The archive · Money & Fintech · Financial decision · 2019–2025
Landa's $5 fractional real-estate bet: 25,000 investors, then a 2025 shutdown
Landa let US adults buy $5 shares of rental homes via per-property Reg A LLCs; 25,000 investors by 2022, app dark since April 2025, most series paid $0 back.
Landa
What the business is
Landa was a fractional real-estate investing app: each rental home became its own series LLC that sold Regulation A shares for as little as $5, with an in-app secondary market, monthly dividends and live property updates.
Starting capital：$33M equity announced August 2022 ($25M Series A co-led by NFX, 83North and Viola plus an $8M seed) and $60M in debt financing.
How it started
Founded in 2019 in New York by Yishai Cohen and Amit Assaraf to make real-estate ownership inclusive, Landa spent its early years on SEC regulatory work, emerged from stealth in August 2022 with $33M, and grew from 600 to nearly 25,000 investors that year.
What happened
By late 2022 Landa had ~400 properties across Atlanta and New York, 46 employees, and $60M in debt, and kept buying homes as mortgage rates climbed. Distribution declarations stopped in October 2024; on November 19, 2024 lenders Viola Credit and L Finance sued over defaults on more than $35M in loans; by December 12 a court stripped Landa of management of 88 property series and installed an independent manager.
How it ended up
The app and website went dark in April 2025 and never returned. Through 2025–2026 most property series sold for far less than their debt and returned $0 to investors; the 996 Greenwood foreclosure paid $1.39 per share against a $24.20 offering price. The company is liquidating series by series under SEC Form 1-U disclosures while disputing foreclosures in open litigation.
Background
Landa, founded in 2019 by Yishai Cohen and Amit Assaraf, emerged from stealth in August 2022 with $33M (NFX, 83North and Viola co-led) on a simple promise: any US adult over 18 could become a real-estate investor by buying fractional shares in rental homes for as little as $5. Each property became its own series LLC with a Regulation A offering, and Landa kept a 6% acquisition fee plus 8% of gross rent as property manager.
The pitch worked at first. TechCrunch reported in August 2022 that Landa grew from 600 to nearly 25,000 investors that year across about 400 properties in Atlanta and New York, backed by $60M in debt financing. The company kept acquiring homes as mortgage rates climbed, and its per-property structure multiplied: by late 2023 fifteen series had refinanced with hard-money lender Kiavi at 11.5% on twelve-month terms.
The unwind started quietly. Monthly distribution declarations stopped in October 2024 with no suspension notice. In November 2024, lenders Viola Credit and L Finance sued Landa in New York over defaults on more than $35M in bridge loans; by December 12 a court had removed Landa as manager of 88 property series and installed an independent manager, and three board members resigned the same day.
In April 2025 the app and investor portal went dark and never returned, while 130+ Better Business Bureau complaints accumulated from investors who could not reach their accounts. SEC filings through 2026 show the liquidation ledger: series borrowing as little as $95 from an affiliate to stave off defaults, most property sales returning $0 to investors, and the 996 Greenwood foreclosure paying $1.39 per share against a $24.20 offering price. Landa disputes some foreclosures as wrongful; the litigation remains open.
What has to be true
- Landa bet that fractional ownership through per-property Regulation A LLCs would turn $5 retail investors into a new real-estate asset class, replacing funds and REITs with direct app-based ownership.
- It chose debt-fueled property acquisition as the growth engine: $60M in debt financing plus $35M+ in bridge loans left the per-property entities with no equity cushion when rates rose.
- The structure that made entry cheap also made failure granular: each series LLC was insolvent and could not be supported by stronger siblings, so the platform disintegrated house by house.
- It kept promising restoration while the app was dark — the CEO blamed servers in April 2025 — instead of filing a suspension notice, and investors lost trust before they lost money.
What can be applied
Cheap entry does not fix unit economics: when every property is its own micro-LLC, no entity can cross-subsidize another, so the structure that lowered the entry point also atomized the failure.
Aftermath
As of September 2, 2026 Landa is a liquidation, not an app: the platform has been dark since April 5, 2025, distributions stopped in October 2024, and SEC Form 1-U filings show emergency affiliate loans as small as $95, bulk property sales in early 2026, and most series dissolving with $0 paid to investors. A foreclosure on the 996 Greenwood property paid $1.39 per share against a $24.20 offering price. Two of its four SEC issuers have filed no audited annual report since fiscal 2022, the lender litigation remains open, and investors cannot access their accounts.
Sources
- Exclusive: Landa promised real estate investing for $5. Now it's gone dark
- Landa can make you a landlord with just $5
- A $95 Loan to Save a House: Landa's SEC Filings Chronicle the Endgame of a $5 Real Estate App
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