Reali raises $29 million to replace realtor commissions with flat fees

Reali, a real estate startup facilitating transactions between property buyers and sellers, today announced that it’s expanded its series B financing by $9 million, bringing the round to $29 million and the company’s total venture capital raised to nearly $40 million. The round, which saw contributions from Israeli American venture capitalist Dovi Frances with participation from Group 11, Zeev Ventures, and Signia Ventures, follows on the heels of an $8 million Series A that closed in May 2017 and a $2 million seed round in October 2016.

The cash infusion comes after a solid year of growth for Reali, which saw its transaction volume increase threefold and its global workforce expand by 40%. CEO Amit Haller said that the newfound funds will be used to recruit hires across the company’s product, engineering, real estate, marketing, and certified agent teams in the U.S. and Israel.

“Since its inception, Reali has focused on creating a seamless, innovative and superior customer experience during one of the most stressful moments in life — buying and selling a home — at a fraction of the cost,” said Haller. “We’re thrilled with the ongoing investor support which allows us to continue our momentum and introduce additional services down the line, including escrow and title, home warranties and insurance among others.”

Reali, which was founded in 2015 by Ami Avrahami and Haller, eschews the conventional home-buying commission structure in favor of flat fees. It’s a full-service brokerage and pays its licensed realtors on salary, and it claims that most of the home-buying customers in the Bay Area and Sacramento — Reali’s two launch metros — fork over less than $5,000 at closure time and get the entire agent commission in cash back minus the fee.

Reali says that buyers receive an average rebate of $20,000, in practice, based on a purchase price of $1 million, and about $2,050 for a $100,000 home. Home sellers, meanwhile, save an average of $20,000 on commission compared to the traditional 3% standard commission.

Above: Reali’s PricePredictor feature.

Image Credit: Reali

Reali’s other perks include on-demand showings at almost any hour of the day and a streamlined paperwork process. For home listers, it promotes properties using customized and targeted marketing tools via websites, social media, and other digital ad platforms, and it stages homes in a variety of styles.

Perhaps Reali’s spotlight feature, though, is PricePredictor, an AI model that predicts probabilities of winning a home at various offer prices. The company claims that it’s helped users buy (and sell) “hundreds of millions of dollars in homes.”

In a stab at diversification, Reali recently began offering home loans through its newly formed Reali Loans division. Much like Zillow became a mortgage lender by acquiring existing lender Mortgage Lenders of America, Reali got into the loans business with the purchase of online mortgage platform Lenda in April 2019.

Reali claims it offers borrowers no origination fees and “competitive rates,” along with “faster than industry average” loan closing times. It also says that loanees typically secure lower interest rates (about .125% to .25% lower) compared with those from “big banks.”

“We’re always looking to invest in leading financial and property technology companies like Reali that solve a real problem and bring innovation to massive sectors ripe for innovative solutions,” said Frances. “Reali’s incredible growth to date proves the team’s determination to streamline the unnecessarily complicated real estate process while saving consumers thousands of dollars in fees and commissions.”