Source: Tech Crunch —
Although real estate is the world’s biggest asset class, it is largely inaccessible to non-institutional investors. The large sums of capital often required for an individual to purchase property combined with the industry’s reliance on manual, antiquated processes pose substantial barriers to entry for individual investors looking to gain exposure to real estate.
These challenges are further compounded for those who aren’t accredited investors and therefore shut out of most private real estate investment opportunities. (Under U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission rules, accredited investors must have a net worth of $1 million or individual income over $200,000 per year.)
“Real estate ownership is the biggest source of wealth generation, and it’s out of reach for most Americans. As housing inequality grows, wealth inequality grows and property ownership remains inaccessible,” Landa co-founder and CEO Yishai Cohen told TechCrunch in August.
In the U.S., the homeownership rate has been steadily declining as prospective buyers grapple with low supply, weakening purchasing power and record-high costs. If current housing policies remain unchanged, communities of color in particular will face yet another setback in their ability to build generational wealth, research from the Urban Institute shows.
