Bitcoin Forum

Has anyone here completed or thought about doing a real estate transaction using bitcoin?

Would bitcoins qualify as "consideration" in a real estate contract? Or, would you just price it like they were cash?

I'm thinking more along the lines of cheaper land parcels. Not like mansions, or apartment buildings, etc.

Consideration doesn't need to be cash.   

But just to be safe, I would sell it for $1 "plus any additional consideration".

I imagine any such deal would have to be denominated in a fiat amount worth of bitcoin, especially if a loan or a mortgage is involved, since any dispute about who owns and owes what would be settled using stuff backed by full faith and credit of whatever country is involved. Plus that country would want to know how much it is entitled to in taxes.

Yeah that is what I was thinking - If you wrote down the sale price was 500 BTC on the paperwork the title company & county assessor would be confused. The deals I was thinking of doing would be straight sales - no loans or anything.

Those can work. I've heard of people trading land for $1, with the $1 only being there to put something on the paperwork. I'm sure something else was actually being traded instead.

IMO you would need a seller that would be willing to accept BTC as well as lawyers on both sides that will cooperate concerning the tax consequences. IANAL but consult counsel before you put $1 on a title, the govt is not stupid and they want their tax money. Consideration can be anything of value not just fiat currency. 

I know a guy that rents a safehouse/drop with btc in the UK.

We have done a few this year but it's interesting that the sales are always smooth until the very end. Usually the Bitcoin buyer tends to have second thoughts. However, we have started to use special transactions on the BTC blockchain that use cltv and htlc or hash time locked contracts. It's like a trustless or time-based escrow.

That means the buyer can deposit and rest easy knowing his funds are in escrow until he gets all the signed documents. When the documents are signed the seller waits until the time lock expires and viola! You have closed a sale.

We list a number of merchants here accepting Bitcoins as payment for their goods and services: https://www.cryptowisser.com/merchants/

One of them is ECI Development that build houses for BTC. I'm sure they have completed a few projects!