Arrived
Breaking Down Barriers in Real Estate Investing
by Carole VanSickle Ellis
Early in his career, Ryan Frazier, co-founder and CEO of Arrived, moved around a lot. Frazier founded another company before Arrived, and he was on the go constantly during the nine years he ran that company. “I was never in the same place long enough to where it made sense to start investing in real estate and building home equity,” he recalled.
That sense of not having the time or geographical stability to start investing in home equity got Frazier thinking. “I wanted to really nail down what home equity could look like for me, a person that, at the time, was not sure where I was going to settle down long-term or what might be best for me as a personal residence,” he recalled.
Frazier began looking at real estate asset classes that will likely sound familiar to readers: real estate funds, REITs, and private investments.
“It just was not really fulfilling the need I had, which was being able to invest more in residential assets in cities I was living in without having to settle down in those cities,” Frazier explained.
As a result, Frazier and his co-founders, Kenny Cason and Alejandro Chouza, put their heads together and created Arrived, a real estate investing platform designed to make real estate investing accessible to as many people as possible.
“We wanted anyone to have the ability to buy shares of an individual rental home in a specific city, starting from investments as low as $100,” Frazier said. “We wanted both accredited and unaccredited investors to be able to invest. That idea got us excited about working on the problems that Arrived is designed to solve.”
Of course, creating an investment vehicle with that degree of flexibility and accessibility was not easy. In fact, it took more than a year of working with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to ultimately forge a process that would enable the company to “essentially IPO an individual house,” as Frazier describes it, with the additional caveat that it is not a direct comparison.
“We had to create a model that enabled us to do that efficiently using a templated document so that we could carry out the process over and over with lots of individual properties,” he said. “The end result was a repeatable model that we have used successfully on more than 500 properties so far, enabling non-accredited investors to participate in a regulatory compliant manner.”
The company submits massive volumes of audited financial statements for every property it places on the platform for funding each year, creating a complicated system on the back end that leads to a streamlined, fully disclosed process that appeals to accredited and non-accredited investors alike.
“They all get the benefit of all the investor disclosures and audited financials,” Frazier said. “It is good for everyone.”
Breaking Down Barriers & Bringing People Into Real Estate Investing
When Frazier looks back at the early days of his company, he sees three clear barriers to real estate investing that directly lead to his interest in creating a platform like Arrived. “Capital is one of those barriers,” he started, explaining why it was important to the founders to get the minimum investment amount down to $100. As a result of this low initial investment, customers like Benyam, a Seattle bus driver who had come to the United States from Ethiopia but had yet to purchase his own property, was able to begin investing in real estate. Today, Frazier said, Benyam has thousands of dollars invested on Arrived, largely stemming from that initial investment.
“It is really important for people to not have to save up a massive down payment before they get started,” Frazier explained. “People are able to get started investing on Arrived today, then build up their investments over time as they have the capital available to do so.”
Frazier cited the time and expertise required to locate a good real estate investment as another ubiquitous barrier to investing in the asset class, along with the time and expertise involved in acquiring and managing assets. “We wanted to remove these barriers if possible and, if not, then make them as small as possible in order to get a lot more people owning real estate,” he said.
These logistics fall under the realm of Arrived head of asset management Patrick J. Anderson, who has been working with Arrived almost since the beginning.
“I was the tenth hire, and the first on the investments team,” Anderson said. “That means I’ve been hands-on through the building of Arrived operations and real estate operations for quite some time.”
Anderson and his team handle the logistics of acquisition and purchase of properties, from going under contract to due diligence and making an offer, including determining if the asset will be operated as a long- or short-term rental. Once the property has been acquired, the team also plays a role in overseeing the management by third-party partners and, ultimately, disposition of the asset.
“It is not a traditional asset-management role, but we are very logistically and operationally focused,” Anderson said. “There is always a level of innovation we sprinkle in.”
Anderson spent many years with Amazon corporate, which enabled him to bring a number of operational and efficiency strategies with him to Arrived when he joined the company. “There are a lot of synergies between how real estate operations should run and how Amazon, as a company, operates,” he explained. “It’s been exciting to implement that and share the knowledge with the rest of the team.”
Anderson spotted Arrived early when he was reading a GeekWire article about the young startup.
“I immediately sent a cold call direct message to the COO letting him know I was interested in the company,” Anderson said. Six months later when the company received SEC approval, launched its first properties for sale, and acquired seed funding, they called him and made the offer.
“I said, ‘You’re right. Let’s go.’” Anderson gave Amazon his notice and ultimately moved to Arrived, a decision he has never regretted. “I’m as passionate today about our goals and about the company as I was when I made that jump,” he said.
Built from the Beginning for Massive Scale & Impact
Although Arrived has been in business for just about five years, the company started as it intended to continue: with big, big plans. This was intentional, Anderson said. “When you look at how the website is put together, how information flows from the acquisition of the asset, the legal structure, and the data flow through the website and all the way to the investors, it is built as if we are already standing right next to the big REITs. We may not be anywhere near the door count of American Homes for Rent or Invitation Homes, but we are set up in such a way that as we continue to grow, we do not have to put more costly investments into our infrastructure because we have built since day one knowing we are going to be a very big player in the game.”
That mindset, said Anderson, is a big part of why the company has such a strong record of hiring enthusiastic and dedicated people onto its teams. “There is an enthusiasm we all have, and it’s for a very good reason,” he said. “It is exciting to watch this unfold, to continue to see growth, and to see the retail investors’ enthusiasm matching ours.”
That enthusiasm becomes extremely important as Arrived teams begin evaluating potential assets for purchase and looking into different revenue-generating strategies for different assets. “We look at properties with the consideration that these properties will be 100% remotely operated for the foreseeable future, and that takes a lot of potential acquisitions off the table,” Anderson explained. “There can be a great value-add opportunity, but if we need to be on-site to ensure the right things are prioritized, it may not be a good investment for us. We are not willing to put our investors at that kind of risk, and we do not compromise on our buy box.”
By the time Anderson is done describing that buy box, properties that fit inside sound similar to the Holy Grail. However, Anderson said, that is deliberate. “We have very lofty goals, and we have to prove our investment strategy over and over with every acquisition. We are not just looking to make a quick buck. We have investors who are investing their first $100 in real estate, and they are going to only buy something they are confident will be successful. They are trusting us, and we take it very, very seriously.”
Part of taking investors seriously at Arrived means transparency of asset status and condition. Investors using Arrived can track the progress of any given investment, including watching the “percentage funded” numbers scroll upward in real time and monitoring when a property has gone to market as a rental, when a resident application is approved, and when tenants start paying rent. “We want to always avoid creating ‘analysis paralysis’ for investors, but they do need the opportunity to review a property however they like,” Anderson said.
Arrived also offers assets outside of the single-family residential (SFR) box. When the company finds a good fit, they may shift a property from a long-term rental strategy to a short-term one, like their vacation rentals asset column. Karlii Jahn, Arrived’s head of vacation operations, handles this asset class, overseeing every aspect of the guest experience and backend operations from making sure the pool is clean to meeting all high standards of hospitality for guests. Arrived has vacation rentals in a total of 17 markets, including the Instagram-famous “The Byers House,” which was featured in exterior scenes in the award-winning series “Stranger Things.”
The Byers House property is a fan-driven project and, although unaffiliated with Netflix, is an immersive vacation rental that features authentic 80s décor, Easter eggs from the series, and nostalgic memorabilia. The Byers House is not the only unusual short-term rental, Jahn noted. Another home, located in Scottsdale, Arizona, offers a paint-and-sip experience for vacation-goers. Both of these properties are fully funded by Arrived investors.
“Those were really exciting launches. They were definitely highlights of my time with Arrived so far,” Jahn said. These projects ultimately influenced other vacation rentals, such as a home with an art studio in the garage of the property. “It really shows the impact we can have on people’s vacations and on these properties’ values,” she added.
Arrived also owns a number of other more traditional vacation-rental offerings, all of which benefit from the same level of supervision and service dedicated to the higher-profile rental properties.
“We are deeply focused on the guest experience and, by extension, the investor experience because happy guests lead to strong, long-term returns,” Jahn said. “Unique and well-operated vacation homes are more than just assets; they are destinations that make lasting memories for families. This is just one more way in which Arrived serves as a simple and accessible way to get involved in real estate investing.”
SIDEBAR 1
By the Numbers
0.2 // percentage of properties selected for Arrived offerings of all the properties evaluated by the Arrived team
$12 Million // dividends and interest Paid Out to investors so far
2 // number of funds currently managed by Arrived
96% // single-family residential properties reported a 96% stabilized occupancy rate (April 2025)
100% // the Arrived Single Family Residential Fund reported 100% stabilized occupancy (April 2025)
8.1% // the Arrived Private Credit Fund reported 8.1% annualized yields (July 2024)
65 // number of markets in which Arrived is currently invested
452 // The number of Arrived rental homes that have been funded by investors
$251 Million // Tens of thousands of people have used Arrived to fully fund hundreds of properties
$100 // The minimum amount an investor can invest in an asset
50,000 // investors currently using the Arrived platform
SIDEBAR 2
The Arrived Way to Invest in Real Estate
Arrived is probably best known for its dedication to making investment in single-family residential (SFR) homes accessible to any investor with $100 available to partially fund an asset. However, that low barrier to investment is just one element of the Arrived investing process. Arrived offers multiple investment vehicles, including:
Pre-vetted rental properties
These properties may be short- or long-term rental properties that have been evaluated and selected for funding by the Arrived team of real estate experts.
The Arrived Single-Family Residential Fund
When investors buy shares in the Arrived SFR Fund, they are investing in a diverse offering across multiple properties and markets. New homes are added to the fund regularly, making it what Arrived co-founder and CEO Ryan Frazier calls, “the REIT of the future.”
The Arrived Private Credit Fund
The Arrived Private Credit Fund invests in short-term loans that are used to finance professional real estate projects, including property renovations, rehabs, and new-home construction projects managed by real estate professionals. All loans are secured by residential housing and have loan periods ranging from six to 36 months.
Arrived Secondary Market (Coming Summer 2025)
When Arrived launches its Secondary Market this summer, it will enable investors to trade shares of rental properties with other investors. This will enable investors who wish to exit an investment before the end of the holding period to sell shares and investors who may have missed the buy window on specific shares, such as shares of the “Stranger Things” Byers House short-term vacation rental, to acquire these shares after a project has been fully funded. This will increase liquidity and expand access to projects and properties while allowing investors to set their own buy and sell prices. The Arrived Secondary Market has already been through the SEC review process and is on track to launch Summer 2025.
All Arrived investment strategies and vehicles are accompanied with detailed, step-by-step educational guides designed to assist new investors as they learn about different types of real estate and real estate-related assets. “We have created a new way to invest in real estate that makes it easy for anyone and everyone to invest in residential equity and residential credit investments,” Frazier said. “We are still growing really quickly, and we are excited about continuing to add new types of real estate offerings to Arrived so people can diversity into more options.”
Learn more about investing with Arrived by visiting Arrived.com.
