Announcing Our $26 Million Series A Led By Andreessen Horowitz
There comes a point in every real estate owner’s life when they realize they don’t want to be a landlord.
I’ve experienced this first-hand with my parents. Thirty years ago, they bought their first home. A few years later, they moved to a different city, but kept the property for extra income. Life got busier, they had kids, those kids grew up, and they grew further away from the property.
They enjoyed the extra cash flow, but owning a property remotely wasn’t easy. They used a property manager, but never really found one that gave them the true peace of mind that justified the costs. Being far-removed from the property, they didn’t know what upgrades to make. Appliances were outdated, things broke.
Yet, it never made sense to sell. They’d lose the stable cash flow and appreciation, and more importantly, trigger a huge tax bill. They were stuck.
The Retirement Solution For Landlords
I started Flock to help people like my parents. There are more than 17 million Americans who own rental property, and a big chunk of them are looking for a better way to own or, actually, a better way to sell. At Flock, we provide both.
We’re using a mechanism that has long been used by institutional real estate owners — the 721 Exchange — to allow individual owners the ability to seamlessly exchange their houses for shares in a professionally-managed portfolio of homes. We’ve built sophisticated technology and assembled a world-class team to bring regular rental property owners the same advantages enjoyed by institutions: peace of mind, tax savings, best-in-class operating efficiencies, diversification, and enhanced liquidity. Some people call this an UPREIT. We call it: “The People’s REIT.”
But there’s more than solving this problem for landlords that drives us at Flock.
When I started the company, I was obsessed with this market imbalance that impacted the millions of individuals that own real estate. As we embarked on our journey, meeting with hundreds of landlords and evaluating thousands of homes, we uncovered that the implications of this problem went far beyond an individual landlord’s financial freedom. Most of these owners don’t know the extent of what’s actually going on in their properties. We’ve found bathrooms caked with mold, basement bedrooms without fire escapes, electrical panels recalled for safety defects decades ago, the list goes on. This isn’t necessarily an owner’s fault — it’s an extraordinarily complex and ever-changing job for an individual person to do part-time — but it translates to suboptimal conditions for residents and the neighborhood. The solution we’ve created at Flock solves these problems and creates a more sustainable and durable housing system for all stakeholders involved.
Growing Flock
Today, we’re excited to announce a $26 million Series A round of investment, led by Andreessen Horowitz. As part of the investment, Alex Rampell, one of the world’s leading fintech investors and operators, will be joining our company’s Board of Directors. The capital will be used to further build out our technology and team to continue on our mission of delivering better financial returns to owners, better living conditions to residents, and better houses to the communities in which we operate.
We have a big vision for what we’re building. Less than a year ago, we launched Flock with a handful of houses in Denver. Today, we own more than 100 homes across Denver, Austin, Seattle, and Kansas City. And we’re just getting started.
If you’re a landlord looking to retire or a passionate operator looking to change how people own their assets, please reach out. We’d love to hear from you!
