Real Estate Crowdfunding Hold Periods and Liquidity

Short-term real estate loans on platforms such as Groundfloor run 6 to 18 months, single-property equity deals such as Arrived's are meant to last five to seven years, and evergreen funds have no end date, so your principal comes back only through capped quarterly redemptions. Money comes back through a sale, a refinance, a loan payoff, a fund buyback, or a sale of your stake to another investor, and the sponsor or fund manager controls the timing of all but the last. None of these exits is guaranteed on schedule: Groundfloor notes can extend up to two years past maturity, and Fundrise's eREIT filled only about a third of redemption requests in the second quarter of 2026.

How long is money committed, by offering type?

Terms differ by offering, so check the documents for each one. These examples come from issuers' SEC filings:

For how these offerings fit together, see what real estate crowdfunding is.

How does money come back from a single deal?

• Sale. The sponsor sells the property and pays lenders first, then investors in the order the operating agreement sets. Equity vs debt crowdfunding shows who is paid first when the price disappoints.
• Refinance. If the property's value and income have risen, the sponsor can replace the loan with a larger one and pay out the difference, returning part of your money while you keep your stake. This works only if a lender will make the larger loan, which depends on the property's income and on rates at the time.
• Loan payoff. Debt investors are repaid when the borrower pays off the loan, which Groundfloor says typically comes from selling the finished project or from new financing. If a Groundfloor loan is still unpaid at maturity, the payment date on your note extends automatically by up to two years, and Groundfloor owes nothing more after that date even if you have not been repaid in full.

In each case the sponsor or lender decides the timing. An investor in a single deal generally has no power to force a sale.

What limits fund redemptions?

Evergreen funds let you ask to cash out, but their rules cap how much they pay out each quarter.

Non-traded REIT funds. Fundrise's eREIT limits redemptions to 2.5% of its net asset value (NAV), its estimate of what its holdings are worth, per quarter, which the manager may raise to 5%. Shares held less than five years are redeemed at 99% of NAV, and each request is capped at the lesser of 5,000 shares or $50,000. The manager may amend, suspend, or end the plan at any time without notice. In the quarter ended June 30, 2026, the first after several Fundrise funds merged into it, investors asked to redeem about 7.26 million shares. The fund paid for about 2.4 million, roughly a third, after the manager set that quarter's limit at 4% of NAV, and requests for about 4.86 million shares went unfilled. Our Fundrise review covers the platform's other terms.

Interval funds. Fundrise's Real Estate Interval Fund must offer each quarter to buy back 5% to 25% of its shares, and its prospectus says it will likely offer only the 5% minimum. When requests exceed the offer, it may buy up to 2% more of its shares; beyond that it buys pro rata, the same percentage of each request, so you may sell only part of what you ask to. For the rest, you must submit a new request in the next quarterly offer, with no priority over other shareholders. It charges no repurchase fee now but may charge up to 2% later. Its prospectus says it can suspend or postpone an offer only with approval from a majority of its independent directors, and only in narrow cases set by SEC rules, such as an emergency that makes selling its assets or valuing the fund impractical.

Can you sell your stake to another investor?

Sometimes, with limits set by securities rules and the offering's own documents:

• Regulation Crowdfunding securities cannot be transferred for one year after they are issued, except to the issuer, an accredited investor, a family member, or as part of a registered offering.
• Regulation D securities are restricted. The SEC's investor bulletin says the usual resale rule requires holding them at least a year when the issuer does not file periodic reports, that your purchase agreements may restrict or bar transfers, and that you should be prepared to hold them indefinitely.
• Platform trading windows: Arrived's single-home shares cannot be redeemed, but holders can post buy and sell orders during a one-week trading window each month. Shares bought in the initial offering qualify once the home is fully funded and you have held them at least 6 months, shares bought in a trading window can be resold starting with the next window, and the executing broker may take up to 2.5% of each sale. Arrived's offering circular warns that orders may not match, so there is no guarantee of a sale at your price or at all.
• Loan notes: Groundfloor's notes have no market, and the company says it will not take part in any transfer.

How do you plan for a hold that runs long?

Projected holds slip when sponsors wait out a bad market or borrowers cannot repay. Short-term debt runs long too: Groundfloor writes 6- to 18-month loans, yet at the end of 2025 it still carried $13.5 million of loans made in 2022 or earlier, all classified as in fundamental default, its category for loans that may not repay full principal.

1. Before each purchase, work out what you would do if the money came back two or more years late, and commit only money whose late return would not force you to borrow or sell something else at a loss.
2. Buy in over several years so deals and loans come due at different times; diversifying across deals shows example schedules by budget.
3. Before relying on a fund for cash, compare its quarterly cap with the redemption requests it reports in its SEC filings, and note the date your shares pass the penalty period.
4. Keep money you may need on short notice in assets you can sell on any trading day. Crowdfunding vs REITs compares listed REIT shares, which trade daily, with crowdfunding.

If a hold runs long because the deal is in trouble, crowdfunding risks and downsides covers capital calls, dilution, and redemption suspensions.