qualified-intermediary
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The $25 Million Business Built Around Other People’s Deadlines
Commerce Escrow sells a scarce commodity in commercial real estate: a calm person who knows which deadline can ruin the deal. The service earned fees; the money waiting to close made banks pay attention.
Deferred
Deferred is a technology-powered Qualified Intermediary (QI) that facilitates 1031 real estate exchanges without charging a service fee. Instead of billing customers, it holds exchange funds in FDIC-insured, segregated accounts and shares a portion of the interest those funds earn back with clients. The platform pairs veteran QI staff with software that drafts exchange documents, tracks the strict 45- and 180-day IRS deadlines, and offers ARTE, an AI assistant trained on thousands of pages of tax law. Founded in 2024 by the team behind Open Listings and Balance Homes, Deferred aims to give individual real estate investors access to a tax strategy long dominated by institutions.
Judd Schoenholtz
Judd Schoenholtz is the co-founder and CEO of Deferred.com, a technology-driven qualified intermediary that pioneered the No Fee 1031 Exchange. A repeat real estate founder, he previously built Open Listings (YC W15, acquired by Opendoor in 2018) and Balance Homes (acquired 2023), drawing on a decade of design leadership at the global digital agency Huge.