NEW BRAUNFELS, Texas – An acre and a half of dirt and wildflowers along Interstate 35 in New Braunfels is prime real estate listed for $2.5 million. It’s also for sale for 86 bitcoin.
“I found it intriguing,” said Tom Verducci, the KW Commercial listing agent. “I thought it was a great opportunity to open it up to the world on another platform, because there’s cryptocurrency owners throughout the world and a lot of them have done very well for themselves,” he said.
Verducci listed the property on MyEListing.com, an Austin area-based startup that just launched the first real estate marketplace that takes Bitcoin or ethereum.
“It’s kind of like a new flavor of ice cream, and no one has tried it yet,” said Caleb Richter, the company’s CEO.
Unlike plain vanilla transactions, Richter said these deals can be completely done in one business day through the ASAP program.
That’s because the title is checked and the seller signs his part of the contract before the property listing goes live.
Once the buyer is vetted, the closing takes place over Zoom. And because the value of cryptocurrency is constantly changing, the buyer then has 15 minutes to send his cryptocurrency to Coinbase. The exchange then forwards good ol’ U.S. dollars, finishing the sale.
“The goal is someone in Japan or Lebanon or Australia can be on their couch, and they’re like, ‘I want to buy a home in Miami right now.’ Boom. Click,” he said.
Richter sees cryptocurrency as a global language, but says there will still be a need for old-fashioned bank loans.
“I don’t think it will replace it,” Richter said. “We’re giving another way to trade properties.
The platform is launching in Texas, but he intends to expand to other states in the next few months.