Startup lets you buy shares of ultra expensive cars, are houses next?

While the vast majority of cars significantly depreciate in value the moment they are driven off of the showroom floor, for those rare models that become enduring classics there’s typically two barriers to ownership: scarcity and price.

The market for collector cars thus has been limited to those few who were wealthy enough to afford the purchase, limiting ownership of vintage models such as Lotus, Ferrari, and Lamborghini to the select. And the value doesn’t decrease for these vehicles after the point of purchase; over the past decade, the value of classic cars has increased by over 400 percent, according to the Knight Frank Luxury Investment Index.

Rally Rd., a New York based company founded in 2016, offers those of us who would want to own such vehicles the opportunity to do so – or at least a portion of them.

The company selects cars to purchase based on market data that indicates that the vehicle is a good investment designed to yield returns, and then provides users with comprehensive information about the particular vehicle itself, including detailed overviews of the mechanical and visual aspects of the car. In the near future, there are plans to offer 24-hour access to a live stream video for users who have invested, allowing for a real-time connection to investments.

The process is straightforward for the investor.

Rally Rd. purchases the vehicles and maintains the titles. A subsidiary company is then created for each, with the company hosting SEC-registered offerings. Potential investors can then purchase one or more of the 2,000 to 5,000 equity shares in the cars during the investment window. Shares in the cars begin at $50 and increase steadily, depending solely on the car’s valuation, with the company not charging commissions or management fees.

“Each investment on Rally Rd. is essentially a mini public company,” says Christopher Bruno, the start-up’s co-founder and CEO, speaking to CNBC. “Our investors are able to create a custom, diversified portfolio of equity interest in blue-chip collector cars, share by share.”

Once a car is fully funded on the site, trading for that specific vehicle is closed. The company opens the window for trading on vehicles monthly, allowing users to buy and sell stakes in cars that they had previously missed, or those which they no longer want to own. For the investor, such a window allows them to realize increases in the value of their investment.

For example, a 1955 Porsche 356 Speedster’s window for trading closed in December 2018, with shares appreciating 15% from its initial valuation of $425,000 when initially offered, moving from $212.50 to $245.00. Rally Rd.’s inventory is always available for sale, with proceeds from the sale paid to shareholders, as well as additional dividends possible if the car realizes any special revenues, such as being rented for use in a project like a movie or television show. The decision to sell a vehicle from their inventory is made based on information from the vehicle’s investors, collected through their proprietary app, and the company’s advisory board.

With over 20 cars available, investors have a range from which to choose, and the company plans to have 100 in their inventory at the end of 2019. Buoyed by two rounds of funding this year, which netted it $10 million, Rally Rd. is planning to expand their investing opportunity from a website and an app to a vehicle showroom, much like other car dealerships, allowing users of the platform to attend initial offerings of new stock in person, if they so choose.

With the first such showroom set to open in SoHo in New York City, other possible locations for future showrooms include California, Florida, and Texas. To expand their portfolio for the investor, Rally Rd. expects to announce expansions into other arenas in 2019 as well, including investments in art and sports memorabilia, which, as markets, have a more established footprint in fractional ownership opportunities.

Rally Rd. sees these plans for expansion – of both products available for investment and method of doing so—as necessary to engage their diverse investor base. The company has seen a large majority of its users, which they number at over 50,000, come from the ranks of millennials. “They’re investing earlier. They want to see diversification. They’re comfortable investing online,” said Bruno, speaking to CNBC. “They seem to really fit our model very well. They get it immediately.”

We’re seeing the investment world open up to buying shares of alternative assets, even housing.

For now it’s not a mainstream method, but the housing market will be impacted by the creativity blossoming in America. Whether Rally Rd branches out into housing or multifamily is unknown, but others are already testing the waters, so stay tuned.