Buying Bricks

Few experiences create the feelings of achievement, satisfaction and security that come with the purchase of home for yourself. And, if well researched, the purchase of a residential property can also prove a very good long term investment.

But always be cautious in dealing with persons advertising “cheap and easy” forms of property purchase or investment.

The BrickX Platform (website https://www.brickx.com/) enables people to purchase very small interests in residential properties. In order to invest in a property through the BrickX Platform, you purchase “fractional interests” called BrickX. 10,000 BrickX are issued in relation to each property. The purchase of one Brick gives you a 1/10,000th interest in the property, so investors will obviously want to purchase more than one Brick, and there usually seem to be about 1,000 investors sharing ownership in any one property.

Since it was founded in 2014, the BrickX Platform has acquired 19 residential properties with an aggregate value of approximately $20m, so it has not grown at a particularly rapid rate.

The BrickX Platform advertises itself as a clever way of breaking into the residential property market, but its performance has been criticised by respected investor advisors. Read, for example, the Barefoot Investor commentary note at http://barefootinvestor.com/qna/buying-bricks/. Subsequent history appears to support the Barefoot Investor criticisms, because the resale value of Brickx issued for a property examined in the Barefoot Investor note has fallen by 12.5% in the 3.5 years that have elapsed since the note was published. And in what could be viewed as a self-admission that its investment strategy might be flawed, the BrickX Platform has announced that it will from now on seek to invest in higher yielding industrial and commercial properties.

We don’t wish to pass judgement on the performance of the BrickX Platform, but caution that it should not be viewed as a clever way to break into the property market. It is simply an option available for the investment of your money, and before investing you should carefully research its performance to date against the performance of alternative investments.