Last year, as the pandemic ushered in a new normal, I found myself at a career crossroads. I had been thinking about making a transition and was looking for not only a new challenge, but also—in light of all the turmoil and uncertainty of 2020—a company working to improve lives by solving a real world problem.
When I learned about Qualia, it felt like kismet. Home sales had hit a 14-year high in 2020 as shelter-in-place orders had gone into effect, mortgage rates dropped, and remote work became standard. I knew several people who had taken the homebuying plunge—making one of the biggest purchases of their lives—and I had been struck by how onerous and opaque the process seemed, even in the year 2020. While friends complained about the painstaking process of closing, Qualia was working to modernize real estate and make it easier for people to buy and sell homes. It was exactly the type of ambitious mission I was looking for—a way to breathe new life into an industry that touches millions of people every year.
PRIYANKA DISCUSSES QUALIA’S OPPORTUNITY
Qualia’s aim is to streamline and bring transparency to the homebuying process by building a flexible infrastructure for real estate. Transactions are incredibly complex—many parties are involved (title agents, lenders, real estate agents, insurance underwriters) and each typically rely on their own systems and software to power their operations. While homebuyers sit in limbo waiting for paperwork, there’s a complicated, often manual process happening behind the scenes as all the various parties attempt to coordinate the closing.
This is what excites me most about Qualia—we aren’t solving for a single, niche problem, we’re looking to transform how the entire real estate ecosystem operates. If we’re successful in our mission, we’ll not only radically improve the way we buy and sell homes in this country, but also help clear the path to homeownership for millions of Americans. It’s a formidable goal, but we recently raised our $65M Series D to ensure our continued growth for the years to come. While we still have a long way to go, it feels incredibly fulfilling to be solving a few of the challenges facing our communities in order to make it easier to buy, sell, and own a home.
Want to help create a more secure, seamless home buying experience for all? Click below to see our current openings.
