Historically, real estate investing has been dominated by institutional investors–pension funds, university endowments, hedge funds–and incredibly wealthy individuals. They had the capital and the connections needed to break into the space and take their share of this trillion dollar asset class. Smaller investors had a few options, namely residential real estate and publicly-traded REITs (real estate investment trusts), but for the most part the average investor wouldn’t be able to easily add real estate to their portfolio. But the game has changed thanks to real estate crowdfunding. How does real estate crowdfunding work?