Waltz provides a digital portal for foreign real estate investors to purchase properties in the United States. It helps them set up banking, LLCs, obtain EINs, transfer currency, and wire funds securely.
Innovation is Inman’s DNA — that’s why we’re excited about August’s event Technology and Innovation Month. We’ll kick things off by expanding our scope to celebrate the companies and individuals driving the industry forward Inman Innovation Award exist Inman Connect Las Vegas. We then continue our celebration of the brightest minds in real estate all month long.
Waltz helps foreign real estate investors buy U.S. properties
platform: browser
very suitable: Agents working with foreign investors
Hot selling points:
• Minimal, transparent user experience
• Nearly automated LLC creation
• Investor Toolkit Setup
• Compliant and regulated
• Inspired by fintech
Top concerns:
The company needs to carefully hone its agent target market as it expands its reach, as the number of agents working with or targeting foreign investors is small. However, that’s because it’s been a difficult process. Waltz can change that.
what you should know
Waltz provides a digital portal for foreign real estate investors to purchase properties in the United States. It helps them set up banking, LLCs, obtain EINs, transfer currency, and wire funds securely. While the company will conduct direct marketing efforts to investors, it will work with real estate agents to educate them about its workflow efficiencies and demonstrate that long-standing administrative barriers for external investors can be overcome with just an advanced technology solution. .
This is fintech personified. I’ve long said that the back-end financial process of buying real estate is the real backbone of narrowing down a real estate transaction. This is why cash purchases are becoming more common. The mortgage experience was terrible.
Fifth Wall’s Brendan Wallace told me in an interview that too many entities make money off the inherent friction of real estate financing. Just like movie studios finally embracing streaming, it will only get easier when the big banks learn to make money from lean digital transactions.
Now think about what it would be like for someone in Tel Aviv or Jakarta to park their money in hard assets in the United States. That’s what Waltz wants to change. why not?
I know there will be some skepticism about a software-driven process that makes it easier for non-domestic entities to purchase rental properties. The stereotype falls somewhere between outright paranoia and frustration at the reduced purchasing power of low-income buyers. But let’s not pretend that this doesn’t happen in countless, less than transparent ways, or that homegrown institutional investors don’t hide their real estate ownership stakes in LLCs and shells.
Instead, Waltz is a small, nimble firm based in Miami that works with individual buyers who are building traceable, regulated companies.
Moreover, the rise of decentralized finance (DeFi) will eventually upend our habits anyway. Here’s what Forbes said about it:
Today, nearly every aspect of banking, lending, and trading is managed by centralized systems, run by regulatory agencies and gatekeepers. The average consumer has to deal with a host of financial middlemen to get everything from car loans and mortgages to trading stocks and bonds.
In the United States, regulatory agencies such as the Federal Reserve and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) set rules for centralized financial institutions and brokerage firms, and Congress modifies these rules over time.
As a result, consumers have little direct access to capital and financial services. They cannot bypass middlemen such as banks, exchanges and lenders who earn a percentage of the profits from every financial and banking transaction. We all have to pay to play.
DeFi challenges this centralized financial system by taking away the power of middlemen and gatekeepers and empowering ordinary people through peer-to-peer exchanges.
In short, get used to more companies like Waltz driving change and boosting the housing market as they do.
This is a great tool for real estate agents who have friends overseas or property managers who want to expand into new markets. It doesn’t take much to start expanding your marketing reach to places like Spain, Switzerland, or Brazil.
Waltz deployed a very lightweight, mobile-inspired front end that certainly had time to mature during its long period of invisibility. I see some promise for the future and it’s just going in the right direction.
Users need to verify their identity through multiple forms of ID, images, and even instant video calls and selfies. Choose an LLC name for them (otherwise, the delay of trying to over-personalize the name negates the intent of the application), and when the banking relationship with Regent Bank is finalized, so will the investor kit. Users can choose to register as an agent or retain the primary contact for the new entity.
Currency preference settings and a partnership with Visa’s CurrencyCloud, “a cross-border funds movement solution for banks, fintechs, FX brokers, businesses and other payment institutions,” further streamline the process. Funds can be wired, withdrawn and deposited as needed with established global financial institutions.
There are market opportunities here for property managers, inspectors, and various other segments of rental industry service providers, as well as listing agents marketing rental-grade properties.
This brings to light another of my concerns in this regard: It’s difficult for property managers to make decisions or even get simple answers from nearby landlords, let alone those six time zones away. I would like to see some communication best practices shared, or at least a bridge program to bridge this potential gap, which may even present language challenges at times.
There’s also DocuSign integration for familiar paperwork automation. There’s nothing here to intimidate agents who are new to international buyers’ representation, and to tie a bow on it all, know that everything at Waltz lives up to its name. Elegant. smooth. And it’s more complicated than it seems.
Moving money around the world isn’t easy, but Waltz did it in just a few steps.
Do you have a tech product you’d like to discuss? Email Craig Rowe
Craig C. Rowe got involved in commercial real estate at the dawn of the dot-com bubble, helping a range of commercial real estate companies strengthen their online presence and analyze internal software decisions. He now helps agents and real estate technology companies make technology and partnership decisions, and lends his expertise to Inman to review and report on the people and products that are sparking industry change.
