Property investment firm Compound offers new way to buy real estate

An entrepreneur is investing in properties and wants to create a traded REIT for the public

Janine Yorio, the head of Compound, a residential funding firm in New York City, says that accredited investors can now add as little as $2,500 into the current pre-IPO Comound Manhattan Residential ReTF.

“New York City is a tremendous opportunity that is shut off to [small] investment,” says Yorio, who was also a former NorthStar executive.

She and co-founder Jesse Stein have invented the “ReTF,” a proprietary financial product “combining the thematic investment strategies and liquidity of an ETF with the property ownership, tax and diversification benefits of a REIT. “We intend to list the ReTFs on an exchange when they are eligible,” she says.

Each fund will target a specific city through a diversified portfolio of residential real estate. While New York is first, Miami and London are also in the works.

Yorio was previously head of development for Andre Balazs at the Standard Hotels. Compound Chief Investment Officer Stein developed a trading platform for real estate securities while at ETRE Financial and partnered with Nasdaq on a series of REIT Indexes.

Backed by a Silicon Valley venture capital firm, Compound is now targeting investors from small family offices and institutions along with foreign and younger investors who love watching HGTV and are fascinated by house fixing and flipping.

“Residential is the gateway drug to real estate investment,” Yorio declares.

Since millennials aren’t familiar with real estate investment trusts, Yorio says Compound will rebrand REITs to “create something that resonates.” “You can invest through your IRA,” she adds.

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