Roofstock OnChain Sells Third Property as an NFT

Roofstock onChain and Origin Story announced their latest celebration as they executed their third blockchain-infused property sale on September 1st through the Roofstock onChain NFT marketplace, powered by Origin Story. 

The property, located at 332 Montclaire Ln in West Columbia, South Carolina, features three bedrooms and two bathrooms, and it was sold for 204,000 USDC ($204,000 USD).

Roofstock onChain, a subsidiary of Roofstock, Inc., offers tokenized single-family rentals. Developed by Origin Story, the Roofstock onChain marketplace enables the trading of real estate as NFTs, to speed up the overall transaction process, while keeping costs relatively low. 

Unique to this sale was Roofstock’s collaboration with Skillet.ai, an NFT liquidity aggregator that offers “flexible” financing options, a departure from the rigidity of more traditional avenues.

The adoption of blockchain technology and NFTs in real estate is simplifying a landscape known for complexity, fees, and delays. By tokenizing properties through NFTs on the blockchain, the process becomes more streamlined, instantaneous, and transparent. For investors and owners, this fusion of tech injects additional liquidity into an otherwise stagnant market. 

Recapping its 2022 Sales

The journey of Roofstock onChain and Origin Story in this space began with its inaugural kickoff event in September 2022, conducting its first-ever sale of an IRL home through an NFT marketplace. The property, a three-bedroom house in Columbia, SC, was purchased for $175,000 USDC ($175,000 USD), as part of a “swift ownership transfer” and a minimal 3% fee.

Its second sale occurred in Harvest, Alabama, with the property selling for $180,000 USDC ($180,000 USD). In utilizing Teller Protocol, Roofstock introduced “flexible, asset-backed Decentralized Finance (DeFi) lending.”

Origin Story, a leading force in this transformation, is not only recognized for record-breaking music NFTs and collaborations with major NFT projects but has also introduced a redeemable NFT platform. The platform allows an NFT, potentially representing a sought-after property, to be redeemed for the physical asset or traded on secondary markets. 

Tokenizing Real Estate

Tokenizing real estate on a blockchain could revolutionize property sales and processing, heralding the future of on-chain real estate transactions. Another example of a platform implementing these practices and further streamlining real estate sales onchain, is an early blockchain startup, Propy.

Similar to a physical deed, the NFT serves as the official entity, or LLC, which legally provides for the property’s “property rights” and ownership documents to be 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 purchasing process is complete, the owner(s) will receive both the NFT, containing the ownership rights to the property, and the physical property itself. Ultimately, this becomes a DeFi asset that the owner can now leverage to borrow against. 

As its first case study, Propy sold TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington’s apartment in the Ukraine as an NFT in 2021. The platform reached $4 billion in NFT sales by the end of the year. In January 2022, Propy officially rolled out its NFT platform in the United States, as initially reported by TechCrunch.

A month later, Propy began by auctioning two residential properties located in Florida, marketing the technology to owners and buyers. The first real-estate-backed NFT in the U.S. involved the sale of a 2,164 square-foot Spanish-inspired Gulfport home, for $653,163 (210 ETH), with over 3,000 potential bidders.

These platforms stand at the forefront, shaping and showcasing the future landscape of what real estate on the blockchain looks like.

Editor’s note: This article was written by an nft now staff member in collaboration with OpenAI’s GPT-3.