Crowdfunding the Purchase of the Empire State Building in 1961

Way back in 1961 investors were working on buying the Empire State building and they didn’t enlist a bank to finance it. Instead, they sold approximately 3,300 units at $10,000 each to regular people in the community, especially people that took pride in owning a piece of the most iconic building in the world, so reports a recent NY Times article labelled A Nasty, Epic Battle With Stakes 102 Stories High.

Of course, we should all be so fortunate to make a $10,000 investment and have it be worth $332,000 52 years later (not even counting dividends!) — a great success story for crowdfunding. Now, investing in existing real estate is different than investing in an entrepreneur’s idea, but several core items are the same:

• People invest in people, especially people they already know
• People want businesses in their local community to succeed (not all crowdfunding is for local businesses but I bet the majority goes towards that)
• People are more likely to invest if they can already feel, touch, and experience the product or service (like real estate)

In retrospect, the Empire State building proved to be a great crowdfunding investment. I don’t know how crowdfunding will affect the startup world, but I’m looking forward to seeing it play out.

What else? What are your thoughts on crowdfunding?