Today's real estate platforms offer you everything from owning an apartment rented by the night to buying a slice of a yacht. It all sounds similar, but it is not. Before comparing returns, separate two things: buying something to enjoy — which generates expenses — and buying something to produce income consistently.
The concept: lifestyle investing and regulatory risk
Lifestyle investing is buying an asset whose main value is the use you get from it: a beach house, a boat, a cabin. It can make sense, but its financial performance competes with the cost of keeping it.
Example: you buy 1/8 of a house in Cartagena. You use it six weeks a year and pay your share of the property tax, the building fees, the maintenance, and the insurance for the other 46.
Regulatory risk is something else: the chance that a rule changes the game after you have already invested. In tourist real estate that risk is very real and very current.
Example: you buy a fraction of an apartment rented by the night and, two years later, the city requires a hotel permit that the building cannot obtain. The apartment is unchanged; the business is not.
Fractional luxury: LaHaus Fraction and LIVO
Platforms such as LaHaus Fraction and LIVO sell the lifestyle investing idea: buying a fraction of an ultra-luxury vacation home or a boat in places like Cartagena.
Where their limit is: they require considerably higher tickets and, on top of the entry, you take on a proportional share of the taxes and maintenance costs of that luxury. The asset costs money even when you are not using it.
The Airbnb rush: InvestWE
InvestWE is highly accessible — you enter with USD $50 — and lets you resell your fractions after three months. Its model relies on short-term Airbnb-style rentals.
Where its limit is: regulatory risk. Cities such as Medellín are enforcing stricter rules against over-tourism, and a building's homeowners association can vote to ban nightly rentals. If that happens, the property stops producing that income overnight.
In plain words: a homeowners association is the body of co-owners in a building and the rules that bind them; over-tourism is when so many homes in a neighborhood become tourist lodging that residents can no longer live there. Example: at a meeting, your neighbors vote to ban nightly rentals. Your fraction stops producing that income even though you were never in the room.
What Circular Urban adds: structure, not roulette
Instead of depending on the legal roulette of tourism or on the expenses of a luxury asset, Circular Urban packages each traditional property into its own SAS (a Colombian simplified stock corporation) and gives you registered shares in that company.
In plain words: registered means the shares are recorded in your name in the company's official ledger. Example: it is not a bearer certificate you can lose or have stolen: it is a record that says "Ana Restrepo holds 2,000 shares," and that record is backed by law.
That structure opens a meaningful tax door in Colombia: if you later sell your shares and they represent less than 3% of the company's outstanding shares, that gain may be exempt from income tax.
In plain words: outstanding shares are all the shares the company has issued, and your percentage comes from comparing yours against that total. Example: if the SAS issued 100,000 shares and you hold 2,000, you hold 2% — below the 3% the rule refers to.
It is an investment designed around financial efficiency, not around enjoyment.Comparison table: luxury, Airbnb, and corporate efficiency
| Feature | LaHaus Fraction / LIVO | InvestWE | Circular Urban |
|---|---|---|---|
| Main objective | Vacation enjoyment and lifestyle | Daily tourist rentals (Airbnb) | Stable rents and wealth protection |
| Entry barrier | High (varies by asset and platform) | USD $50 | USD $50 |
| Regulatory risk | Low (focused on personal use) | Very high (hotel and neighborhood bans) | Low (solid properties and corporate structure) |
| Legal structure | Trust rights / shared use | Purchase of a physical fraction | Registered shares in a SAS |
The question that settles the decision
Before looking at the promised return, ask what you are actually buying: a use, a cash flow, or a structure? A luxury asset buys use. An Airbnb buys a cash flow that depends on a rule. A share in a SAS with a property behind it buys structure — and structure is what holds the cash flow together when the rules change.
What to weigh on our side
Shares in a SAS are not listed on an exchange. That structure gives you legal backing, not instant liquidity: to exit early you depend on another member wanting to buy your participation, and that can take time or may not happen at all.
Related links
- Circular Urban investment projects
- Lending to companies or owning dollar-denominated assets
- Investing in the US from Latin America without the headaches
- Circular Houses: a real estate project in Medellín
- How to invest in private real estate projects
This content is educational and is not financial, legal, or tax advice. The terms of each platform can change; check their current information before deciding and talk to your own advisor.
Published by
María Camila Becerra Cabrales