Real Estate FinTech Reali To Close, Lay Off Staff

Reali, a California-based real estate and fintech platform, today announced it will begin a shutdown and lay off most of its workforce on Sept. 9, 2022.

The six-year-old company, based in San Mateo, Calif., did not say how many employees are on its staff nor how many jobs would be cut. It also did not state whether it will offer a severance package to laid-off employees.

In a profile of CEO Tyler Baldwin published in September 2021, the Silicon Valley Business Journal said Reali had 200 employees.

"Reali was one of the pioneering companies to offer the 'buy before you sell' and 'cash offer' programs to homeowners,” Amit Haller, Reali’s co-founder and chairman of the board, said in a news release. “We believed deeply in benefiting the consumer foremost in every transaction. The six years Reali spent evolving the prop tech market in California helped elevate and transform the industry."

Citing the challenging real estate and financial market conditions and unfavorable capital-raising environment, Reali said it determined the best course of action is to close. 

Active real estate transactions will continue to be supported through the end of the year by a small team of employees, it said. 

Reali said it is talking with companies that have expressed interest in acquiring specific parts of its business, including mortgage origination, title & escrow, and power buying.

"We had an incredible six-year run delighting homeowners," Baldwin said in today's news release. "We want to extend our deepest gratitude to the thousands of homeowners who trusted Reali with their homeownership journeys, the Reali team, our investors, and those who rooted for us from the sidelines. It has been a pleasure to serve our communities."

Reali, launched in 2016, is a real estate and fintech company that said it was creating a “one-stop shop to make homeownership streamlined, accessible, and stress-free every step of the way.” In August 2020, the company said it had raised $250 million in Series B funding. At the time, Reali said the funding would be put toward national expansion and product advancements.

Reali said it leverages “first-in-kind technology and trusted real estate experts to serve homebuyers, borrowers, and sellers in a single, integrated platform.” It offers a range of alternative financing solutions, that allow customers to buy and sell in one coordinated transaction, eliminating resale contingencies, moving twice, and paying two mortgages at once.

Company officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.