NFT first ever house in Florida, sold for $653,000!
In what could be one of the first home sales using non-fungible tokens, or NFTs,
A Florida woman bought a five-bedroom, three-and-half-bath house near Tampa in an online auction Fortune reports
“We truly feel that we made history, both for the real estate industry and for the crypto community,” said Natalia Karayaneva, the CEO and founder of Propy, which managed the online auction and transaction.
- The price was 210 Ether, the equivalent of $653,000 at the time of the sale, according to Natalia
- There were bidders, each of whom had to have ether worth at least $650,000 —the starting price—in a digital wallet.
The use of an NFT in the sale meant that the process involved was hardly ordinary. The first step involved transferring ownership of the house from the seller to a limited liability company.
After the winner was determined, ownership was automatically transferred to the winner and the seller received the payment in her digital wallet.
Karayaneva declined to identify the buyer, as the seller was Leslie Alessandra, the founder of a Tampa area–based blockchain company.
Prestigious Contemporary Gallery ‘Sothby’ announces art sale as NFT
8 works by @refikanadol have sold for a combined total of HKD39.39M (USD $5.06M) in Hong Kong. The sale marks a new record of the most valuable NFT collection by a single artist sold in Asia.https://t.co/52cnx4Rczp
— Sotheby's (@Sothebys) October 6, 2021
Karayaneva told Fortune that Propy’s legal team came up with maneuver so the ownership transfer could be instantaneous.
The usual due diligence processes that come with buying a home, like completing an inspection, obtaining a report, and conducting a market research, were done by Propy before the auction, Karayaneva said.
People who signed up for the auction were invited to visit the home and review the documents before it took place to make sure they wanted to buy it.
“The only bureaucratic process that we had during the auction was a five-minute process of going through the verification where the bidders had to provide their names and their ID and connect their wallet,” Karayaneva told Fortune, referring to “customer” rules.
The seller was required to go through with the auction as designed, adding that,
our goal though NFT auction, is ultimately to appeal to the crypto-savvy or young home buyers who are fed up with the tiresome process of purchasing a house.
Karayaneva further announced that the company is selling a house in Tampa, followed by a condo in Chicago and a single-family home in San Francisco, all listed as an NFT
