Some CrowdStreet investors are expressing disbelief, and rage, after learning that millions of dollars of their investment funds have gone missing! Investors pumped more than $60 million into two deals sponsored by Nightingale Properties on that platform, and Poof! The money has mysteriously disappeared!   Hi, I'm Kathy Fettke and this is Real Estate News for Investors. If you like our podcast, please subscribe and leave us a review.   As reported by Bisnow, Nightingale did a great job pitching the deals to CrowdStreet investors. One was Nightingale’s purchase of the Atlanta Financial Center for $182 million, which represented a $78 million loss for the seller and instant equity for the buyers. The Real Deals reports that more than 650 investors clamored into that deal with $54 million. The other deal was the renovation of a Miami Beach office building that Nightingale already owned. It raised $9 million for that project.   Slick Marketings Pitch   Nightingale told investors that it has a stellar track record with more than 30 big deals that never lost money. And it enticed investors with what it described as a rare opportunity to invest in trophy-style real estate.   University marketing professor, Zhiyong Yang, invested 50K into Atlanta and told Bisnow that “they did a wonderful marketing job.” Investor, Mike Huber, says the news about the missing funds is mind-boggling. He has 150K in the project, and is now wondering, like other investors, how this could have happened.   Red Flags   Their worries began last August thanks to a Wall Street Journal article. The Journal reported that Nightingale had failed to tell investors about two previous deals that lost money, which would have tarnished the sterling reputation that Nightingale was selling.   Potential investor Ian Ippolito told Bisnow that he was initially interested and was partially sold on the pitch that Nightingale had never lost money. But then Ippolito, who writes a blog called The Real Estate Crowdfunding Review, decided to investigate further, and found that Nightingale’s track record is not so sterling – that it had lost money in those two deals. He thought to himself: “There’s something shady going on here. I’m not going near this deal.”   What Went Wrong?   Although CrowdStreet is just a platform, there are questions about where it went wrong in vetting Nightingale, and why it didn’t do more to safeguard investor funds, which it collected. If you’re not familiar with CrowdStreet, it attracts all kinds of independent real estate investors, from all walks of life. It was founded in 2014 but really took off during the pandemic, raising $1.2 billion from retail investors in 2021 alone.   CrowdStreet’s CEO, Tore Steen, told Bisnow that he is “shocked and angered” by the Nightingale fiasco. He says: “This is not a crowdfunding issue. This was simple illegal behavior by a real estate developer. There were investors outside of the CrowdStreet platform that were involved here. Whether it’s online or offline, fraud exists in this industry.”   Although Steen doesn’t believe that the platform exposed investors to a higher risk of fraud, investors want to know why CrowdStreet handed the funds over to Nightingale instead of putting them into escrow.    Investors Blindsided   One investor told Bisnow: “It’s surprising that CrowdStreet was not taking a more guardian role when the Wall Street Journal article came out.” The article did prompt some investors to ask for refunds, especially as the deals experienced more delays in closing. And some did get refunds, along with plenty of positive sounding communication from Nightingale, including Christmas cards.   One investor on the West Coast says: “They gave us the option to withdraw the funds. That gave me comfort. They do all those things to make you feel that they are super-legit. I was entirely blindsided.”   Nightingale ended up processing about $9 million in refunds, but Bisnow reports that the refund process wasn’t consiste