Crowdfunded Tokyo condos appeal with 5% yield

Tokyo

TOKYO'S crowdfunded condominiums are luring individuals with the promise of a 5 per cent yield in a land of benchmark interest rates near zero out to five years.

Tatsushi Iwano, a former fund manager at Goldman Sachs Group Inc in Tokyo and Rockpoint Group LLC, is aiming to finance 10 billion yen (S$117 million) of office and residential projects with cash raised on the Internet in 2017.

His company, Loadstar Capital KK, made its first such loan last month, extending 20 million yen to a borrower with a four-storey condominium in western Tokyo as collateral, Mr Iwano said. "Individual investors aren't satisfied with low yields in the market, but they don't have many options, especially in real estate," Mr Iwano, 42, said. "There aren't that many indi…