holds, return figures presented as projections, and defined holding periods. For investors evaluating fractional real estate options, understanding these considerations is essential to making informed decisions. This guide reviews what BuyProperly's publicly available risk factors and independent analyses describe about the platform's structure.
BuyProperly originated as a fractional real-estate platform and currently markets a broader range of third-party alternative investments, including private credit, private equity, venture capital, and hedge funds. Its terms of use describe BuyProperly as a software service provider connecting users with investments from unrelated third-party issuers. The risk disclosures discussed below expressly address BuyProperly limited partnerships, so terms may differ for other investments available through the platform. All observations about what is or is not disclosed are limited to BuyProperly's publicly accessible pages as reviewed on July 26, 2026.
Disclaimer: The information provided in this guide is for educational purposes only and does not constitute financial, tax, or legal advice. Always consult with a licensed professional before making any financial or investment decisions.
Key Takeaways
- Ongoing fees accrue over time. A 2021 independent review reported a 2.5% annual management fee plus GST/HST based on asset value. A current, platform-wide official fee schedule was not located, and fee terms may differ by offering.
- Performance figures are presented as projections. A 2021 company press release described expected returns of 20% to 40%, and legacy BuyProperly blog content referred to projected annual returns of 10% to 40%. No public platform-wide audited performance report was located alongside those projections.
- A disclosed five-year lock-in shapes liquidity for certain offerings. BuyProperly's limited-partnership risk disclosure notes that even after the lock-in period, a buyer may not be available at a price an investor considers reasonable, while the current investments page separately describes the ability to sell shares at any time through a secondary marketplace.
- No platform-sponsored loss coverage is disclosed. BuyProperly's official disclosures state that investors may lose their entire investment. Investors may still have regulatory, statutory, dealer-related, custody, or insolvency protections depending on the offering and intermediary, and those protections do not insure against market losses.
- Public figures vary across pages. Minimum investment amounts of both $500 and $2,500, along with differing investor and deal-value metrics, appear across the platform's currently indexed pages, including its homepage, products page, and investments page.
- Secondary market data is not publicly published. While BuyProperly offers share trading, no aggregate trading volumes, execution rates, or typical pricing data were located on its publicly accessible pages.
Understanding Fractional Real Estate Investing
Fractional real estate investing allows multiple investors to own shares of income-producing properties without purchasing entire assets outright. This structure provides access to real estate's core benefits, including appreciation, rental income, and potential tax advantages, while reducing the capital requirements that traditionally limited property ownership to wealthy individuals and institutions.
How fractional ownership typically works:
- A platform acquires and underwrites properties using professional processes
- Properties are held in legal structures (typically LLCs or partnerships) and divided into purchasable shares
- Investors receive income distributions proportional to their ownership stake
- Professional management handles tenant coordination and property operations
- Investors participate in appreciation when properties sell
The model addresses several traditional barriers to real estate investing: high down payments, property management complexity, and geographic limitations. Fractional platforms are structured differently from one another, and differences in fees, transparency, and investor protections can meaningfully influence long-term returns.
BuyProperly, founded in 2019 and based in Toronto, raised a C$2 million pre-seed round in 2021 led by Nurture Ventures, with participation from FastBreak Ventures and angel investors, to expand across Canada and into the U.S. market. The platform emphasizes AI-powered property selection. In 2021, the company stated its AI had evaluated more than 1.5 million data points in its property-selection process; that source does not establish that 1.5 million data points are analyzed independently for each opportunity. The current property page uses different language, describing a sourcing model that analyzes hundreds of factors and evaluates thousands of properties. The technology-forward approach appeals to some investors, and structural details such as fees, holding periods, and asset-level reporting are worth reviewing alongside it.
The Challenge of Liquidity in Fractional Property Ownership
Liquidity, meaning the ability to convert an investment into cash, is one of fractional real estate's defining characteristics. Unlike publicly traded stocks that can be sold in seconds, real estate investments typically require extended holding periods.
BuyProperly's official risk disclosure for its limited partnerships addresses this directly. In its own summary, investments carry a five-year lock-in period with restricted liquidity during that term, the properties are kept under periodic review for an attractive opportunity to sell, and even at the end of the lock-in period there may be no one willing to buy an investor's interest at a price the investor considers reasonable, with a transaction potentially taking several months.
That page expressly discusses BuyProperly limited partnerships, while the current site offers multiple asset classes and third-party securities. Separately, BuyProperly's current investments page describes the ability for investors to sell shares at any time through a secondary marketplace. These statements may be reconcilable, for example by distinguishing between listing shares and successfully completing a sale, and BuyProperly's public pages do not describe how the provisions interact.
Key liquidity characteristics with BuyProperly:
- A five-year lock-in period is disclosed for the limited-partnership offerings covered by the risk page, defining when capital is accessible during that term
- No assured exit even after the lock-in expires, because listing shares does not itself produce a buyer
- No published aggregate trading data on the secondary marketplace
- No bid-offer spreads, volume statistics, execution rates, or average time-to-sale figures located on publicly accessible pages as of July 26, 2026
- No published pricing methodology, valuation controls, bid-and-offer process, or method for determining fair value on the publicly accessible marketplace pages
The importance of liquidity in real estate investing cannot be overstated. While real estate is inherently less liquid than public equities, some platforms address this through transparent secondary markets with regular pricing updates and published trading volumes. BuyProperly's secondary marketplace exists, and its public pages do not include the data points needed to assess real-world liquidity conditions. Statistics may exist in investor dashboards, transaction documents, or individual marketplace listings that are not publicly accessible.
How Secondary Markets Enhance Flexibility
Platforms that prioritize liquidity typically offer:
- Monthly or quarterly property valuations based on third-party appraisal data
- Published trading volumes and average time-to-sale metrics
- Transparent pricing mechanisms that reflect fair market value
- Clear policies on trading fees and restrictions
Where those elements are not publicly available, holding periods and exit timing are less predictable, and capital may remain invested for the full holding period.
Evaluating Risk: Property-Specific Factors and Market Volatility
All real estate investments carry risk. What matters is how platforms communicate and mitigate those risks. BuyProperly's official risk factors page describes several points investors may want to understand:
Total loss risk: The disclosure states that no assurance can be given that investors in the partnership will realize a profit, that investors may lose some or all of their investment, and that the offering is intended for potential investors experienced in high-risk investments who can afford a total loss.
Rental income uncertainty: The disclosure explains that gross rental income estimates are based on third-party information and are not assured, that lower rents may be secured, and that rental income could stop entirely for certain periods.
Leverage risk: The disclosure notes that the partnership may use third-party debt, that leverage increases the potential for both gains and losses, and that leveraged investments can produce larger losses than unleveraged ones.
These disclosures are standard for investment platforms, and they underscore the importance of rigorous property selection. BuyProperly's current site states that its model analyzes hundreds of factors and evaluates thousands of properties, and it does not publish a percentage of reviewed properties that pass final review. Technology-led screening also differs from institutional underwriting performed by experienced real estate professionals.
What rigorous property vetting should include:
- Detailed cash flow analysis across multiple scenarios (base, bear, bull)
- Comparable property analysis for rent and value projections
- Market-level research on employment trends, population growth, and supply pipelines
- Property-specific due diligence including inspections, title review, and regulatory compliance
- Alignment of interests through platform co-investment
Understanding real estate investing risks is a useful starting point before committing capital to any platform.
Fees and Hidden Costs: What Erodes Your Returns
Fee structures vary across fractional real estate platforms, and the differences accumulate over multi-year holding periods. Nominal annual charges do not compound in themselves, and they may reduce compounding by lowering the amount of capital remaining invested.
What is publicly documented about BuyProperly's fees:
- Annual management fee: A 2021 independent review reported a 2.5% annual fee plus GST/HST based on asset value, and stated that the fee covered platform, property, and fund management. BetaKit reported that BuyProperly charged a management fee without specifying a percentage. A current, platform-wide official fee schedule was not located, and fee terms may differ by offering.
- Property-level expenses: The 2021 review indicates property management was covered within the annual fee. No evidence of a separate additional property-management charge was identified, and property-level expenses are addressed at the individual offering level.
- Upfront and transaction fees: A comprehensive public fee schedule identifying any subscription, acquisition, offering, transaction, disposition, or marketplace fees was not located across the terms of use, FAQ, or investments pages. Fee terms are set out at the individual offering level.
Illustrative five-year cost scenario on a $10,000 investment
This is a simplified hypothetical, not a quoted schedule. It assumes the fee is assessed once annually, that the fee base remains exactly $10,000 for all five years, and that the investor remains invested for the full period. An AUM fee based on the investment's current value would ordinarily rise or fall with that value, so actual charges would depend on the applicable offering terms and the valuation used to calculate the fee.
| Fee Component | BuyProperly hypothetical (1.25% to 2.5%) | Recurring AUM fee at mogul |
|---|---|---|
| Year 1 AUM | $125 to $250 plus taxes | $0 |
| Year 2 AUM | $125 to $250 plus taxes | $0 |
| Year 3 AUM | $125 to $250 plus taxes | $0 |
| Year 4 AUM | $125 to $250 plus taxes | $0 |
| Year 5 AUM | $125 to $250 plus taxes | $0 |
| 5-Year Total | $625 to $1,250 before GST/HST | $0 recurring AUM fee |
Note on the range used above: the 2.5% figure comes from the 2021 independent review. The 1.25% lower bound appears in third-party commentary rather than a current BuyProperly disclosure, so the range is not an established 2026 platform-wide fee.
Note on the comparison column: the $0 figures refer to a recurring annual AUM fee on invested equity. As detailed in the mogul section below, mogul's public pages disclose up to 5% in one-time capitalized platform and setup fees, plus an ongoing fee equal to 2.5% of collected rental income, so its recurring economics are tied to rental performance rather than to invested equity.
The key distinction is structural: an AUM fee is charged on asset value rather than on performance. If a property generates less income than expected, an AUM-based fee is still assessed. How platform compensation lines up with investor outcomes is therefore worth close attention.
Some platforms structure fees differently, charging a recurring fee only as a percentage of actual rental income collected. This can improve alignment around rental performance.
Tax Implications and Legal Structures
The legal structure behind an offering affects how investors report income, claim deductions, and handle capital gains. BuyProperly's public disclosures describe several distinct roles that should not be collapsed into one:
- The risk factors page concerns BuyProperly limited partnerships
- An affiliate of BuyProperly Limited acts as the general partner and manages the partnership
- BuyProperly's terms of use describe the platform as a software service provider rather than a broker-dealer or investment adviser
- Securities activity is conducted through Meadowbank Asset Management, an affiliate, another registered dealer, a funding portal, or the issuer, depending on the offering
- Current offerings may come from unrelated third-party issuers
Key considerations:
- Partnership taxation: Investors in a Canadian limited partnership generally report their allocated share of partnership income or loss. BuyProperly also lists products using other structures, including REITs and crowdfunding opportunities, so tax reporting is determined by each issuer's offering documents.
- International investors: May face withholding requirements and treaty considerations
- Depreciation benefits: Availability depends on the specific structure, the offering terms, and the investor's tax situation
- Capital gains treatment: Timing and rates depend on holding period and investor jurisdiction
BuyProperly's risk disclosure notes that the company reserves the right to dispose of properties held by the partnership and return net proceeds to investors "in its sole discretion." Taxable events may therefore occur on timelines set by the platform.
For comparison, some U.S. property LLCs taxed as partnerships may allocate depreciation and other tax items to members, subject to the operating agreement and applicable tax limitations. Federal tax treatment depends on the LLC tax classification as a disregarded entity, partnership, or corporation, and deductions may be restricted by basis, at-risk, and activity-limitation rules described in IRS Publication 925. Voting and governance rights likewise depend on the operating agreement and are not necessarily proportional to capital ownership. The tax benefits of real estate investing are one part of evaluating structure, alongside each investor's own circumstances.
Performance Claims vs. Reported Returns
In a 2021 press release, BuyProperly described expected returns of 20% to 40%. Some legacy BuyProperly blog articles instead referred to projected annual returns of 10% to 40%. These were projections rather than audited realized returns, and the 20% to 40% range was not located on the principal current product pages reviewed in July 2026.
What was not located in BuyProperly's public performance materials:
- No published deal-level historical performance
- No public platform-wide audited return report
- No portfolio-level realized returns
- No secondary market trading statistics
- Metrics that vary across platform pages
Individual issuers or partnerships may provide financial information privately to investors, so the absence of public reporting is an observation about public materials rather than an indication that no audited statements exist.
BuyProperly's own risk disclosure states that past performance does not assure future results, and that historical returns, expected returns, or probability projections may not reflect actual future performance.
What transparent performance reporting looks like:
- Published average IRR across all properties
- A public calculation methodology, including inclusion criteria and the treatment of fees, leverage, and unrealized appreciation
- Deal-by-deal performance breakdowns
- Independent audit or assurance where available
- Regular investor updates with actual results
The relationship between marketed expectations and reported results matters for investment decisions. Platforms that publish their methodology allow investors to make data-driven decisions rather than relying on projections alone.
Comparing Fractional Real Estate to Other Investments
Fractional real estate offers distinct characteristics compared with both traditional direct ownership and other investment vehicles like REITs.
Fractional ownership vs. direct property ownership:
- Lower capital requirements
- No personal mortgage obligations
- Professional property management
- Geographic diversification potential
- Reduced operational complexity
Fractional ownership vs. REITs:
- Direct ownership in specific properties vs. pooled fund exposure
- Individual property selection vs. fund manager decisions
- Asset-level transparency vs. portfolio-level reporting
- Potential tax advantages through depreciation pass-through, subject to structure and individual circumstances
Real estate has long played a role in portfolio construction as an income-producing, inflation-sensitive asset class with return drivers that differ from public equities. Headline comparisons warrant care: home-price indices such as Case-Shiller measure changes in the value of existing single-family housing and are not total-return indices for single-family rental investments, because they exclude rental revenue, vacancy, operating costs, maintenance, financing, transaction costs, taxes, insurance, and capital expenditures.
Fractional platforms capture real estate's advantages in different ways. Platform selection meaningfully influences net returns through fee structures, property quality, and operational efficiency.
Building a Diversified Real Estate Portfolio
Fractional investing enables diversification strategies previously available only to institutional investors or high-net-worth individuals.
Diversification approaches:
- Geographic diversification: Properties across multiple markets reduce regional concentration risk
- Property type diversification: Mix of short-term, mid-term, and long-term rentals
- Hold period diversification: Staggered investment timing for liquidity management
Tools like investment property calculators and Airbnb calculators help investors analyze potential returns across different strategies and markets before committing capital. mogul's investment property calculator analyzes any U.S. address and allows users to modify hold period, financing, leverage, and interest-rate assumptions across base, bear, and bull scenarios. These are projection tools, and their output does not assure future performance.
When evaluating platforms for portfolio construction, consider:
- Range of property types available
- Geographic footprint of offerings
- Track record across market cycles
- Fee impact on long-term returns
- Liquidity options for portfolio rebalancing
Why mogul Takes a Different Approach
mogul is a fractional real estate platform club founded by former Goldman Sachs executives Alex Blackwood and Joey Gumataotao, who worked in Goldman Sachs' Real Estate Investing group and bring more than $10 billion in combined institutional real estate transactional volume. Joey built Goldman Sachs' single-family rental platform from scratch to over $1 billion in AUM in 12 months. They founded mogul to make the world's largest wealth generator, real estate, accessible to more investors, and the platform now serves 13,000+ investors. mogul is built around institutional-quality single-family rentals across short-term and mid-term strategies, with professionally vetted and managed properties, monthly dividends, real-time appreciation, and tax benefits.
According to mogul's own history, the founders sought institutional-caliber real estate opportunities for their own capital and built the platform they wanted to invest in. mogul is structured to address several considerations associated with some fractional real estate platforms, particularly recurring AUM fees, distribution frequency, and property-level transparency.
Fee structure: mogul states that it charges no recurring AUM fee on invested capital. Its current public pages disclose up to 5% in one-time capitalized platform and setup fees, comprising a 3% one-time platform fee and up to a 2% one-time setup fee where preparation is required, plus an ongoing fee equal to 2.5% of collected rental income. Because the recurring platform fee is based on collected rental income rather than a percentage of invested equity, mogul's economics are tied directly to rental performance.
Reported performance: mogul publicly reports an 18.8% average IRR across platform assets, a figure its published comparison presents alongside 9.8% for the S\&P 500, and it provides property-level underwriting and performance information so investors can evaluate each asset directly.
Investor protection offer: mogul offers first $10k protection for new members, covering up to $10,000 in losses in the first year based on investments made during a member's first seven days on the platform. BuyProperly does not disclose a comparable platform-sponsored offer, though investors on any platform may have regulatory, statutory, dealer-related, or insolvency protections depending on the offering and intermediary.
Property selection: mogul states that fewer than 1% of reviewed properties pass its diligence process, which it describes as including proprietary underwriting, automated valuation models, comparable-market analysis, property inspections, and investment-committee review.
Co-investment: mogul states that it co-invests in every property offered on the platform, aligning its economic interests with those of platform investors.
Monthly distributions: mogul states that investors receive rental-income distributions proportional to their ownership interest on a monthly basis once a property is operational, alongside real-time appreciation and tax benefits. Distribution amounts reflect each property's revenue, expenses, reserves, and offering terms.
Structure: mogul states that individual properties are held through property-specific LLC structures, which it says may provide investors with proportionate governance rights and pass-through depreciation allocations, subject to the offering documents and each investor's tax circumstances.
Community and rewards: mogul Clubs distribute up to 2% in rewards to members, and mogul's Give $50, Get $50 referral program pays members $50 when a friend they refer invests. 90% of mogul investors invest a second time, and when they do, it is typically 3x their first investment.
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Disclaimer: The information provided in this guide is for educational purposes only and does not constitute financial, tax, or legal advice. Always consult with a licensed professional before making any financial or investment decisions.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does BuyProperly's AI-driven property selection compare to institutional underwriting?
BuyProperly's current property page states that its sourcing model analyzes hundreds of factors and evaluates thousands of properties; in 2021 the company said its AI had evaluated more than 1.5 million data points in its selection process. While technology can process large datasets efficiently, AI-first approaches differ from institutional underwriting in key ways. Institutional processes typically combine quantitative analysis with qualitative judgment from experienced professionals who have underwritten deals across market cycles. AI models also require historical data to function, which may not capture unprecedented market conditions. A useful question when comparing platforms is whether the process relies primarily on algorithmic screening or combines technology with human expertise from seasoned real estate professionals, as mogul's institutional underwriting does.
What happens if BuyProperly decides to sell a property before my preferred timeline?
BuyProperly's risk disclosure reserves the right to dispose of properties at its sole discretion. This means sales can occur outside investor preferences, potentially triggering taxable events at times investors did not select. The disclosure adds that such a sale may return substantially less than was invested and that its timing may crystallize taxable income sooner than expected. Disposition timing therefore sits with the platform under those terms, which is a factor in tax planning and return expectations.
Are BuyProperly's investments suitable for retirement accounts?
BuyProperly operates primarily in Canada with expansion into U.S. markets, which adds complexity for retirement account investments. If a particular BuyProperly security is eligible for purchase through a U.S. retirement account, its structure and use of debt bear on potential unrelated debt-financed income. UBTI is not an automatic result of holding a partnership interest, and this article did not identify a BuyProperly offering document establishing that such income would arise. Additionally, the five-year lock-in disclosed for certain partnership offerings may not align with retirement planning timelines that require flexibility. Retirement account compatibility varies by platform and by individual tax circumstances.
What recourse do investors have if BuyProperly's performance differs from projections?
BuyProperly's risk disclosure states that no securities regulatory authority has approved the securities, and its terms of use describe the platform as a software service provider rather than a registered broker-dealer or investment adviser. Ordinary underperformance generally does not create a right to reimbursement, and no platform-sponsored loss coverage is disclosed. BuyProperly's conditions apply page describes statutory rights of action for misrepresentation, including potential rescission or damages, subject to statutory conditions, defenses, and limitation periods, including a 180-day period for rescission. Separately, Canadian Investor Protection Fund coverage, where applicable, protects eligible property held by a member firm if that firm becomes insolvent; it does not insure market losses or performance outcomes. Whether any particular transaction receives such coverage depends on the dealer, account, custody arrangement, and product.
How do currency fluctuations affect Canadian investors in BuyProperly's U.S. properties?
For Canadian investors accessing U.S. property offerings, currency exchange rates add another variable to returns. For an unhedged Canadian investor receiving U.S.-dollar cash flows, appreciation of the Canadian dollar generally reduces the CAD value of those flows, while depreciation generally increases it. Outcomes also depend on acquisition and disposition exchange rates, fees, financing currency, and any hedging. An explicit foreign-exchange-risk discussion was not located on the public marketing pages reviewed, though offering memoranda, subscription documents, or dealer disclosures may address it. Investment currency, distribution currency, conversion costs, and hedging policies are set out at the individual offering level.