Amber Farmland vs AcreTrader 2026

They sell different things. Amber Farmland Investments PBC sells shares of one perpetual farmland REIT (78 farms and 39 mortgages in 18 states per its May 2026 circular) from $10,000 to accredited and non-accredited investors under Regulation A. AcreTrader sells interests in individual farm LLCs from $15,000 to accredited investors only under Rule 506(c), and runs a separate diversified fund for accredited investors from $150,000. AltStreet scores Amber 5.0 (C+) and AcreTrader 5.4 (B-).

Yes. Iroquois Valley Farmland REIT, PBC renamed itself Amber Farmland Investments PBC effective September 2, 2026, and Iroquois Valley Farms LLC became Amber Farmland Investments LLC. The offering supplement says 'all rights and obligations of the Company remain unchanged': the same shares, farms, redemption program and SEC filing history (CIK 1706350 for the REIT, 1516957 for the operating company).

With Amber, a portfolio: each share is a slice of every farm and mortgage the REIT holds, and the largest farmer was 6.5% of invested assets in the May 2026 circular. With an AcreTrader farm offering, the offering documents AltStreet reviewed each covered one farm property leased to one operator, so that property's rent and sale price drive the investment. AcreTrader's diversified fund, the Proterra Acretrader Farmland Fund LP, is a pooled option for accredited investors from $150,000.

Amber's Regulation A offering does, from $10,000, subject to the Regulation A limit of 10% of the greater of annual income or net worth; Amber's notes and 721 exchange program are accredited-only. AcreTrader's farm offerings and its diversified fund are sold under Rule 506(c) to verified accredited investors only ($200,000 of income, or $1 million of net worth excluding a primary residence).

On AcreTrader, yes: each offering names its farm, state, crop and lease terms, and the investor chooses offering by offering. On Amber, no: the board decides what the REIT buys and sells, and a shareholder owns the whole book, including its mortgages.

Both pay little cash relative to the amount invested; most of the expected return is land value. Amber's dividends have been below 1% of its share price each year ($0.47 a share for 2025 before a spillover of about $0.25 paid in 2026; none for 2024). AcreTrader farms pay an annual December distribution 'when available', the first usually about 14 months after funding; recent offering documents show opening gross rent yields of 3.2% to 5.0% on purchase price and modeled net cash yields of about 1.5% to 3.3%. See the returns section for how the two records are measured.

From Amber, after five years, by requesting redemption in a quarterly window; each window is capped at 1.5% of shares outstanding and pro-rated if requests exceed it, and the board can amend, suspend or end the program on 30 days' notice, so eligibility does not guarantee an immediate exit. From an AcreTrader farm, interim rent distributions aside, the principal exit generally depends on the manager selling the farm, typically after five to ten years; recent offering documents model about eight. Neither has a secondary market. AcreTrader's diversified fund allows quarterly withdrawal requests after a 24-month lock-up, subject to a 5% fund-level gate and suspension.

Amber's program lets each eligible shareholder request cash on a schedule, at the board's current price, within a shared quarterly cap of 1.5% of shares. In the first half of 2026 it redeemed 34,240 shares for about $3.77 million, roughly equal to two windows' capacity measured on year-end share counts; the number of requests and any unmet demand are not disclosed. An AcreTrader farm investor has no redemption request to make: the investment ends when the manager sells the farm, for all investors at once, at the sale price less a disposition fee of up to 5%.

They are different kinds of cost on different bases. Amber charges no separately stated management, performance, sales or redemption fee; its company-level overhead (employees, general and administrative, professional fees) was $4.33 million in 2025, about 3.5% of average NAV-basis equity. AcreTrader farm offerings charge a 0.75% annual management fee on the greater of equity raised or the farm's fair market value, a land due diligence fee of 1.46% to 5.88% of the purchase price, upfront costs that took 4.3% to 11.4% of the amount raised in recent offerings, and a disposition fee of up to 5% of the gross sale price; each farm's own expenses are paid from its income. The fee section works through an example.

Amber sends a Form 1099-DIV by January 31; REIT dividends can be ordinary income, capital gain or return of capital. AcreTrader farm LLCs send a Schedule K-1 (Form 1065), typically by early March and sometimes later, and a farm in another state can mean a state return there. On 1031 exchanges: Section 1031 covers real property exchanged by its owner. In an AcreTrader farm LLC the LLC owns the land, and an investor's LLC interest is generally not real property for 1031 purposes, so an investor should not assume the interest can be exchanged. AcreTrader's website presents its whole-farm purchase service, which is separate from the LLC offerings, as 1031-compatible.

At Amber the loss is spread across the portfolio, and it has been material: in 2025 five tenants were in default, the REIT wrote off $980,497 and leasing revenue fell 37%; rent rose 11% in the first half of 2026. In an AcreTrader farm offering with a single operator, that farm's distribution depends on that operator's rent until the manager enforces the lease or re-leases the land. The AcreTrader materials AltStreet reviewed do not describe a tenant default or how one was handled.

It depends on what you can buy and want to hold. A non-accredited investor, or one who wants one diversified holding with a redemption program and a 1099, has Amber, whose recent record on its board's valuations is close to flat and whose credit book is still being worked out. An accredited investor who wants to pick individual farms and accept concentration, a sale-dependent exit, layered fees and K-1s has AcreTrader, whose sold managed farms report a 7.6% median net IRR. The two records measure different things, so neither number ranks the platforms. Both carry the risk of loss.