Landa App update. October 1, 2022
I have jumped into using the land app with both feet. It has been an interesting experience. I am still not 100% convinced that the whole app isn't going to implode at some point as some giant Ponzi scheme. With that being said Let's take a look at some of the unique situations I have encountered recently. Let's start off with my first thought and that is if you think Landa is going to be some great way to pick up real estate shares that provide a decent return you will be sadly mistaken. The truth is Landa is set up to allow its users to buy real estate, but unless you get one of the prime properties then the rent dividend that it generates can be less than 3%. This is important because, with the way interest rates are going, I think that soon we will be able to buy 5-year CDs that will net a 4% a year return. Yes, it's true that CDs are not property, but you don't risk losing your initial investment unless the CD is over the insurance limit. If you have that kind of money to invest, my question is why are you reading this little blog. With that being said let's do some simple math and look at a Landa property. I have attempted to purchase a few good deals only to have them shut down by Landa. Take for instance my attempt to purchase 21 shares of 8652 Ashley.
As you can see I attempted to purchase 21 shares of this property (at the time the app showed that there were slightly more than 21 available). I opted for this property because its dividend (or rent) was about $0.05 per month. So doing some simple math that would be me $.60 a year for every share that I purchased .(05*12= $.60) assuming that the renter paid the rent every month. This equates to a slightly better than 10% return every year again assuming the renter pays their rent every month. Well as you can tell from the support person's response I ultimately did not get to purchase the shares at the initial price, and Landa got to hold onto my cash for about a week before they figured out what the software glitch was and fixed it. Keep in mind that as they fixed said glitch I watched the available shares in this location vanish. If I remember right there were about 200 available when I initially attempted the purchase but by the end of day 2, they were all gone. The kind rep did offer me a $5.00 gift but that failed as well. Surely this was a one-time issue, right? What are the chances that I would attempt to purchase another property, and have it slip away due to a technical issue? I won't bore you with all of the details, but here is another screenshot for you to enjoy.
Unfortunately, I never did get that property, and I also did not get my money back from the purchase. I am not too worried about the cash on this one because it was such a small amount, and Landa has been known to display errors when presenting the information via the phone app. Since the phone app is the only option for account management it's very limited in the type of information it presents. Let's just say the information has a way of changing from time to time when viewing it on the app. It kind of reminds me of an early Robinhood app that ended up being a very good platform as it matured. I did learn something about the technical support department within Landa.
1. They use some type of bot replies to make it appear that you have a live response.
2. The canned responses are very misleading, and can be frustrating.
3. They don't have any accountability, and can basically provide little to no real help.
4. They will use the line "I will add a technical ticket" to any question that is not simple.
5. Do not count on support to resolve your issue or provide any type of follow-up.
As you can see for my last issue because it was such a small amount, I just let it ride for an entire month without so much as a peep from Landa. This confirms my suspicion that Landa isn't looking for partners to purchase housing to rent out, and share profits. They are looking to boost the user base, and inflate the total number of app users. Still not convinced, take a look at my final screenshot.
This is what I received when I attempted to purchase another property that would have had a good return year after year. Again, like I said before, a lot of Landa's staff is offshore, and it's listed as a software company. In this day and age of information being the most valuable commodity, the business model is starting to make more sense.
Drop a comment if you have any questions, or just enjoy the read. If you absolutely hate it, drop a comment and let me know. I am always looking for others' points of view.
Thank you.
