Roots vs Fundrise (2026): NAV, Payouts, Fees and Redemptions Side by Side From Their SEC Filings

Why read the filings for this comparison

Search "Roots vs Fundrise" and most of what comes up was written by someone with something to sell: a rival platform's blog, another platform's comparison page, and a comparison page on Roots' own site. None of them puts a filed number next to its source.

Both companies file with the SEC, and those filings answer the questions people actually ask: how the NAV is set, where the payout comes from, what the managers earn, and how fast you can get out. This page sets those answers side by side, with the filing behind each cell. It uses the Roots report filed on September 28, 2026, its first financial report covering 2026.

Disclosure: CrowdfundedWealth has no affiliate relationship with Roots or Fundrise and earns nothing if you invest with either. There are no affiliate links on this page.

Side by side

Every cell is in the downloadable CSV with its accession number. Fundrise markets this fund as its Flagship Real Estate Fund; we reviewed it on its own in our Fundrise Flagship fund review, and Roots in our Roots review.

NAV: one line that has only gone up, one that fell and recovered

Roots' price is reset once a quarter and, per its filings, equals NAV per unit at the end of the previous quarter. Between January 2024 and July 2026 it moved eleven times, and every move was up: $128.00, $131.00, $133.00, $137.00, $140.00, $142.00, $144.00, $147.50, $150.81, $153.07, $155.30. Fundrise's NAV has moved both ways, including a fall from $12.81 to $10.90 across 2022 and 2023 and a drop from $12.52 to $11.93 between June 30 and August 27, 2026.

How each NAV is set matters more than the line. Roots' semiannual report says “NAV is calculated by taking the total non real estate assets plus fair market value of real estate minus total liabilities,” and the fair market values are its manager's. Roots did not sell a single property in the first half of 2025 or 2026, and its offering circular says it has paid $0 in disposition fees in each of 2024 and 2025, so none of the NAV gain has yet been tested by a sale. Its GAAP books tell a different story because homes bought from its sponsor are recorded at the sponsor's old cost and then depreciated: GAAP members' equity was $92.2 million at June 30, 2026, while 865,457 units at $155.30 come to $134.4 million, about 1.46 times as much (our arithmetic).

Fundrise's Flagship fund also holds assets valued by model rather than by market price: at June 30, 2026, 81.9% of its net assets were joint ventures with Fundrise affiliates (single-family homes alone 50.6%), plus an 8.1% stake in the Fundrise Innovation Fund. We broke those holdings down in what the Flagship fund actually holds. The difference is that the fund has had to sell: its first-half 2026 report shows a $164.1 million realized gain on affiliated investments.

Returns and payouts: what each number actually is

Fundrise publishes an audited total return for every year in its financial highlights. Roots does not publish a total return in its SEC filings; the return figures on its website are its own. The closest filed equivalent is the NAV change plus the payouts, which we calculate below.

Where Roots' payout comes from. Roots declared $1.50 a unit for each of the six quarters from March 2025 to June 2026, $3,345,703 for 2025 and $2,374,047 for the first half of 2026. In the same periods it reported a GAAP net loss of $2,422,553 (2025) and $2,190,869 (first half of 2026), and negative operating cash flow of $13.5 million and $11.5 million; in the first half of 2026 the cash-flow statement shows $9.0 million of that going to reduce amounts owed to related parties. Most holders do not take the payout in cash: in the first half of 2026, $2,152,872 of the distributions was used to issue new units and $221,175 was paid in cash. A GAAP loss is not by itself a sign of trouble for a rental REIT, because depreciation ($2.15 million in the half) is a non-cash charge; but it does mean the payout is not covered by reported earnings, and the growth is being paid for with new units ($33.5 million in the half) and new mortgages ($34.6 million).

Fundrise pays almost nothing. Its distributions were $0.03 a share in 2024 and 2025 and $0.01 in the first half of 2026, every cent classified as return of capital, and its annualized distribution rate was 0.21% at December 31, 2025. Its net investment income for the first half of 2026 was a loss of $9.8 million: total investment income of $2.88 million against expenses that included $3.11 million of marketing alone. The fund's return comes from changes in the value of what it owns, not from income.

Fees: a percentage of NAV against a set of property and deal fees

Fundrise has a conventional fund fee table: 0.85% management fee, 0.50% marketing, other expenses and interest, 1.78% in total in the April 30, 2026 prospectus, with no sales load. The actual ratio, including interest on its new borrowing, was 1.58% in 2025 and 2.04% (annualized) in the first half of 2026.

Roots has no fee on NAV. Its offering circular lists what its manager, Roots REIT Management, and its sponsor, Seed InvestCo, can earn, and the semiannual report shows what they did earn. The circular states that these arrangements “are not the result of arm's length negotiations.”

Two points stand out. First, the related-party property-management line rose from $109,943 in the first half of 2025 to $757,492 a year later, while the line for outside property managers fell from $206,933 to $52,826: the manager took over the work. As a share of rent, total property-management cost rose only from about 11.3% to 12.6%; the share paid to the manager went from about 3.9% to 11.8% (our arithmetic). Second, the circular gives two descriptions of the same fee, “a monthly 3% to 4% management fee” calculated on revenue, and “a 10% property management fee, which is calculated as 10% of all rents collected,” and the first-half numbers fit the second. For 2025 the circular reports a sponsor built-in gain of $9,274,815, while the audited 1-K books $5,994,895 of capital reductions for the same year; we did not find a reconciliation of the two figures.

At Roots, the sponsor is on both sides of most deals

Roots' model, as its circular describes it, is that the sponsor buys homes, renovates them, has them appraised, and sells them to the REIT at or below the appraisal. That is disclosed, and the filings let you size it:

• 533 of the 581 properties Roots had acquired by April 30, 2026 were “curated properties purchased from the Sponsor” (91.7%, our arithmetic).
• The latest example: on August 25, 2026 Roots bought 53 townhomes in Mooresville, North Carolina from Flipside 14, LLC, “which is wholly owned by the Company's sponsor” (Form 1-U, September 2, 2026).
• Roots also lends to the sponsor: $30,917,239 was outstanding at June 30, 2026, at 7% interest, for “certain real estate purchases.” That is about a third of Roots' GAAP equity (our arithmetic). It earned $1,026,842 of interest on it in the half.

We went through two of these purchases house by house in Roots' August 2026 affiliate purchase and the 78-home purchase. Fundrise's Flagship fund also invests mainly alongside its own affiliates, through joint ventures, but it is a registered fund with a board, and it charges its fee on net assets rather than on each purchase.

Getting your money out

What actually came out. Roots redeemed $2,963,173 in 2024, $8,859,583 in 2025, $6,765,560 in the first half of 2026 and $2,954,360 from July 1 to September 18, 2026, all while it was taking in far more: $33.5 million of new units in the first half and $19.9 million from July to mid-September. Its sponsor has not redeemed any units. Fundrise bought back $69.3 million (December 2025 deadline), $100.0 million (March 2026) and $69.5 million (June 2026). In the first half of 2026 it paid out $169.1 million for repurchases while selling $106.2 million of new shares, a net outflow of $62.9 million (our arithmetic). Neither filer publishes how much was requested in each window, so neither tells you whether anyone was cut back.

The practical difference: in every period Roots reports, more money came in than went out, so its exit has not yet been tested by net outflows, and its manager can close it without notice. Fundrise's has been tested by large outflows, and its 5% offer is required by its registration. Fundrise's own report warns that “a Shareholder may not be able to sell their shares when or in the amount that they desire.” Our reading of Fundrise's September 2026 offer covers the timing in detail.

Leverage

Roots owes $123.3 million of mortgage principal against $175.9 million of real estate at cost, about 70.1% (our arithmetic), at a 6.62% weighted average rate; its target ceiling is 75% of cost. Most of the loans run to 2030 and beyond; $1,451,329 is due in the next 12 months. Fundrise's balance sheet shows a fund-level term loan of $46.9 million on $1.23 billion of net assets; the joint ventures it owns can carry their own mortgages, which we did not total for this page.

What a reader can do with this

1. Decide which risk you are buying. Roots is one manager's portfolio of Southeast rentals, mostly bought from that manager's sponsor and valued by that manager, with a payout of about 3.9% a year. Fundrise Flagship is a larger registered fund whose value moves with private-market marks and which pays out almost nothing.
2. If you hold Roots, read each quarter's Form 1-U for the new price, the payout and the property purchases, and the Form 1-SA and 1-K for the GAAP result and the related-party lines. The next price reset is due early in the fourth quarter of 2026. Watch for any change to the 5% cap or a suspension, which the manager says it would disclose by circular supplement or Form 1-U.
3. Plan the exit before you buy. On Roots, money redeemed within the first year comes back 8% lower; on both, a request made just after a window closes waits about three months.
4. Size Reg A positions to the rule. If you are not accredited, Roots can take no more than 10% of the greater of your income or net worth.
5. Compare with the cheap public option. A listed REIT index fund costs a small fraction of either and can be sold any trading day; we set Fundrise against one in our Fundrise, Arrived and FISYN comparison.

This is analysis of public documents, not investment, legal or tax advice.

FAQ

Sources: Roots Real Estate Investment Community I, LLC (CIK 1866803) Form 1-SA for the six months ended June 30, 2026 (accession 0001493152-26-044493, filed September 28, 2026), Form 1-K for 2025 (0001493152-26-020769), offering circular on Form 253G2 dated May 12, 2026 (0001493152-26-022456), and Forms 1-U of April 14, July 13 and September 2, 2026 (0001493152-26-016433, 0001493152-26-032995, 0001493152-26-041171); Fundrise Real Estate Interval Fund, LLC (CIK 1777677) Form N-CSRS for the six months ended June 30, 2026 (0001777677-26-000057), Form N-CSR for 2025 (0001777677-26-000017), prospectus on Form 486BPOS of April 30, 2026 (0001213900-26-049518) and repurchase notice on Form N-23C3A of August 28, 2026 (0001213900-26-094717). All read on SEC EDGAR on October 5, 2026. Roots' 2025 and first-half 2026 return figures, shares of rent, ratios and net flows are our arithmetic from those filings; neither company states how much was requested in each redemption window. This is analysis of public documents, not investment, legal or tax advice.