Roofstock facilitates the sale of property via NFT on a blockchain
Roofstock, a company that sells rental properties, announced the first sale of a single-family home via a non-fungible token, or NFT, on its platform.
The property, located in South Carolina, was sold to an investor for $176,200 last month on the Ethereum blockchain.
The transaction was enabled by Roofstock onChain, its web3 subsidiary, which offers investors the opportunity to purchase tokenized rental properties using USD Coin (a digital stablecoin pegged to the US dollar).
When a property is purchased, the buyer receives a token in their crypto wallet that represents the sole ownership of an LLC that holds title to an underlying property.
The transfer of a property takes place using a contract distributed on the Ethereum network. Properties sold on the marketplace are inspected to ensure each home is in decent condition and has a clear title, Roofstock’s press release states.
Kash Razzaghi, chief revenue officer at Circle, a blockchain-focused financial services company that launched USD Coin, called this an “exciting milestone for Roofstock.”
“Circle is excited to work with Roofstock and bring the benefits of USDC – a more efficient, secure and transparent method of value exchange over the internet – to the real estate world,” Razzaghi wrote.
Launched in 2015, Roofstock has so far facilitated over $5 billion in real estate transactions. The California-based company said earlier this year that it is in a period of hyper-growth and that traffic on the platform has increased significantly.
In March, Roofstock closed a $240 million Series E equity financing round, bringing the company’s valuation to $1.94 billion. SoftBank Vision Fund 2 led the financing with participation from existing and new investors including Khosla Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Bain Capital Ventures.
“Roofstock has built modern real estate technology and financial rails to unlock the enormous potential of this asset class for investors everywhere,” Gregor Watson, co-founder of Roofstock, said in March. “It has expanded beyond a marketplace for trading homes and has become a critical platform for anyone on a journey to generate wealth through real estate.”
Cryptocurrency has been met with caution by some regulators, and acceptance in the mortgage industry has been slow.
Companies like Month mortgage and Miami-based Milo has recently offered crypto-backed mortgage products, but how successful this type of lending product will be remains to be seen.
