The concept of turning into an actual property investor for as little as $5 could seem too good to be true.
And for a lot of customers of Landa, a proptech firm that promised simply that — it has been.
Landa emerged from stealth in August 2022, asserting a complete of $33 million in funding and a pledge to assist on a regular basis People entry residential actual property funding by fractional shares.
CEO Yishai Cohen and former CTO Amit Assaraf based Landa in 2019 in an effort to make actual property funding extra inclusive. The app’s solely necessities had been that customers be over age 18 and U.S. residents. They might begin investing with simply $5, and purchase and promote shares in addition to see real-time updates on their properties from the Landa app. (Assaraf left the corporate in December of 2023, in line with his LinkedIn profile. He has not responded to requests for remark.)
As we speak, Landa’s funding portal web site is down and its app is inoperable. Customers declare they’ll’t entry their funds and haven’t been paid dividends in months. The startup is embroiled in litigation, together with a lawsuit from its early enterprise investor Viola.
One early consumer advised TechCrunch that Landa stopped paying dividends to him on his shares in January. When he requested Landa about it, they “punted the question,” he mentioned.
“I repeatedly emailed them about it and just got deflecting answers, nothing real,” the consumer mentioned. “Then a few months after that, the app became unusable. It would not open.”
The consumer then requested if he may delete his account, which he had opened in 2021, and promote the shares. However he discovered Landa had disabled his potential to promote shares.
“They have essentially frozen me out of my funds and just shut down the app,” the consumer mentioned. “Where is the money? Why won’t they return it to me?”
Over 130 complaints have been filed towards Landa to the Higher Business Bureau, with dozens of individuals echoing comparable allegations. For example, on Could 1, one consumer who filed such a criticism shared that they had invested over $8,000 by Landa and stopped receiving dividends final fall. The consumer mentioned Landa customer support replied to their emails by saying that the corporate is “working on it.”
In mid-April, when TechCrunch requested Landa concerning the problem — together with the standing of its downed web site and whether or not the corporate itself had shut down — CEO Cohen mentioned: “Of course not. The site will be back up.”
When requested why the app was not working and why customers had not obtained dividends in months, Cohen’s terse reply nonetheless appeared to confer with the web site, blaming the servers: “It’s unrelated to dividends. It’s from our servers. We are on it.”
Upon additional prodding, Cohen on April 18 shared the next assertion: “We are aware of the issues currently affecting our platform and product, and want to assure all investors that we are actively working to restore full functionality as soon as possible. We have kept investors informed through all updates, including the server access issue. We appreciate the continued support of our investors and resident community, and remain committed to delivering on our vision of making real estate investing accessible to everyone.”
Cohen didn’t reply to our request for a standing replace on Could 20. Buyers NFX and 83North didn’t reply to our a number of requests for remark.
Embroiled in a lawsuit
It’s not simply customers who’re upset with Landa. The corporate’s major lenders are suing.
Viola Credit score and L Finance filed a lawsuit in New York State Supreme Courtroom towards Landa in November 2024, accusing it of “numerous defaults” on greater than $35 million price of loans they prolonged to the corporate. (Viola can be an investor in Landa by its enterprise division.)
The lenders additionally accused it of lacking property tax funds that led to the compelled sale of these properties, neglecting properties, and even failing to gather rents.
The lawsuit — first reported by actual property trade publication Bisnow — states that after over a yr of trying to get Landa to honor their commitments, the lenders eliminated Landa as supervisor of the properties and appointed an impartial property supervisor and a chief restructuring officer.
After additional negotiations failed, the collectors later requested the court docket for, and had been granted, an injunction blocking Landa from accessing financial institution accounts, interfering with their makes an attempt to restructure the enterprise, and reclaiming cash they are saying is owed — together with proceeds from property gross sales.
Regardless of the injunction, the lenders returned to court docket in January 2025, claiming Landa advised tenants to ship hire funds to a special checking account not coated by the ruling. They found this whereas making repairs to 1 property’s septic system. In addition they accused Landa’s CEO of attempting to promote or refinance some properties.
The court docket ordered Landa to elucidate itself. As a substitute, in early March, Landa requested the court docket for a restraining order towards Viola Credit score and L Finance, claiming the impartial supervisor was “installed unlawfully.”
Choose Jennifer G. Schecter was not happy. In March, she ordered either side to discover a answer “that’s good for all of your clients.” She denied Landa’s request for an injunction and ordered the corporate to pay practically $100,000. A couple of weeks later, Landa filed a proper countersuit. The case remains to be pending.
Difficult mannequin
Landa is only one of a number of startups that emerged in recent times providing fractional actual property investing. It’s also apparently not the one one which has struggled — particularly after mortgage rates of interest started hovering in 2022.
Fintor raised tens of millions of {dollars} earlier than seemingly pivoting to supply an “AI Agent to automate finance and real estate operations with human level performance.” Dallas-based Nada, which provided index-like actual property funding merchandise known as “Cityfunds,” permitting non-accredited traders to purchase right into a metropolis’s dwelling fairness market with as little as $250, additionally seems to have pivoted. Its web site now promotes a brand new tagline: “Access home equity to finance anything.”
Arrived was maybe the highest-profile of the bunch — and the one one which appears to be actively working below the identical mannequin. In Could of 2022, TechCrunch reported that Arrived raised $25 million in a Collection A funding spherical together with Bezos Expeditions, to permit folks to purchase shares in single-family leases with “as little as $100.” In response to its web site, the startup has up to now paid out over $13 million in dividends and curiosity and has 766,000 registered traders.
As for these individuals who invested with Landa, the way forward for their cash seems unsure. As of Could 23, Landa’s investor portal web site nonetheless redirects to a “come-back-soon” upkeep message.
