Roofstock onChain and Origin Story announced their final celebration when they conducted their third blockchain-infused real estate sale on September 1 through the Roofstock onChain NFT marketplace powered by Origin Story.
Located at 332 Montclaire Ln in West Columbia, South Carolina, the property features three bedrooms and two bathrooms and sold for USD 204,000 ($204,000 USD).
Roofstock onChain, a subsidiary of Roofstock, Inc., offers token single family rentals. Developed by Origin Story, the Roofstock onChain marketplace enables the trading of real estate assets as NFTs to speed up the overall transaction process and keep costs relatively low.
Unique to this sale was Roofstock’s partnership with Skillet.ai, an NFT liquidity aggregator that offers “flexible” financing options, a departure from the rigidity of more traditional options.
The adoption of blockchain technology and NFTs in real estate is simplifying a landscape known for its complexity, cost and delays. Tokenizing properties on the blockchain via NFTs makes the process more streamlined, instant and transparent. For investors and owners, this merger of technology injects additional liquidity into an otherwise stagnant market.
A summary of 2022 sales
Roofstock onChain and Origin Story’s journey in this space began with the first kickoff event in September 2022, which saw the first-ever sale of an IRL home through an NFT marketplace. The property, a three-bedroom home in Columbia, SC, was purchased for $175,000 USDC ($175,000 USD), as part of a “quick title transfer” and a 3% minimum fee.
The second sale took place in Harvest, Alabama, with the property selling for $180,000 USDC ($180,000 USD). Using the Teller Protocol, Roofstock introduced “flexible, asset-backed decentralized financial (DeFi) lending.”
A leading force in this transformation, Origin Story is not only known for its record-breaking music NFTs and collaborations with major NFT projects, but has also introduced a redeemable NFT platform. The platform allows an NFT, which may represent a sought-after asset, to be exchanged for the physical asset or traded on secondary markets.
Tokenize real estate
Tokenizing real estate on a blockchain could revolutionize the sale and processing of real estate, ushering in the future of on-chain real estate transactions. Another example of a platform implementing these practices and further streamlining real estate sales on-chain is an early blockchain startup, Propy.
Similar to a physical deed, the NFT acts as the official entity, or LLC, that legally ensures that the property’s “titles” and title documents are protected and encrypted.
With the record of the property purchase stored on the blockchain, the NFT provides access to the legal documents necessary to prove ownership of the property. Once the purchase process is complete, the owner(s) will receive both the NFT, with title rights to the property, and the physical property itself. Eventually, this becomes a DeFi asset that the owner can now use to borrow against.
As the first case study, Propy sold TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington’s apartment in Ukraine as an NFT in 2021. By the end of the year, the platform reached $4 billion in NFT sales. In January 2022, Propy officially rolled out its NFT platform in the United States, as initially reported by TechCrunch.
A month later, Propy began auctioning two Florida homes, bringing the technology to the attention of owners and buyers. The first real estate-funded NFT in the US involved the sale of a 2,164-square-foot Spanish-inspired Gulfport home for $653,163 (210 ETH), with more than 3,000 potential bidders.
These platforms are at the forefront of shaping and presenting the future landscape of what blockchain real estate looks like.
Editor’s note: This article was written by a staff member of nft now in collaboration with OpenAI’s GPT-3.