Despite their fluctuating value, NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) are still popular. Items that include videos, audio, photographs, and tweets have been sold as NFTs. Now, the Metaverse and Web3 are staking a claim in the real estate industry. A three-bedroom house in South Carolina, United States, was bought by a real estate investor through an NFT marketplace for $175,000. The investor paid the money via the stable currency USD Coin (USDC).
The home was bought by Roofstock onChain, a Web 3.0 branch of Roofstock, a real estate company. The company posted the following on its official Twitter handle:
“1/ On a mission to radically simplify the way single-family homes are bought and sold through a web3-enabled real estate platform.
Follow us as we bring newfound innovation to the #realestate industry and find out when our next Homes onChain are coming!”
With the use of Web 3.0 technology, Adam Slipakoff was able to purchase the property more efficiently and transparently. The investor also managed to acquire the property at a lower cost compared to the physical real estate market.
“I never imagined I could buy and finance a home with a simple click of a button, rather than going through the long and cumbersome traditional settlement and mortgage process. I’m grateful that Roofstock paved the way for the rest of the market,” Slipakoff said.
According to the investor, he didn’t have to wait for title searches, underwriting, and deed preparation, but the technology made it possible for him to buy a fully insured property.
“Best of all, I’m not a Web 3.0 expert – the Roofstock onChain platform made it simple and easy,” he said.
The Property Title
The Roofstock onChain website shows that every home bought has a title to a limited liability company owned by a unique “Home onChain,” which is simply an NFT that runs on the Ethereum blockchain.
The onChain homes are transferred using smart contracts which run on the Ethereum blockchain. The transactions are made transparent on the blockchain.
“For Roofstock it is a major milestone to provide a radically simple way for properties to be bought and sold at the click of a button using the technology brought by Web 3.0,” said Geoff Thompson, the Roofstock onChain Blockchain Director.
The company is also willing to give the onChain homebuyers access to different financing options on Web3.
Sanjay Raghavan, the director of Web3 initiatives at Roofstock onChain, had this to say:
“This is the beginning of a new era for acquiring real-world properties through digital assets and our partnership with Teller.”
The financing options are provided using the Teller protocol. Buyers are allowed to borrow up to 80% loan-to-value of their NFT sales cost from USDC Homes, a DeFi lending company that uses the Teller protocol.
U.S homebuyers can use the Wyre platform to convert their dollars to USDC. The Teller protocol now uses the Polygon blockchain to facilitate the loans. Polygon is a decentralized blockchain network and charges low gas fees.
