Is Invest With Roots Legit? An Honest 2026 Review

TL;DR: Invest With Roots is a legitimate, SEC-qualified real estate fund (a Reg A+ private REIT) with a genuinely low $100 minimum and a real track record since 2021. It is not a scam. But it is illiquid on purpose — pull money out inside the first year and you pay an ~8% penalty, and even after that, withdrawals only happen in quarterly windows. It's a reasonable fit for long-term money you won't need soon, and a bad fit for anyone who might need the cash back quickly.

Affiliate disclosure: HashWatch earns a commission if you invest through our Roots link, at no extra cost to you. It doesn't change the numbers below or our verdict. Not financial advice, just receipts.

First: You're Probably Not Thinking of "Root" the Stock

Before anything else, let's clear up a common mix-up. Invest With Roots (investwithroots.com) is a private real estate fund. It has nothing to do with Root, Inc. (ticker: ROOT), the publicly traded car-insurance company on the Nasdaq. Same-ish name, completely different things.

Root, Inc. (ROOT) — an auto insurance company. You buy its stock through any brokerage, and it trades instantly like any other share.
Invest With Roots — a residential real estate fund you invest in directly on their platform. You own units of a property portfolio, not a tradable stock, and liquidity is quarterly (more on that below).

If you came here researching the insurance stock, this review isn't about that. Everything below is about the real estate fund.

What Invest With Roots Actually Is

Roots is a private REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust) that pools investor money to buy and manage income-producing residential rental properties, with a concentration in the Atlanta / Sun Belt region. When you invest, you're buying units in a professionally managed fund — not picking individual houses. The legal entity is Roots Real Estate Investment Community I, LLC, and it was founded by Daniel Dorfman.

Your returns come from two places: rental income (paid out as quarterly cash distributions you can withdraw or reinvest) and property appreciation (reflected in the fund's net asset value over time).

The genuinely distinctive part is the "Live In It Like You Own It" program. Residents who rent Roots-owned homes can earn investment credits for paying rent on time, taking care of the property, and being good neighbors. In other words, renters can become owners of the fund. It's a clever alignment-of-incentives idea, and it's the thing most generic listicles skip over. Whether it meaningfully boosts returns is harder to prove, but the structure itself is real.

As of its early-2026 reporting, the fund held several hundred properties, a NAV over $100 million, and roughly 29,500+ investors — so this is an established operation, not a brand-new launch. (Portfolio figures change; verify the current numbers on Roots' site.)

Is It Legit and Safe?

Legit: yes. Risk-free: no. Those are two different questions, and it's important not to blur them.

On legitimacy, Roots is about as verifiable as a private fund gets. It's structured as a Regulation A+ offering that was qualified by the SEC (its initial offering of units was qualified on June 21, 2022). That's not the same as the SEC "approving" or endorsing the investment — the SEC never does that — but it does mean Roots has to file a detailed offering circular, submit audited financials, and post ongoing reports. Those filings are public on the SEC's EDGAR database under the Roots Real Estate Investment Community I, LLC entity. That level of mandatory disclosure is a meaningful transparency signal and something outright scams can't fake.

Public sentiment backs this up: Roots holds around a 4.4/5 on Trustpilot across several dozen reviews as of mid-2026. Negative reviews exist but read as isolated frustrations (usually about liquidity timing), not systemic red flags.

Here's the honest boundary of what "safe" means:

What's protected: the regulatory process — disclosure, audits, the legal structure. You're a genuine unit-holder in a real fund holding real property.
What's not protected: your principal or your returns. This is not FDIC-insured, not a bank product, and not guaranteed. Real estate values can fall, rental income can dip, and the fund's NAV can go down. A regulated, transparent investment can still lose money.

The Returns — Framed Honestly

Roots' headline numbers are strong. The fund reports an average annual return of about 17.2% since inception (July 1, 2021 through early 2026) and a more recent trailing-twelve-month return around 12%. Those figures show up consistently across Roots' own reporting and third-party reviews, so the track record appears real.

But read them with clear eyes:

Past performance is not a guarantee. This is the single most important sentence in any investment review, and it applies fully here.
The track record is short. Under five years, and it launched into an unusually strong 2021–2024 stretch for residential real estate. That tailwind may not repeat.
Roots itself signals lower going forward. The company's forward target is 12–15% annually — notably below the 17%+ inception-to-date figure. That's actually a point in their favor: they're openly telling investors not to expect the early numbers to continue. Take the 12–15% as a target, not a promise.
Concentration is a real risk. A portfolio focused on one region (Sun Belt / Atlanta) rises and falls with that region's housing market.

The distributions are quarterly, and you choose whether to take the cash or reinvest (compounding). That flexibility is a nice feature — just don't confuse a target distribution with a fixed yield.

The Withdrawal Fee and Liquidity — Read This Twice

This is the #1 thing people miss, and it's where the negative reviews cluster. Roots is illiquid by design.

~8% early-withdrawal penalty: If you cash out within the first year of a given investment, you forfeit roughly 8% of it. After one year, that penalty goes away.
Per-investment clock: Each separate investment starts its own 12-month timer. If you invest monthly, each contribution has its own one-year hold before it can be withdrawn penalty-free.
Quarterly liquidity windows: Even after the first year, you can't withdraw on demand. Redemptions happen quarterly, subject to fund-level caps (reported as up to roughly $100,000 per investor per quarter, and limited to a share of the overall fund). In a stressed market, redemption capacity can tighten further — a normal feature of private REITs, but worth knowing.
Low transaction fees: On the plus side, Roots advertises no AUM management fee, with only a small per-transaction fee (reported around $5 for a normal investment, $3 for recurring). Verify current fee terms in the offering circular.

Bottom line: treat any money you put into Roots as locked for at least a year, and realistically as multi-year money. If there's a chance you'll need it back next month, this is the wrong vehicle.

Minimum and How to Start

The minimum is $100, which is one of the lowest entry points among real estate funds and a big part of the appeal. Getting started is straightforward: create an account on the Roots platform, complete the standard identity/investor verification, review the offering circular, fund your investment, and choose whether to reinvest distributions or take them as cash. You can set up recurring contributions if you want to dollar-cost-average in.

If you decide it fits your situation, you can start through our Roots link.

Pros and Cons

Pros

SEC-qualified Reg A+ structure with mandatory, public disclosure and audited financials
Low $100 minimum — accessible to almost anyone
Low fee structure (no stated AUM fee; small per-transaction fees)
Real, verifiable track record since 2021 (~17% since inception, ~12% recent TTM)
Quarterly cash distributions you can withdraw or reinvest
Distinctive "Live In It Like You Own It" renter-to-owner model
Solid public reputation (~4.4/5 Trustpilot)

Cons

Illiquid: ~8% penalty for withdrawals inside the first year
Even after year one, only quarterly redemptions with caps — not on-demand
Short track record launched during a strong housing cycle
Geographic concentration (Sun Belt) is a real risk
Not FDIC-insured; principal and returns can fall
Forward returns explicitly targeted lower than past results

Who It's For — and Who Should Skip It

Good fit if: you have long-term money (think years, not months) you genuinely won't need to touch, you want real estate exposure without becoming a landlord, you're comfortable with illiquidity, and you understand you can lose money. The $100 minimum also makes it a reasonable way to test the waters with a small amount.

Skip it if: this is your emergency fund or short-term savings, you might need the cash within a year, you can't tolerate the ~8% early-exit penalty, or you want the instant liquidity of a publicly traded REIT or index fund. If liquidity matters more to you than the model, a public REIT ETF trades any market day.

If you're in the first camp and want to start small, you can invest through our Roots link.

FAQ

Is Invest With Roots a scam? No. It's a legitimate, SEC-qualified Regulation A+ private REIT that files public offering circulars and audited financials, holds real properties, and has a multi-year track record and a ~4.4/5 Trustpilot rating. "Legit" doesn't mean "risk-free," though — you can still lose money, since it's not insured or guaranteed.

What is the Invest With Roots withdrawal fee, and how do I cash out? There's an approximately 8% early-withdrawal penalty if you take money out within the first year of a given investment; after one year that penalty is gone. Either way, redemptions happen in quarterly windows (subject to caps), not on demand. Verify current terms in Roots' offering circular before you rely on them.

What is the minimum investment for Roots? $100. That low minimum, plus optional recurring contributions, is one of the platform's biggest draws.

Are the ~17% returns real? The reported ~17% average annual return since 2021 inception (and ~12% trailing-twelve-month) appears consistently across Roots' reporting and third-party reviews, so the track record looks real. But it's a short history from a strong housing cycle, past performance guarantees nothing, and Roots itself targets a lower 12–15% going forward.

Current as of mid-2026. Figures, fees, and terms change — always verify the latest details on Roots' official site and in their SEC offering circular before investing. This is not financial advice. Real estate is illiquid and can lose value; only invest money you can afford to leave untouched for years.