Concreit vs Groundfloor 2026: $1 Minimum and 6.30% vs $10 for 9.9% — Which Wins?

Corrected October 15, 2026. An earlier version of this page gave Groundfloor Notes as 5.0-8.5% (September 12, 2026) and its Trustpilot score as 2.3/5; Trustpilot now shows 1.8 from 410 reviews (October 15, 2026). Groundfloor's own Notes page (groundfloor.com/notes, read October 15, 2026) lists the 12-month Signature Note at 8.0%, open to all from $1,000; the 8.5% on that page is the 12-month Preferred Note, which is for accredited investors only (Preferred Notes run 7.0% to 9.0%). The latest annual report is the FY2025 Form 1-K filed April 1, 2026 (SEC accession 0001104659-26-038396): the auditor repeated its going-concern doubt, as it has in each of Groundfloor's nine annual reports since fiscal 2017.

The Core Difference

Both platforms lend money to real estate developers and pass interest payments to investors. But the structure couldn't be more different:

Concreit pools all investor capital into a single diversified fund. You own shares in the fund, not individual loans. The fund earns interest across 20 loan participations (Form 1-SA, June 30, 2026), deducts fees, and distributes the remainder weekly to your account. You don't pick loans. You don't analyze individual deals. You set it and let it run.

Groundfloor lets you browse individual fix-and-flip loans, evaluate each one, and decide which to fund. You are making individual lending decisions on specific properties. Higher potential returns, but you bear the diversification risk — if you fund 5 loans and 2 default, your personal default rate is 40% regardless of the platform average.

Returns: Groundfloor Wins on Ceiling, Concreit Wins on Floor

Groundfloor's headline return: ~9.88% average for 2024-25. But this is the platform average, not what you'll earn. Your actual return depends entirely on which loans you pick and how many default. Users on Reddit report personal experiences ranging from 3% (heavy defaults) to 12% (strong selection and diversification). The platform's Notes product narrows this variance: 5.0% (1-month), 6.0% (3-month), 8.0% (12-month Signature Note), 7.0% to 9.0% (accredited-only Preferred Notes), as of October 7, 2026 — all with a perfect payment record since 2018, per Groundfloor.

Concreit's return: a 6.30% annualized payout on a $1.00 price as of October 2026, which is about 6.56% on the $0.96 you pay (our arithmetic). It is not fixed: it was 7.00% from November 2, 2024 until October 4, 2025. The fund spreads loan defaults across 20 loan participations.

If you're choosing purely on returns: Groundfloor's individual loans beat Concreit if you diversify across 30+ loans. Groundfloor's Notes overlap with Concreit's yield range (both in the 5-8% zone), making Notes vs Concreit a closer comparison than it first appears.

The Default Reality: Where the Comparison Gets Honest

Concreit — Default Risk Is Pooled

Concreit held 20 loan participations at June 30, 2026 (Form 1-SA) and 25 notes in the December 31, 2025 investment schedule (Form 1-K; our count, while the 1-K note text says 24 loan participations). When a loan defaults, the impact is diluted across all investors in the fund. With $6,024,926 in 20 participations, the average one is about $301,000, roughly 3.6% of total assets (our arithmetic), so a single default is not a rounding error.

This is the fundamental advantage of a pooled fund structure. Individual defaults don't wipe out a meaningful portion of your account.

The 1-K says all loan participations are secured by the underlying real property; the filings we read do not give a first-lien percentage.

Groundfloor — Default Risk Is Concentrated

The "official" 4.71% uncured default rate (28 of 594 loans) repeated across the web is a third-party figure that appears in no Groundfloor filing. The audited reality: its FY2025 Form 1-K (accession 0001104659-26-038396, filed April 1, 2026) shows 73.4% of the $88.4 million legacy loan book more than 90 days past due at December 31, 2025 ($64.9 million of $88.4 million), up from 27.5% a year earlier, with $50.8 million of loans on nonaccrual and a going-concern doubt from the auditor, as in every Groundfloor 1-K since fiscal 2017. And at the investor level:

If you invest in 10 loans and 2 default, your personal default rate is 20%. If you invest in 5 loans and 2 default, it's 40%. The platform average only applies to you if you hold enough loans to approximate the distribution — which typically means 30+ loans and $3,000+ invested.

Real investor experiences (from Reddit, verified):

• One investor: 24% default rate across 93 investments
• Another: 35% default/extended rate across 40 investments
• Multiple reports of loans stuck in "extended" or "default" status for 2-5 years

The deeper issue: when a Groundfloor loan defaults, your money is frozen. A loan marketed as 6-12 months can lock your capital for 2+ years while foreclosure proceedings work through the courts. There is no secondary market for individual loans. You wait — sometimes for years.

This is the single most important thing to understand before choosing Groundfloor over Concreit. Concreit's monthly redemption doesn't come with that risk.

Liquidity: Concreit Wins Clearly

Concreit: Monthly redemptions. The offering circular says shares are redeemed pro rata at the end of each month if funds fall short, the manager may amend or suspend the plan at any time, and leaving costs 2% in the first year, 1% in the second and nothing after. The monthly supplements show a queue forming: in December 2025 requests were $1,355,203 against $304,971 processed, leaving $1,089,712 waiting. Weekly dividend payments are also cash available for reinvestment or withdrawal.

Groundfloor:

• Individual loans (LROs): No secondary market. Money is locked until the loan is repaid (6-18 months targeted) or until foreclosure resolves (potentially 2-5 years if default). True illiquidity.
• Notes: Locked for the term (1, 3, or 12 months). The 30-day and 90-day Rollover Notes have a cancelation window in the first 30 days. After that, locked.
• Flywheel Portfolio: Automatic diversification across loans, but still subject to loan-level illiquidity.
• Stairs: Stairs Notes are Groundfloor Yield LLC notes sold through its app (5 days to 24 months; interest forfeited on early withdrawal); GFY recorded $330,428,702 of Stairs Note proceeds in 2025 (gross, including rollovers).

Winner: Concreit — decisively. Monthly redemption requests are meaningfully more liquid than any Groundfloor product. The caveats: requests are paid pro rata when cash is short, the manager may suspend the plan, and the December 2025 queue shows delays can happen. But this is far less severe than a 2-5 year default lockup on Groundfloor loans.

Fees: Groundfloor Wins on Loans and Notes

Groundfloor's zero-fee model on individual loans and Notes is a genuine structural advantage — they earn from borrowers, not investors. Concreit charges 1% AUM annually, similar to Fundrise. The 1% is charged on NAV by the manager (Form 1-SA, Note 6); the 6.30% in the pricing supplement is a distribution rate, and the filings we read do not say whether it is net of that fee.

If comparing Concreit's 1% fee to Groundfloor's Flywheel Portfolio (0.25-1%), the comparison is close. Concreit vs Groundfloor Notes is where Groundfloor's zero-fee model becomes genuinely differentiated.

Tax Treatment

Concreit: Issues a 1099-DIV. Dividend income, typically at ordinary income tax rates. Simple — plug into TurboTax, done.

Groundfloor: Issues 1099-INT (interest income on loans/Notes) or 1099-OID. Interest income is also taxed at ordinary income rates. Not dramatically different from Concreit on taxation.

Neither platform produces K-1 forms (unlike some Fundrise products). Tax simplicity is roughly equivalent.

Who Should Choose Which?

My Recommendation

Start with Concreit if you're new to real estate debt investing. The $1 minimum, monthly liquidity, and pooled structure remove three major pain points for beginners: capital commitment anxiety, illiquidity risk, and the burden of loan selection. The 6.30% payout (about 6.56% on the $0.96 price, our arithmetic) isn't spectacular, and it was cut from 7.00% in October 2025, but it doesn't come with the nightmare scenario of 35% personal default rates.

Move to Groundfloor Notes if you want higher yield without the loan-picking complexity. At 5.0-8.0% (October 7, 2026, re-read October 15) with zero fees and a perfect payment record since 2018 per Groundfloor, the 12-month Signature Note (8.0%) is above Concreit's 6.30% payout and the 3-month Note (6.0%) is slightly below it — though our forensic Groundfloor Notes review flags the going-concern qualifications in both issuers' SEC filings that the marketing leaves out. The trade-off is term lock-up (no monthly redemption) and the minimum ($100-$1,000 depending on term).

Add Groundfloor individual loans only if you're committed to diversifying across 30+ loans, can tolerate capital being frozen for 2+ years if a loan defaults, and are genuinely interested in underwriting individual fix-and-flip deals. If those conditions don't describe you, the Notes product captures most of Groundfloor's appeal without the default headaches.

The combination that makes sense for most investors: Concreit as your liquid base (emergency-accessible), Groundfloor Notes as your higher-yield locked component, and individual Groundfloor loans only if you cross the 30-loan diversification threshold.

Note: Concreit does not currently have an affiliate program. We recommend them based on research, not financial incentive. We do earn a commission if you sign up for Groundfloor through our link — see our affiliate disclosure.

Concreit figures updated October 7, 2026 from its SEC filings (Forms 253G2, 1-K and 1-SA); other data as of April 2026. Data sourced from Concreit and Groundfloor official platform pages, Groundfloor's 2025 Momentum Report, Trustpilot, Reddit investor discussions, and SmartAsset. Returns are historical and not guaranteed. This article contains affiliate links — see our affiliate disclosure for details.