Buying Real Estate with Bitcoin: Will it become commonplace in the future?
By Space Coast Daily // January 3, 2020
People have already started buying homes with bitcoin but it may become commonplace in the near future.
Cryptocurrencies are making their way into the mainstream. No longer are they a digital asset reserved for the technological savvy or only used within fintech circles.
The crypto revolution has been rolled out to the masses from paying for buckets of KFC chicken or holidays – all now done with bitcoin.
There is also an opportunity for bitcoin to be used to buy real estate. There are many benefits to this and instances where it has already happened – details of both can be found below.
The overarching benefit of using bitcoin to buy anything, property or otherwise, is that the barriers to using it are few.
All that is required to buy a product or service with bitcoin is ownership of a bitcoin wallet – and the required bitcoin of course. Online bitcoin wallets made by established providers like Luno can guarantee security of bitcoin and industry-leading features.
The Benefits of Buying Property with Bitcoin?
Cryptocurrencies are a decentralised financial system that does not require verification from banks or Visa and Mastercard.
When you buy a property with bitcoin, the lack of a centralised control offers a number of benefits, including:
- Buying real estate with bitcoin will still require legal professionals and surveyors, which make the process long and drawn out. When you pay with bitcoin the process is made somewhat shorter because there are no banks to carry out security checks on large transactions and the transactions themselves are faster.
- Using bitcoin also means homebuyers can eliminate any transactional fees by those banks or other parties helping with the purchase.
- Bitcoin is not subject to currency exchange rates because it is a global payment method without borders. This means international property purchases with bitcoin avoid sudden changes in the markets and you pay exactly what you intend to pay. Moreover, sending money internationally can take even longer than normal and bitcoin again can save time.
Has It Been Done Before?
Buying real estate with bitcoin may become the norm in the future, but today people are already starting that trend. The first homes sold for bitcoin in the UK happened over two years ago and in Australia they went one better.
In the state of New South Wales, a property auction has taken place where buyers were asked to leave their bank details in the draw and pay with bitcoin only. It is likely that we will see more bitcoin property auctions in the future.
Some Grey Areas
Although there appears to be no downside to buying homes with cryptocurrencies if both parties wish to do so, one third party may want to have a say.
That third party is the tax office of respective countries. Regulations and taxation of crypto is still unclear in many places and buying a home with it could cause issues for some people.
