Proptech Startup Failures

Fractional rental shares for $5 — until the platform froze withdrawals like a crypto exchange.

iBuying pioneer raised $1.9B and went public at $18B SPAC valuation — 2022 mortgage rates hit 7%, lost $1.4B in Q3 2022 alone on inventory purchased at 2021 prices, $18B valuation collapsed to $700M by 2023

Kushner's real estate tech platform sold for pennies as CRE market imploded

Airbnb for people who hate Airbnb's service quality. 17,000 employees later, Chapter 11.

A $1.7B parking tech bet drowning under acquisition debt and slower-than-promised AI rollout.

An AI appraisal platform whose revenue model was held hostage by the CRE transaction drought.

We are a tech company. We rent offices.

The $6.4B tech-powered real estate brokerage that discovered technology does not change commission economics

Rent-to-own homes built on cheap debt that the Fed took away

Flat-fee real estate agent replacement that couldn't outlast the correction

Chile's property management startup raised $35M then collapsed as rising rates and currency volatility destroyed the rental model

A rental listings giant that couldn't survive the leap into fintech payments.

Home trade-in startup that couldn't survive the housing correction

Cash-offer proptech ran out of air in the rate-hike downdraft

The corporate furnished apartment marketplace that COVID killed and Airbnb-for-business finished off

Canada's Opendoor discovered iBuying is catastrophic when housing prices fall.

Built commercial real estate intelligence just as CRE imploded.

The real estate portal that tried to break Australia's property duopoly and ran out of money.

The iBuying giant that proved algorithms cannot outsmart rising interest rates.

Colombian prop-tech that raised $35M from Tiger Global and then watched three markets collapse at once.

Dutch fractional real-estate tokenisation platform raised €8M but suspended operations in 2023 as ECB rate hikes eliminated retail investor appetite for illiquid property tokens.

The $1B+ prefab homes unicorn that raised $400M and never reached production scale

iBuying raised $1.5B and SPAC'd at $3B — mortgage rates rose 3%→7% in 2022, per-home losses averaged $20K+ in Q3 2022, 70% staff layoffs November 2022, stock fell 98% from SPAC valuation

Machine learning for title insurance at $3.23B. Sold for $6.29M. A 99.8% discount.

A wellness-building empire worth $237M that couldn't survive post-COVID office budget reality.

Making all buyers cash buyers — until rising rates made the trade math impossible

Colombia's $800M proptech unicorn collapsed as rising rates froze the housing market it depended on

Britain's estate agent disruption ended for £1

8,000 landlords, zero willingness to pay enough to survive.

The marketplace for distressed homes — when distressed sales dried up and rates rose, there was no business left

The lease-transfer marketplace that hit a wall every landlord, lawyer, and state law put in front of it.

Co-living's biggest US brand discovered that scale without profitability is just expensive furniture.

Roommate-matching tech that couldn't solve the oldest problem in real estate: maintenance costs.

Tech-managed short-term rentals across four Latin American cities. The tech couldn't make hospitality margins work.

SFR marketplace pivoted to metaverse real estate and paid the price

The UK flat-fee estate agent that conquered Britain, then lost $200M expanding to markets where the model did not translate

Digital title startup built on refi boom had nowhere to go when volume vanished

Door-to-door leasing tech had a 18-month payback period no one would fund through.

A blockchain rent platform that tenant advocates, regulators, and gravity all conspired to kill.

iBuying pioneer. Fed rate rises doubled mortgage rates. Opendoor lost $1B in a quarter.

Mexican iBuyer that raised $20M to purchase and resell homes with instant cash offers — shut down in January 2022 after 18 months when the iBuyer model proved unworkable in the Mexican real estate market.

The all-in-one real estate platform that combined buying, selling, mortgage, and closing — and burned through $100M trying to own every part of the transaction

A lien-rights SaaS acquired for $500M then dismantled inside its acquirer.

Brazil's most valued proptech. Rate rises. 300 layoffs. Valuation down 60%.

China's property market collapse dragged its largest online real estate platform down with it.

Tech-enabled real estate brokerage. Rate rises killed transactions. 800 layoffs.

The real estate startup that tried to bypass MLS and Realtors with AI — and discovered that ignoring the incumbents was a fatal strategy

The home trade-in platform that raised $220M to help people buy before they sell — undone by the same rate shock that killed its competitors

Brazilian proptech unicorn. Real estate downturn. 150 layoffs in 2022.

Costa Rica proptech pivoted from rentals to vacation stays and got killed by a 13% tax overnight.

The AI interior design startup that raised $70M to democratise professional design — shut down overnight in June 2022 with no warning to employees or customers

Asia's co-living pioneer discovered that Singapore's government is the ultimate property manager.

Brazil's iBuyer unicorn that hit $2.9B at the peak — and laid off 60% of staff as interest rates killed the residential market

The power buyer startup that raised $460M to make homebuyers competitive, then collapsed when the market it was built for disappeared

The iBuyer that bought thousands of homes just before interest rates doubled

The UK proptech that promised to sell your home in 10 days — and ran out of cash trying to honour that promise.

A smart office comfort app killed by the remote-work revolution that emptied the buildings it served.

The Airbnb-meets-hotel startup locked into thousands of multi-year leases right before travel collapsed

Argentine prop-tech backed by Khosla Ventures that bet on a real-estate market in freefall.

Spain's first real estate crowdfunding platform — shut by the regulator that once approved it

The 3D spatial data platform that SPAC'd at $2.9B in 2021 and saw 90% of shareholder value evaporate by 2023

The algorithm that was supposed to price homes perfectly lost $880M and 25% of the company's jobs

Argentina's real estate classifieds platform swallowed by a Uruguayan competitor after never cracking profitability

The WeWork competitor that raised $400M to lock up flexible office space in every major city — then COVID emptied every office on Earth simultaneously

The office management startup that raised $89M to bring the gig economy to corporate facilities — then was acquired by WeWork for less than it raised, and wound down when WeWork imploded

The Airbnb-backed startup that gave homebuyers down payment money in exchange for Airbnb hosting rights — until COVID made hosting impossible

The co-living startup managing $20M/month in Bay Area rent — shut down overnight when COVID made communal housing a liability

The world's third-largest hotel chain. 12,000 layoffs. COVID finished the expansion.

The $160M furnished apartment-hotel startup that was poised for its IPO when COVID eliminated short-term rental demand overnight

Google's $50M smart city dream died on data privacy and democratic distrust.

AI that predicted broken appliances—couldn't predict its own demise.

Mexican real estate marketplace caught between a recession and a pandemic with no bridge round.

A construction data platform for big landlords that never scaled beyond early adopters.

An AI copywriting tool for real estate agents that discovered agents won't pay for productivity.

A Sunday email to investors announced the sudden death of a European real-estate crowdfunding pioneer.

India's homestay OTA. Founder arrested mid-shutdown. Unprecedented Indian startup crisis.

The dot-com real estate portal that faked $390M in revenue. Multiple executives convicted. $10B peak.

Bolivia's proptech that discovered Bolivian real estate doesn't need the internet

Austin iBuyer bridge-loan startup raised $135M to let buyers make all-cash offers and shut consumer operations when rising rates made its bridge model unworkable.

iBuyer that bought homes instantly for cash from sellers who wanted to move without the stress of a contingent sale

A $300M co-living startup with properties across Europe and the US that was wiped out by COVID within weeks of its peak.

The iBuyer that forgot Mexican real estate runs on notaries and trust

Homeloop brought the Opendoor iBuying model to France — making instant cash offers on homes — and stopped buying properties entirely in 2022 when rising interest rates made every home purchase a guaranteed loss.

UK fractional property investing app shut by FCA regulatory requirements before reaching scale

Andreessen-backed Colombian real estate marketplace that survived Series B only to collapse on rate hikes.

Panama's third real estate portal in a market that barely supported two

Chile proptech fourth wave in Concepción — same BCCh 9%+ rates eliminated transactions, same Portal Inmobiliario dominated listings, confirming structural barriers are national not city-specific

North Macedonia's short-term rental platform was killed by COVID in its growth year

Chile's proptech that the 2019 social crisis and a contracting housing market buried

Ucommune raised $800M to become China WeWork — then WeWork itself collapsed and Ucommune delisted from NYSE in 2022 after losing 98% of its market cap

Venn raised $100M to transform entire city neighborhoods into curated living communities — then discovered that managing people at neighborhood scale is not a scalable business

Housfy promised Spanish homeowners they could sell their properties without paying traditional real estate agent commissions — and shut down in 2023 after failing to reach the transaction volume needed to sustain its flat-fee model.

Lisbon's construction project management SaaS was squeezed by Procore's European expansion

The Brazilian rental unicorn valued at 5.1 billion dollars that cut 450 jobs and shelved its IPO plans

Puerto Rico proptech second attempt: Act 22/60 reformed, Hurricane Fiona caused $3B+ damage, PREPA bankruptcy continued, and Fed rates hit PR mortgages

Colombian iBuyer that couldn't survive rising rates and Opendoor's global retreat

Peru's property portal that could not break the broker trust network

Dominican Republic proptech third wave: Zillow covered mainland US buyers, Clasificados Online dominated local listings, and Fed rate hikes reduced Act 22 buyer flow by 30%

Urban micro-storage startup ran out of space and cash simultaneously

The Madrid coliving and room rental platform that raised 5 million euros serving young professionals and students and closed when it could not scale beyond a niche market

The mid-term rental platform backed by Kleiner Perkins that COVID turned into a ghost company

Brazilian digital real estate brokerage raised 40 million reais to cut commissions and speed transactions but Brazils historic interest rate spike in 2022 destroyed its entire addressable market.

Uruguay's property portal that MercadoLibre absorbed into irrelevance

The proptech that couldn't digitize the Dominican Republic's relationship-driven real estate market

Argentina's proptech challenger in a market where the number of transactions fell 40%

Mexican iBuyer that entered the market right before rising rates made the model unworkable

Chile's second proptech startup hit by a 45% collapse in property transactions when the central bank raised rates from 3.5% to 8%

Honduras's real estate platform for a market where 70% of transactions are never recorded

Spanish proptech challenger outmuscled by Idealista and Fotocasa

Madrid co-living proptech that collapsed almost instantly when COVID-19 lockdowns emptied shared housing.

Digital funeral services startup that could not modernize a reluctant market

NestAway raised 100 million dollars from Tiger Global and Goldman Sachs to manage furnished rentals for India young urban workforce — and sold to Housing.com for approximately 12 million dollars in 2022 after COVID destroyed its rent collection model.

Cyprus's property tech startup hit the TAM ceiling of an island market and regulatory complexity

Colombia's third real estate portal in a two-portal market

French rental investment proptech that raised 38 million euros to simplify buying and managing investment properties and filed for bankruptcy when rising French mortgage rates made investment property purchases collapse.

German hybrid real estate agency that raised 130 million euros combining agents and technology before the German property market collapsed in 2022.

Spain's hybrid real estate disruptor undone by Idealista's dominance

London flexible office marketplace raised over $30M to replace WeWork and shut down when the remote work shift permanently collapsed SME office demand.

Puerto Rico proptech competing against Zillow for the Act 20/22 mainland US buyer market

Chile's third proptech startup facing 11.25% BCCh rates, -55% mortgage issuance, -35% property transactions, and Portal Inmobiliario maintaining 90% listings share

The iBuying startup that held $10B in homes when mortgage rates doubled

Spanish vacation rental metasearch engine acquired by Holidu and absorbed into its European holiday home platform.

Mexico City proptech startup raised $20M to modernize apartment rentals and shut when the 2022 funding freeze made its next raise impossible.

Furnished apartment search engine for international tenants in Europe

Smart apartment access system SPAC'd at $1.56B — interest rates killed new apartment construction, which was its only real market

Tenant experience app for offices killed by remote work

The Spanish room rental app that attracted Airbnb investment and then shed 60 percent of its team

iBuyer pioneer that went public at $18B via SPAC and saw its stock fall 97% as rate hikes destroyed the model.

Romanian proptech helping Eastern Europeans buy abroad ran out of runway in the rate hike era

Better UX than Idealista, but Idealista had the listings

German furnished apartment marketplace for corporate nomads filed insolvency

Sydney fractional property investment platform that raised $12M AUD and shut down when rising rates made leveraged fractional property the worst-of-both-worlds investment.

NYC digital commercial real estate brokerage that raised $13M and closed as office demand collapsed post-COVID.

Flexible housing startup raised $160M from Fifth Wall and shut down in 2023 as hotel-apartment hybrid economics collapsed with rising rates.

Puerto Rico real estate platform rebuilt twice after Hurricane Maria only to close on the second failure

An Indonesian apartment rental platform that ran for eight years before the post-COVID real estate correction killed its model.

Lisbon student accommodation marketplace raised EUR 32M, reached 100K+ listings globally, and imploded when COVID eliminated student mobility.

Ecuador's property portal that launched into OLX's shadow

The Italian iBuyer backed by Goldman Sachs and Exor raised 600 million euros and collapsed when rising interest rates destroyed the economics of buying and holding residential real estate at scale.