The RECFEN Group's first New York City Meetup last Tuesday night, March 10th, was a hit, with well over 100 people who joined us for the evening. The idea behind this first NYC event of the year was to organize an evening where people interested in real estate crowdfunding could congregate, catch up, and hear from a variety of industry participants in an informal setting.
The event was hosted at the offices of Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP in Times Square, across from where the New Year's 'ball' sat placidly on the roof of it's building, but still sparkled brightly all night. And by all night, I mean that the event was so well attended and so high energy that we were there long after the stated 8:30 end-time, and security and cleaning crews had to usher the last of us out, all talking about where to go and continue the great conversations that had been underway for over 3 hours.
Related Article: Patch of Land Downtown Los Angeles RECFEN Meetup
The team at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP presented one of the best food spreads I have seen in a long while, and luckily I grabbed a few bites before everyone arrived because we packed the house, and I never made it back to the banquet. There were several representatives from companies engaged in some form of real estate crowdfunding or peer to peer lending, real estate investors, borrowers, developers, and other industry experts like the board of CIFRA, service companies active in regulatory, compliance, SDIRA, accounting and of course, legal.
RECFEN Meetup in Times SquareThe Meetup began with Brian Korn of Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP giving an overview of a 5-part paper he will soon publish on critical topics to real estate crowdfunding and peer lending. Then we heard from Patch of Land, Real Partner, Bullseye Capital and Chris Crippen, a certified crowdfunding professional who offers crowdfunding seminars across the country MC’d an open mic session where developers and syndicators spoke about online real estate projects they were crowdfunding, borrowers talked about getting loans with Patch of Land, investors on and in platforms asked about legal structures, Scott Purcell of Fundamerica explained the current regulatory framework around crowdfunding and the Board of Directors for CIFRA spoke about the work they are doing with the SEC and FINRA to help establish rules, industry standards and best practices.
Related Article: The SEC Discusses the Definition of An Accredited Investor
Newark, NJ Development TeamIt was also great to see three of our north east real estate operators who are doing big things out of Newark, New Jersey. A high point in the evening was when a member of the audience asked if any real estate developers were in the room who had successfully funded deals on the Patch of Land Platform. He is an active investor and was very pleased he was able to meet the three gentleman in person whom he helped finance.
I’d like to extend my thanks for everyone who made the evening a success, including my marketing team, Brian Korn and his team and shout out to IMN and Nadia of Marketplace Lending Meetup for sharing our event with their social media networks. We’re already planning the rest of the year’s Meetups, and needles to say, we’ll have another one in NYC, so please stay tuned by joining the Meetup Main Group, the LinkedIn Group, and following me on the usual social media channels (@adapia).
Were you able to attend this, or any of our RECFEN Meetup events? How was your experience? Where would you like us to have our next RECFEN Meetup Group event? Please leave a comment and let us know.
