Fundrise vs Arrived vs Groundfloor: Which Wins?

Updated June 21, 2026

They sound interchangeable in the marketing. They're not — and over the last two years, picking the wrong one cost investors more than 30 percentage points versus a basic S&P 500 index fund (acknowledging that's not a like-for-like benchmark, but it's the opportunity cost worth knowing).

Key Takeaways

• Best overall: Groundfloor for investors who want predictable cash flow, $0 platform fees, and 6–12-month maturities — but only if you can stomach a 4.71% uncured default rate. - Best for set-and-forget diversification: Fundrise, despite a brutal -7.45% in 2023, thanks to the $10 minimum and lowest all-in fee at 1%. - Best for tangible single-family ownership: Arrived, but the 3–6% sourcing fee plus 8–25% property management drag makes it the most expensive of the three. - Worst-case scenario matters more than headline returns. Fundrise's 2023 drawdown, Groundfloor's default rate, and Arrived's thin secondary market all bite hardest when you need your money back.

The Comparison at a Glance

The Number That Should Change How You Think About Fundrise

Here's the part most reviews skip: in 2023, 450,000+ Fundrise investors lost 7.45% while the S&P 500 gained 26%, according to analysis from Crowdfunded Wealth. In 2024, Fundrise rebounded to roughly 5.75% net — but the S&P 500 returned 25% again. That's a two-year stretch where a "diversified" Fundrise portfolio underperformed a basic index fund by roughly 35 percentage points, per Financial Samurai's Fundrise performance review.

Recommended reading: Best For

And here's the kicker: Fundrise charges a 1% all-in fee on its flagship funds — and 1.85% on the Innovation Fund — regardless of performance (fundrise.com). In 2023, that meant 450,000+ investors effectively paid Fundrise to lose money. The quarterly redemption windows (April, July, October, January) made it worse: anyone who panicked mid-drawdown couldn't exit until the next window.

That doesn't make Fundrise a bad product. It makes it a specific tool for a specific job — and the same logic applies to Arrived and Groundfloor.

Best For Picks

Best overall: Groundfloor. If you want the cleanest fee structure and the shortest path to seeing whether real estate investing fits you, Groundfloor's $10 minimum, $0 platform fees, and 6–12 month loan maturities are the easiest entry point. Historical returns hover around 10% since 2013, with 9.8% in 2024 (blog.groundfloor.com). The catch: you're lending to fix-and-flip developers, and 4.71% of loans are in uncured default versus a historical loss rate of 0.84%.

Best budget: Fundrise. The $10 minimum for taxable accounts is the lowest in the category, according to NerdWallet's Fundrise review. For someone who wants a small, diversified real estate sleeve without thinking about it, Fundrise is the simplest answer. Just don't expect it to outperform the S&P 500.

Best for tangible single-family ownership: Arrived. If you specifically want fractional ownership of actual rental houses — with the depreciation tax treatment that comes with direct real estate — Arrived is the only one of the three that delivers it. The average investor allocates $3,195 across properties (moneymade.io). The tradeoff is the heaviest fee stack in the category.

Recommended reading: Tax treatment

Fundrise: The Default Choice for Diversified eREIT Exposure

Fundrise manages roughly $2.87 billion in equity across 450,000+ active investors as of 2025, per its public performance disclosures. You buy shares of a non-traded real estate investment trust (REIT) — a fund that owns commercial and residential properties but doesn't trade on a public exchange, which is why redemptions only happen quarterly. Fundrise buys and manages the properties, and you collect distributions on a quarterly schedule.

Pros:
- $10 minimum for taxable accounts — lowest in the category
- 1% all-in fee on flagship funds (0.85% asset management + 0.15% advisory)
- Income Fund delivered 8.30% total return in 2024 with a 7.9% dividend yield, per Crowdfund Insider's Fundrise flagship coverage. - True diversification across geographies and property types
- IRA-eligible (with $1,000 minimum)

Cons:
- -7.45% return in 2023 during the rate-driven commercial real estate repricing
- Quarterly redemption windows only — no daily liquidity
- Innovation Fund's 1.85% fee is hard to justify
- Fees charged on losses, not just gains

Arrived: Fractional Single-Family Rentals

Arrived lets you buy $100 shares of individual rental homes, then collect a share of the rent and any appreciation when the property sells (arrived.com). It's the most tangible of the three — you can look up the actual address.

Pros:
- True real estate ownership with depreciation pass-through tax treatment
- $100 share minimum, accessible to non-accredited investors
- New Private Credit Fund delivering 8.36% yield competes directly with Groundfloor Notes
- You can pick specific properties and markets

Cons:
- 3–6% sourcing fee charged on every property purchase (Wall Street Zen — Arrived Homes Review)
- ~0.60% annual AUM fee on long-term rentals on top of the sourcing fee
- 8% property management fee (15–25% on vacation rentals)
- Secondary market launched November 2025 — early users reported selling only 2 of 6 positions in 3 months
- 6–7% disposition fees when properties sell
- Net dividend yields land at 4–5% after the fee stack

Groundfloor: Short-Duration Real Estate Debt

Groundfloor flips the model: instead of owning real estate, you lend to it. You buy Limited Recourse Obligations (LROs) that fund fix-and-flip developers, earning interest payments until the loan matures in 6–12 months (groundfloor.com).

Recommended reading: Limited

Pros:
- $0 platform fees for investors
- ~10% historical returns since 2013; 9.8% in 2024
- LROs self-liquidate at maturity — no waiting for redemption windows
- $10 minimum per Note
- Short duration means faster reinvestment cycles

Cons:
- 4.71% uncured default rate as of recent disclosures, versus 0.84% historical loss rate
- Interest income taxed at ordinary income rates — brutal at 32–37% federal brackets
- Borrower concentration risk — you're betting on developers, not real estate values
- Recent audit flagged going-concern doubt in filings
- No depreciation or capital gains treatment

Pricing Breakdown

The fee math is where these platforms diverge most.

A $10,000 Arrived investment loses $300–$600 to sourcing fees immediately, plus another $60/year in AUM fees, plus 8% of every rent dollar. A Fundrise investor pays $100/year flat. A Groundfloor investor pays $0, but accepts that some loans won't repay.

How We Evaluated

We compared these platforms based on net after-fee return, liquidity penalty math, worst-case downside, tax treatment, and portfolio fit — drawing on platform disclosures, third-party audit reviews, and verified user data from Crowdfunded Wealth, Financial Samurai, and NerdWallet. We did not test the platforms ourselves. For our full methodology, see /how-we-evaluate/.

The Verdict

Groundfloor wins overall for the investor who actually reads the fee disclosures. $0 platform fees, 6–12 month maturities, and ~10% historical returns are difficult to beat on a risk-adjusted basis — provided you accept the default risk and ordinary-income tax hit. Spread your allocation across 20+ Notes minimum to dilute single-borrower risk.

Fundrise is the runner-up and wins in exactly one scenario: you want a set-and-forget diversified real estate sleeve in an IRA, where the tax-deferred treatment neutralizes the dividend drag and the quarterly liquidity doesn't matter because you weren't going to touch it for 20 years anyway.

Arrived is the niche pick — only worth it if you specifically want fractional single-family equity with depreciation pass-through and you're willing to pay 3–6% upfront for the privilege. For most investors, the fee stack makes the math hard to justify against the other two.

Found an error? At Canopy Press, accuracy comes first. If you spot a claim that needs checking, let us know at [email protected] — we'll verify and correct it immediately.

Sources

• Fundrise Help — What are Fundrise's fees?
• NerdWallet — Fundrise Review 2026
• CrowdfundedWealth — Fundrise Review 2026: Actual Returns, Hidden Fees
• Financial Samurai — Fundrise Performance and Growth Figures
• Financial Samurai — How Is Fundrise Doing? 2024/2025 Outlook
• Crowdfund Insider — Fundrise Flagship Q1 2024 Returns
• Arrived — Official site
• Wall Street Zen — Arrived Homes Review 2026
• FinanceBuzz — Arrived Review 2026
• Moneywise — Arrived Review