Landa promised real estate investment for $ 5. Now it is dark.

The idea of ​​becoming a real estate investor may seem less than $ 5 so that it cannot be real.

For many Landa users, the PROPTECH company that promised to do so – it was.

Landa Out of the ghost In August 2022, a total of $ 33 million announced funding and pledged to help ordinary Americans to reach residential real estate investment through fracture shares.

Former CEO Yishai Cohen and CTO A amit Assaraf founded Land in 2019 in an attempt to make real estate investment more comprehensive. The only requirements for the application were that users are more than 18 years old and the American population. They can start investing in only $ 5, buying and selling shares as well as seeing updates in the actual time on their property from the Landa application. (Assaraf left the company in December 2023, according to LinkedIn Introduction account. He did not respond to the requests for comment.)

Today, the investment portal site in Landa and its application has decreased unnecessary. Users claim that they cannot reach their money and their profits have not been paid in months. The startup is involved in litigation, including a lawsuit from its early investor. Viola.

One of the first users told Techcrunch that Landa stopped paying his profits on his shares in January. He said that when he asked Landa about it, “they accused the question.”

The user said: “I sent them again and again about it and I got the answers to deviation, nothing is real.” “Then a few months later, the application became unusable. It will not open.”

Then he asked the user if he could delete his account, which he opened in 2021, and sold stocks. But he found that Landa suspended his ability to sell shares.

The user said: “They mainly froze me from my money and closed the application,” the user said. “Where is the money? Why don’t they return to me?”

More than 130 Complaints It was presented against Landna to the best business office, with dozens of people repeating similar allegations. For example, on May 1, a user presented such complaint They participated that they had invested more than $ 8,000 through Landa and stopped receiving stock profits last fall. The user said that the Landa customer service responded to their emails by saying that the company “is working on it.”

In mid-April, when Techcrunch Lands asked about this case-including the state of its drop-down position and whether the company itself was closed-CEO Cohen said: “Of course not. The site will return.”

When asked why the application did not work and why users have not received profits for months, Cohen’s response was still referring to the website, blame the servers: “It has nothing to do with profit distributions. It is our servers. We are on it.”

At more urging, Cohen participated on April 18, the following statement: “We are aware of the problems that currently affect our platform and our product, and we want to guarantee all investors that we are actively working to restore full jobs as soon as possible. We have kept investors in view of all updates.

Cohen did not respond to our request to update the situation on May 20. Investors NFX and 83north have not responded to our multiple requests for comment.

Involved

Not only users who feel upset by Landa. The main lenders of the company are being paid.

Viola Credit and Linance A foot suit In the New York State Supreme Court against Landa in November 2024, it was accused of “many backwardness” over more than 35 million dollars of loans that extended to the company. (Viola is also an investor in Landa through the project department.)

The lenders also accused her of missing property tax payments that led to the forced sale of these properties, the neglect of real estate, and even failure to collect rents.

The lawsuit – I mentioned for the first time Through the Bisnow Real Estate Publicity – it states that after more than a year of trying to obtain Landa to honor their obligations, lenders removed Land as a homes and appointed an independent director of property and a restructuring head.

After the failure of more negotiations, the creditors later asked the court in the court, and gave a judicial order that prevents Land from reaching bank accounts, to interfere in their attempts to restructure business, and restore the money they say it is due – including property sales returns.

Despite the irregular order, lenders returned to the court in January 2025, claiming Landa to the tenants to send lease payments to a different bank account that is not covered by the ruling. Discover this while making repairs on the sewage system for one property. They also accused Landa CEO of trying to sell or re -financing some property.

The court ordered Landa to explain itself. Instead, in early March, Landa asked the court to obtain a restriction against Viola Credit and L Finance, claiming that the independent director “was installed illegally.”

Judge Jennifer J. Sheter was not happy. In March, both sides ordered to find a solution “This is good for all your customers.” Landa’s request denied issuing a court order and ordered the company to pay nearly $ 100,000. After a few weeks, Landa presented an official suit. The case is still hanging.

A difficult model

Landa is just one of the many startups that have appeared in recent years that offer fracture real estate investment. It also seems that it is not the only one who struggled – especially after the interest rates in the mortgage began in 2022.

Findor Collect millions of dollars It seems before the axis to provide “artificial intelligence agent to automate financial operations and real estate with performance at the human level.” Its headquarters Dew,, Which provided real estate investment products similar to the indicators called “Cityfunds”, allowing investors not adopted to buy in the city’s domestic stock market at less than $ 250, and it appears to have been centered. Its website is now strengthening a new line: “Access to home stocks to finance anything.”

receipt Perhaps it was the highest of the group-the only one that appears to be actively under the same model. In May 2022, Techcrunch reported that she arrived Rapid 25 million dollars In a series of financing A series including Bezos Expeedss, to allow people to buy stocks on one family rents with “less than $ 100”. According to its website, the startup company has so far paid more than $ 13 million of profits and benefits and has 766,000 registered investors.

As for those who invested with Landa, the future of their money seems uncertain. As of May 23, the investor portal site in Landda is still re-sending a message to the “Click-Back-SON” maintenance message.