Ascend

THE CHALLENGE OF WEALTH BUILDING FOR RENTERS

For renters, the traditional path to building wealth through real estate has been fraught with challenges. With no ownership stake in the properties they reside in, renters are excluded from the financial benefits of property appreciation and rental income. The dream of homeownership and wealth accumulation has become increasingly elusive over the past decade: as the financialization of real estate and rise in property prices (relative to salaries) have created significant gaps between renting and owning.

Currently, Millennials and Gen Z face unique economic challenges, like student loan debt and a precarious job market, which further hinders their ability to save and enter the housing market. Changing lifestyle preferences, such as WFH and the rise of the gig economy, have also influenced the shift towards renting. 

THE ASCEND PATH®

Ascend’s Rent with Benefits® portfolio provides a groundbreaking solution that allows renters to become part owners of a diversified portfolio of homes. Now, through their investments, crowdfunding investors can also participate in this same portfolio, empowering Ascend to grow, expand our mission, and offer more opportunities for investment to tenants and everyday investors. 

This unique approach aligns renters, investors, and Ascend as the portfolio manager, creating a mutually beneficial relationship: with a shared ownership structure, everyone involved is incentivized to treat our homes and tenants well, fostering a sense of community and long-term value creation. We believe this journey isn’t just about housing, it’s about community, health, and pride. We are building invested communities with you, for you.

SEIZING THE MARKET OPPORTUNITY

We’re targeting the single-family rental (SFR) market, which is a staggering $4 trillion dollar industry. And while most other real estate asset classes are heavily institutionalized, only 3% of this market is currently owned by institutional investors: still plenty of room for growth, and upside for us to capitalize on.

SFR: A SOUND INVESTMENT

The price of single family homes has remained resilient despite interest rates more than doubling, further demonstrating the long-term outperformance of this asset class over public market investments. Now, with generational shifts towards residing in secondary cities and the widespread adoption of remote work, there’s more demand for single-family homes than ever, making the market conditions ripe for SFR investing.

EVERY ASCEND INVESTMENT IS IN THE MONEY

Unlike startup equity investments, the Ascend portfolio minimizes risk and offers an attractive risk-adjusted investment perspective. We hold onto homes for up to 5 years; you make money on annual rental income dividend distributions (once enough cash reserves have been accumulated), and on home price appreciation as homes get sold over time. 

We’re proud to say that the first homes acquired were purchased at an average discount of 20% from market price through our proprietary, data-driven process, which allows us to identify and acquire homes off-market. This demonstrates our ability to identify favorable investment opportunities and secure properties at advantageous prices. Since these first homes have already been purchased, there is no transaction risk for our investors related to those acquisitions! 

Going forward, we’ll be combining our off-market sourcing with opportunistic on-market acquisitions offering a large upside in undertaking basic cosmetic updates to bring properties up to market value. Overall, we expect to still be targeting a consistent average discount of around 20% from market value.     

Aside from value appreciation, Ascend’s single-family rentals are already in operation and cash-flow positive! That means that when you join us as an investor, you’re in on already-profitable assets, with still lots of upside both in terms of rental income, and further home price appreciation.

This is a unique opportunity not often offered to everyday investors. You’re investing in a safe, tried-and-true asset class that has already been acquired – not the operating company. That means your money isn’t going towards salaries, marketing, or overhead costs, as is the case with REITs; you are directly investing into the homes themselves. Your investment is significantly de-risked.

OUR TRACTION

Since starting acquisitions in summer of 2022, Ascend has already closed on more than 10 single-family homes for its Rent with Benefits® portfolio.

However, we’re not stopping there: we’re currently evaluating the financial viability of over 200 homes every month across our target growth markets, aiming to close on an additional 20-30 highly-vetted properties before EOY 2023.

Our homes are already occupied by tenants placed by Ascend, our operating company, and are managed by professional property management. As these tenants get the opportunity to become co-investors through our Renting with Benefits® program, we expect to improve our OPEX through reduced maintenance, vacancy, and turnover costs. 

FRACTIONAL REAL ESTATE INVESTING TOWARDS HOME OWNERSHIP: A WIN-WIN FOR INVESTORS AND TENANTS ALIKE

While other platforms allow individuals to fractionally invest in Real Estate OR to work their way towards homeownership without a downpayment, we do BOTH! Through their fractional real estate investments, our tenants are actively earning returns they can put towards future home ownership - and investors like yourself can pocket the same steady profits, while lifting tenants and contributing to a meaningful mission!

ROADMAP

As of Q4 2023, our portfolio spans six markets: Atlanta, Birmingham, Dallas, Greenville, Kansas City, and Tampa. However, with further capital infusion, we have the opportunity to expand into new markets, leveraging our expertise and market insights to identify attractive investments.

As we scale the portfolio over the next five years, we will in parallel be working towards establishing a footprint in target markets, developing our tech stack to scale for growth, focusing on asset performance, and as the right market conditions develop, starting selling the initial homes to give returns to our investors!

We’re a blend of institutional real estate investors, data scientists and technologists. 

Our team is composed of Real Estate and Finance industry experts who are committed to the mission of financial inclusivity for renters and everyday investors. 

We hope that you will join us on our mission of financial inclusivity for all, as we create an even playing field for people of all backgrounds to benefit from the power of real estate ownership.