The idea of becoming a real estate investor for just $ 5 may seem too good to be true.
And for many land users, Proptech company that promised that – it was so.
Country got out of stealing In August 2022, announcing a total of $ 33 million in funding and promise to help daily Americans access residential real estate investments through fractional shares.
CEO Yishai Cohen and former CTO Amit Assaraf founded Landa in 2019 to try to make real estate investments more inclusive. The only requirements of the app were that users be over 18 years of age and US residents. They could start investing with only $ 5, and buy and sell shares as well as see real-time updates on their country’s estates. (Assaraf left the company in December 2023, according to his LinkedIn Profile. He did not respond to requests for comment.)
Today, the country’s investment portal website has declined and its app is inoperable. Users claim that they cannot access their funds and have not paid dividends in months. The starting is ambushed in litigation, including a complaint from its early corporate investor Viola.
One early user told Techcrunch that Landa stopped paying dividends to him for his shares in January. When asked Landa about it, they “punished the question,” he said.
“I have repeatedly emailed them about it and I just got off answers, nothing real,” the user said. “Then a few months after that, the app became unusable. It won’t open.”
The user then asked if he could delete his account, which he opened in 2021, and sold the shares. But he found that Country prevented her ability to sell shares.
“They basically frozen me out of my finances and just closed the application,” the user said. “Where is the money? Why won’t they give it back to me?”
More than 130 Complaints were filed against country to the better business office, with dozens of people echoing similar charges. For example, on May 1, one user who presented such Complaint Shared that they invested more than $ 8,000 through country and stopped receiving dividends past fall. The user said that country customer service responded to their emails saying the company “is working on it.”
In mid-April, when Techcrunch asked Landa about the issue-inclusively of the status of its dropped website and whether the company itself closed-General Director Cohen said: “Of course not. The site will return.”
When asked why the app didn’t work and why users didn’t get dividends in months, Cohen’s most stressful response still seemed to relate to the site, blaming the servers: “It’s not related to dividends. It’s from our servers. We’re on it.”
To further prodado, Cohen on April 18 shared the following statement: “We note the problems currently affecting our platform and product, and we want to assure all investors that we are actively working to restore full functionality as quickly as possible.
Cohen did not respond to our request for status update on 20 May. Investors NFX and 83North did not respond to our numerous requests for comment.
Ambushed in a complaint
Not just users upset country. The company’s main lenders ask.
Violet Credit and L Finance filed a complaint In the New York Supreme Court against Country in November 2024, accusing it of “numerous defaults” of more than 35 million loans, which they extended to the company. (Viola is also an investor in country with her corporate division.)
Lenders also accused it of missing tax rates, which led to the forced sale of these real estate, neglecting properties and even failing to earn rents.
The trial- First reported By publishing a bisnow real estate industry – states that after more than a year trying to get country to honor their commitments, the lenders have removed Landa as a manager of the homes and appointed an independent estate director and chief redesign officer.
After further negotiations failed, the creditors later applied for the court, and were granted, an order blocking country of access to bank accounts, interfere with their attempts to restructure the business and recovering money they say they owed – including income from sales of property.
Despite the order, the lenders returned to court in January 2025, claiming that Landa told tenants to send rent payments to a different bank account not covered by the judgment. They discovered this as they made repairs to the septic system of one property. They also accused the CEO of Landa to try to sell or refinance some farms.
The court ordered Landa to explain herself. Instead, at the beginning of March, Landa asked the court to slow an order against violet credit and finance, claiming that the independent manager was “installed illegally.”
Judge Jennifer G. Schecter was not pleased. In March, she ordered both sides to find a solution “This pleases all your customers.” She denied Landa’s request for order and ordered the company to pay nearly $ 100,000. A few weeks later, Landa presented a formal fight. The case is still pending.
Hard model
Landa is just one of several startups that have appeared in recent years offering fractional real estate. It is also apparently not the only one who struggled – especially after mortgage interest rates began to grow in 2022.
Grimace earned millions of dollars Before apparently pivoti offering “AI agent to automate funding and real estate operations with human level -performance.” Dallas-based NothingWhich offered index-like real estate investment products called “Cityfunds”, allowing non-accredited investors to buy into the city’s home equity market with just $ 250, also appears to be pivoted. Its website is now promoting a new label: “Accessing home equity to fund anything.”
Arrived It was perhaps the highest profile of the beam-and the only one that seems to actively operate under the same model. In May 2022, Techcrunch reported that arrived earned $ 25 million In Series A-Funding Circle including Bezos Expeditions, to allow people to buy shares in single-family rentals with “barely $ 100.” According to its website, the startup has so far paid more than $ 13 million in dividends and interests and has 766,000 registered investors.
As for those people who have invested with Landa, the future of their money seems uncertain. As of May 23, the Landa Investor Portal website is still redirected to a “returning-soon” maintenance message.
