"We make mortgages exciting – I know mortgages are a boring thing for most, but our mortgages are exciting because we provide high quality credit to premium buyers for premium property in a particular market," said Yair Benyamini, CEO of Lendai. The AI-based financial portfolio lender uses three algorithms to connect non-US residents to US real estate. According to Benyamini, it's a market that brings in $ 37 billion annually from countries like Canada, Australia and of course Israel.

"It's a financial void in the market if, even though there's a good property to invest in in the US and a good client overseas, it doesn't matter … because they're not in the same place (and) the normal banking system simply says no on both sides so that they cannot finance this property. "

The Lendai team. Photo: Raz Rogovsky

Lendai consists of a streamlined online process that can provide mortgages to non-US residents in a matter of days. Benyamini says it takes the average American 41 days to get a mortgage, and Lendai is speeding it up to 14-21 days for non-residents. Once approved, the loan can be used to fund a second vacation home in states like Florida or even their new primary residence in red states like Ohio, Arizona, Texas, Indiana, and Georgia, which were colored blue in the 2020 election, but Republicans persist local legislative level.

"Aside from New York and California, the majority of foreign investors are in red states because it is easier for investors to invest there," said Benyamini. The Florida market accounts for 23% of all foreign investors in the USA, much more than in any other state. "Lendai is currently only active in seven mostly red states, but already covers 50 due to its tendency to be more investor and seller-friendly than blue states % of the US foreign investment market.

"The Montreal and Toronto Canadians are going to buy in Florida, Michigan, Indiana; British Columbia Canadians are going to buy in Arizona, Texas … they go south of the border to anything they can find. The British shop everywhere, the Australians shop in Georgia, and everyone loves to shop in Florida. they buy the sun, the beaches, the ecosystem, "explained Benyamini.

In addition to providing a platform and opportunity for overseas buyers to purchase American real estate, it also has a B2B partner platform that works with real estate managers, developers, loan officers, and people based in the US who work with overseas investors. Although he has not been able to disclose these partners at the moment, Benyamini claims the company has "more than 60 partners managing thousands of clients and tens of thousands of properties in the United States."

Interestingly, Benyamini shared that Canadians account for the largest proportion of foreign residential real estate investment from overseas. While the top spot would fluctuate between Canada and China, the former has taken the top spot in recent years due to the trade war that can still be felt from the days of the Trump administration. Lendai doesn't even work with China, which is taking up commercial real estate around the world but isn't as focused on residential buildings in the US. "It's also easier for us to work with western countries when we know the risks are lower," he added. "Because we do cross-border real estate transactions, we have to be very specific about what we do and build quality policies."

Lendai was founded in 2019 and includes Erez Dricker as CTO, Tim Mironov as Chief Data Scientist and Boaz Leviatan as CFO and Credit Manager. Described as "Israeli banking system veterans" and "real geniuses", Benyamini is confident that Lendai will help non-US residents enter the US housing market – the largest real estate market in the world – safely and efficiently.

"Even if you work in a niche like ours, it's a $ 500 billion niche … We have a huge market and we are going to dominate that market with our technology and our marketing strategy," Benyamini claimed.

source https://seapointrealtors.com/2021/07/26/lendai-lends-a-hand-to-foreign-investors-looking-at-american-real-estate/

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