Yuval Golan is the Founder and CEO of Waltz, a Fintech-Proptech-Wealthtech startup providing foreigners with a simple, remote experience to invest in, purchase, and financially manage U.S. residential real estate.
Golan was recently featured in Bloomberg, Yahoo Finance, Forbes, The Washington Post, Inman, and HousingWire, and quoted in and other leading international media outlets with over 2.5 billion impressions globally. In addition to global news coverage, he has received accolades such as The 2024 Inman Best of Proptech, The Miami Israel Collective Community Recognition Award, and The FiNext Leadership Visionary Award.
Golan has managed operations generating billions of dollars in revenue across 18 countries across Europe, the Middle East, Asia and the Americas. His expertise spans M&As, leveraged buyouts, venture capital, and real estate investment, with a portfolio of properties in the U.S., Europe, China, and Israel. He is an experienced executive in business development, consulting, finance, fund-raising, operations and sales (B2C, B2B, B2G, G2G). He was previously the CEO of Unique 1 Asia International, which provided strategic consulting and project management services.
Golan is a global citizen who holds a BS in Economics and Business from Utrecht University and Luiss Guido Carli University, and a Joint Executive MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and Peking University. In addition to his formal education, he is a global citizen who holds multiple passports and is fluent in several languages.
Company: Waltz
We are thrilled to have you join us today, welcome to ValiantCEO Magazine’s exclusive interview! Let’s start off with a little introduction. Tell our readers a bit about yourself and your company.
Yuval Golan: It’s an honor to be here! My name is Yuval Golan. I’m Israeli by birth, but I’ve always believed that exploring other cultures is how we come to better understand the world and our places within it. I hold four passports, have lived on four continents, speak four languages fluently, and can survive in eight. As an entrepreneur, I have successfully conducted business in 18 countries, generating billions in revenue. I founded Waltz, a real estate investment financing platform, to serve an international audience of real estate investors who have traditionally needed to jump through hoops at every juncture of a real estate transaction.
Our platform makes it easy to buy U.S. rental property from all corners of the globe by providing foreigner-friendly mortgage options, fast and remote closings, the ability to set up an LLC for your property with all relevant documents within minutes, banking solutions within seconds, foreign exchange for seamless transactions, competitive pricing, and even homeowner insurance. Just add these options to the cart, finance, and check out!
What was the initial spark that motivated you to take on an industry dominated by giants, and how did you identify a viable opportunity to compete?
Yuval Golan: In every country I’ve lived in, I’ve tried to buy real estate. And each time, I faced adversity. Brazil had a 10% commission on Forex and no bank accounts for non-residents, China and Greece had heavily bureaucratic processes, it took a month and a half to get a bank account in Israel, and Argentinian interest rates were exorbitant.
When Covid arose in 2020, I believed that it was a black swan event. I was looking at China and realized that the largest exporter of labor, logistics, and building materials was shutting down. Playing that out, I foresaw a real estate shortage, inflation, and crisis. I had to move fast because U.S. real estate was primed for opportunity.
After getting turned down for one reason or another, the last straw was when it took me eight months to obtain an investment property loan for an apartment in New York. All this even after flying to Thailand to renew my visa and being stuck in a quarantine hotel for two weeks!
Realizing that many foreigners face the same issues as I did with a slow process to a mortgage (if at all), bank account, LLC, cross-border wires, ridiculous exchange rates, and insurance in the U.S., I set out to solve this problem.
While the U.S. mortgage industry has some major players, Waltz serves a niche that’s been completely overlooked by most lenders: foreign real estate investors. By differentiating in this regard, we’re able to help a growing demographic that accounted for over $1.1 trillion worth of existing residential property purchases since 2011 (Source: https://www.nar.realtor/research-and-statistics/research-reports/international-transactions-in-u-s-residential-real-estate → See the chart on Page 11, add up all the numbers.) Another key distinction between Waltz and others in the lending space is that our platform goes beyond just loans: we’re a one-stop shop for investors to get a loan, LLC, U.S. bank account, and exchange money with ease, handling every step of the U.S. investment journey under one roof. My vision is to create an Amazon-like experience for real-estate purchases.
Can you describe the most critical strategy or innovation you implemented to differentiate your business from the industry leaders and gain traction?
Yuval Golan: Three words: transparency, efficiency, and simplicity. This industry is full of smoke and mirrors, complicated jargon, and hidden fees that often leave customers feeling confused and uninformed. We’re very direct with our customers and treat them as partners throughout the transaction. When our team speaks with potential clients, we always customize the quote to fit the customer’s situation and are explicit about the fees associated with the loan.
Once onboarded, our platform combines transparency, efficiency, and simplicity into a single experience. From the customer’s dashboard, they can set up an LLC with an EIN, banking, and foreign exchange capabilities all within minutes and remotely. Any necessary paperwork or documents required to complete the transaction can be uploaded to our platform. In fact, customers can then track the status of their loan, what each step of the process entails, and create an open dialogue to address any potential questions to give them peace of mind throughout the process. In some cases, this can be completed from start to finish in under a month, fully remotely.
How did you handle the resource disparities such as funding or market access when going up against much larger competitors?
Yuval Golan: I spoke to the largest players, regulators, clients, banks, and other stakeholders, where I discovered the little holes in each process and explored how to mitigate every single risk. Then I started building the foundations and we started serving clients. Some people race to earn money and fall flat on their faces. I’m in a highly regulated environment with super high margins, so to be successful, I had to be detail-oriented, risk-averse, humble, and willing to learn from others – all while being both patient and aggressive.
What was the biggest setback or direct confrontation with an industry giant, and how did you turn it into a turning point for your success?
Yuval Golan: I wouldn’t say that we’ve had any setbacks or confrontations with an industry giant. I’d say our biggest obstacle has been the question, “How can we redefine an entire category?” Many thought this couldn’t be done, so I said, “Challenge accepted!”
We are a mortgage lender, but Waltz is also an end-to-end service provider for international real estate investors. To make this a reality, we deliberately partnered with globally recognized institutions such as Visa for currency exchange and offer FDIC-insured banking through Regent Bank. These strategic partnerships have expanded our capabilities while leveraging the names of industry giants with whom we work closely.
Customer experience is super important to us. Inspired by Zappos’ approach, we treat each and every customer like they’re our only one, taking the time to really understand their specific situations, making sure we’re extremely responsive, getting to know them as individuals, and problem-solving with them along the way. The other part of this is having a multilingual sales team, which meets customers where they are and communicates with them in their native language whenever possible. Collectively, these experiences have driven a loyal customer base and created a significant number of repeat customers and referrals.
What’s one mindset or principle that kept you grounded while taking on industry titans, and how can other founders adopt it to compete?
Yuval Golan: We didn’t take anyone on. Instead, we decided to empower them and become a funnel of demand for them. Many people have a fixed mindset. They look at a pie and ask, “How do I get a slice of this?” I look at it like this: “Why not bake a bigger pie?” There are infinite opportunities for those who find creative, unique solutions to existing problems. So while we’ll always have competition within the lending space, the idea is to enable more customers to participate in real estate transactions. One day, we’ll be as big as the major players, and our “competitors” will want to acquire us!
