The QI File

Qualified Intermediary

Realty Exchange

Realty Exchange Corporation · Parent: Independent / family-owned (Horan family since 1990) · Firm website

FEA membership
FEA member
CES® holders
William Horan, CES®
Fidelity bond
Not published on cited pages
E&O / other cover
Not published on cited pages
How funds are held
Segregated
Dual-signature wires
Dual-sign optional
Reverse / improvement / DST
Reverse Yes · Improvement Yes · DST Unknown
Last sourced
2026-09-05

Fund handling

AlwaysSafe™: separate FDIC-insured bank escrow account per exchange in exchanger’s name/TIN; 24/7 online viewing by request (bank-dependent); monthly statements; client authorization for transfers; daily validation; monthly audits; individual registers.

Who it is for

Mid-Atlantic–rooted exclusive QI (Gainesville, Virginia) serving nationwide forward, reverse, and improvement/build-to-suit exchanges; family-owned since 1990; QI-only business.

Verdict

Strong process/custody narrative (AlwaysSafe segregated TIN accounts, FEA membership, named CES®) without published fidelity/E&O dollar limits on the pages cited — ask for certificates. A regional alternative when you want a family QI plus explicit per-exchange bank accounts rather than a title-company balance sheet.

Notes

This is a QI custody file, not a securities offering. Realty Exchange Corporation is a Virginia corporation established in 1990 by Ed Horan. AlwaysSafe copy describes a third-generation, family-owned QI whose only business is qualified-intermediary work. The meet-the-team page says the firm is owned by Bill and Jeff Horan and calls itself the largest exclusive intermediary in the Mid-Atlantic region — the firm’s own ranking, not this directory’s.

AlwaysSafe (fetched 2026-09-05) is the FEA-membership source and the custody source: one FDIC-insured bank escrow per exchange, exchanger name and TIN, optional 24/7 bank viewing (bank-dependent), monthly statements, client authorization to transfer, daily validation, monthly audits, and per-exchange registers. E&O insurance is asserted without a published dollar limit; “fidelity responsibility” is narrative, not a bond amount. Both dollar fields are omitted.

Each exchanger “has the option to add a client authorization signature for the disbursement of funds,” so dual-signature is optional. The page also says the firm will not transfer funds without specific authorization of the exchanger or a designated representative.

William Horan is named CES® on the AlwaysSafe page. The same page says multiple managing officers hold CES®; other officers are not named with CES® on the four pages cited here, so they are not listed.

Homepage and the reverse/improvement explainer cover reverse and improvement/EAT work. Meet-the-team also lists reverse and improvement among exchange types. DST is not marketed as a QI product on those pages. Fees are “contact for a price quote”; meet-the-team says banks pay interest on funds held in escrow but does not say who is entitled to that interest, so float is omitted.

Sources

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Corrections and verification

Listings are sourced from public pages. Unknown is omitted, not graded. If a fact is wrong or stale, send the primary URL.

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