The digital transformation of the global financial markets has continued to make the world smaller. In today’s markets, investors can buy and sell stocks, currencies, and commodities of different countries from a single platform and without having to travel. Simply put, digitization of financial markets has put the entire world in a small device called the smartphone.
Yet, there are still some markets that remain largely out of reach of some investors. For instance, if an investor wanted to acquire real estate property in Spain, most of the time they would have to travel there.
That is the bottom line when it comes to making real estate investments, but a lot has been changing over the last few years.
Property acquisition processes are now digitized across the world
Several countries around the world already have digital registers of properties describing ownership, previous transfers, as well as, geographical location.
This digital transformation has, in turn, helped create another marketplace, which now connects potential property buyers with sellers by digitally providing property information and their statuses. As such, there has been a rapid growth of online property acquisition platforms like this one that provides potential investors with an opportunity to invest in property in Murcia, Spain. However, as most investors will notice they still need to purchase a particular listed property in its entirety in order to invest.
Such platforms have definitely smoothed the property acquisition process in most countries, but still, most investors find themselves locked out due to the high cost of acquisition. However, with technological advances like blockchain, things could get more interesting in the next few years.
The disruptive force of blockchain is helping to tokenize real estate
Over the last few years, Blockchain and crypto have become the breakout markets of the current decade and they increasingly look like they could do more in the coming years.
The blockchain is helping startups to create disruptive marketplaces for just about every industry anyone could think about. This has been made possible because of one of the blockchain’s most powerful features, the ability to tokenize assets.
While a lot of focus has been directed towards already tradable assets like gold, silver, and oil, a new wind of disruption has seen players in the technology space introduce platforms that seek to disrupt real estate, the talent industry, digital marketing, and many others in a comparable way.
Etherty, a blockchain project that targets high traffic real estate market
One of the most interesting blockchain projects targeting the real estate market was launched this year by a company called Etherty. It is an integrated one-stop solution for property investors across the globe. It uses smart contracts and tokenization technologies to provide a property trading platform that functions like a stock exchange.
Investors can buy and sell tokenized shares of several properties sourced from across the world, as well as, monitor market trends to gain insights on the most appropriate properties to invest in at a given time.
ATLANT.io, allows property investors to invest, rent or trade real estate assets
Etherty’s disruptive real estate trading platform is not one of a kind. It follows the same concept of ATLANT.io, another blockchain project that seeks to tokenize the property market. This platform allows investors and traders to invest, rent and trade real estate properties pooled together to make a well-diversified portfolio of assets spread across the world.
Therefore, with blockchain technology and tokenized real estate assets, investors do not have to travel to a country or location, like Murcia in Spain to invest in properties in those locations. Etherty and ATLANT.io, which are expanding rapidly will soon be able to cover properties from such locations thereby making it easy for investors to capitalize on markets that provide interesting growth opportunities.
The future of tokenized real estate
In summary, the real estate market has proved over the years to be one of the most complicated markets to invest in. Different governments have different regulations on property ownership. In addition, most properties are sold wholesomely, which means that a specific property could cost millions. This effectively locks out several potential real estate investors that cannot afford to invest huge sums of money in a whim.
However, with tokenization, real estate investors could now invest in the property markets by buying tokens of different properties. And as demonstrated by Etherty and ATLANT.io disruptive platforms, investors can even trade in real estate assets, which improves liquidity in the market and opens doors for more investors to join.
Author disclosure: Trading cryptocurrencies or investing in ICOs involves huge risk. This is not an endorsement to invest in or trade any of the cryptocurrencies or stocks mentioned in this article. I have no positions in currencies and stocks mentioned.