Realto Update – May 2022

If you follow the news about alternative and real estate investments, you know we’ve been busy at Realto as we work to take the first fully-automated, web-based trading platform to the next level.

In the past month, we received $4.5 million in investments from Firebrand, KCRise Fund and others, increasing funding-to-date to $8 million. We also added high-level strategic counsel to our board with seasoned leaders John Fein and Annemarie Tierney.

All of this news, of course, begs the question: Why are people – and money – flowing to Realto at a time of such seeming uncertainty in the financial markets?

The answer, in our view, is simple: Realto is creating opportunities where they did not exist previously. John Fein, the aforementioned new board member, said it rather well in the recent release about his firm, Firebrand, leading the latest investment round.

“The Realto platform is poised to unlock billions of dollars of value for their customers…and is targeting a huge addressable market of traditionally illiquid real estate and other alternative assets.”

And that, in a nutshell, is the Realto Advantage: readily available liquidity, better asset pricing and lower commissions than participants in this industry have come to expect. How much lower? We only charge 2.9% to the seller, compared to the traditional all-in commission of 6%-12%.

Of course, while providing liquidity and offering better economics are always popular, there’s more to our proprietary platform. It is also fast and efficient, settling transactions in a matter of days vs. the many weeks – or months – in the analog world.

And, importantly, we have created a tool for financial advisors called AdvisorView. This insightful online portal allows financial pros to assist their clients through account setup while maintaining a bird’s-eye view of their client’s alternative portfolios all the way through the trade and settlement process. We rolled it out recently and we’re pleased to say that so far it is working as intended!

Of course, even with all of this progress, there is plenty of work to do and, because it’s all about people, we are looking to grow the Realto team. In particular, we are in search of accomplished professionals to build our Compliance and PR/Marketing departments. If you know of any strong candidates that want to join a firm that is changing markets for the better, please let us know.

In the meantime, we will keep you apprised of our progress and, as always, thanks to our investors and early partners for all of your support.

Brian King