Bitcoin Forum

Hello guys,
Do you know where is can purchase legally a real-estate asset in crypto?

The first "usual suspects" would be the countries Bitcoin is legal tender or has a good legal status: El Salvador, Central-African Republic, Panama.
Then there was in the news not long ago that this can be done (and has been done) in Portugal.
And overall, as long as Bitcoin is not illegal in a country and you (or the real estate selling middle man) can find a payment processor accepting Bitcoin, you can do it.

Just beware, in some cases you may have to pay tax for the gains in crypto (even if you use a payment processor, you may be seen like you've sold the coins).

So you should really check what's the status exactly in the countries of interest with officials in the matter, to avoid surprises.

Just want to drop a corresponding article link:
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/business/first-ever-direct-house-sale-for-bitcoin-in-portugal

It varies from 'normal currency-based sale' in some countries all the way to 'trade of goods'; I was baffled about the huge differences in legislation between neighboring countries and sometimes even within the same country (Switzerland).
I tried to gather information about BTC legislation in a number of countries in another context and it already turned out pretty tricky:

a legal place to buy real estate in my opinion, el salvador where this country was the first to recognize and use btc as a means of payment other than that I'm not 100% sure,

My first question would be...  Where do you want to purchase real estate using crypto?  For the right price, I'd sell you my home for Bitcoin.  I think it's mostly about location, then finding someone who is not afraid of using an exchange like Coinbase to transfer money.  Not really much to it to be honest... 

You can aquire any assets that you want with bitcoin. All you have to do is withdraw your investment with BTC and convert it into cash  or maybe if there are some seller that accept btc payment.

Lately there are more real estates agencies that accept bitcoin all over the world, anyway I think that you pay in bitcoin but they immediately convert into fiat or stable coins. So you don't need to go in a country with bitcoin used as legal tender.

This question is very easy to answer friends, when you want to buy assets and crypto you have to know the place and location you want to buy because it is very easy to find the possibility you can find it in several countries that have legalized bitcoin as payment or can use market exchanges

this is the worse time of year to be trying to sell your btc to then buy real estate.

selling btc on a low to then buy real estate thats on a 'high' is not very good investment decision on both parts


EG
imagine bitcoin has a value window of $27k to $70k
imagine real estate has a value window of $150 to $220 (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEDLISPRIPERSQUFEEUS) /sq ft

you are asking to sell btc when prices are $29k and asking to buy real estate when its near $220/sq ft

you should be asking in the opposite when btc is at the high and real estate is at the low

take an example $29k/btc and $700/sq ft average
imagine you had 10btc
=$290k = 1318sq ft real estate plot living space
 
take an example $58k/btc and $150/sq ft average
imagine you had 10btc
=$580k = 3866sq ft real estate plot

thats a significant difference
..
lets say real estate stayed at the high of 220 in the next 6 months but bitcoin bounced back to $58k in 6 months.

you are still able to get 2636 sq house which is double the size of the average today btc/sqft swap value.
but if houses reversed in a impending real estate recession you could get even more sq ft as shown in first example.

..
as for trying to buy a plot of land/real estate by asking for a vendor/agent first. rather than look for a location first and then find a vendor in that area.. thats another bad decision.

so first.. find out where you want to live first(find the house you like).
then second.. talk to the agent about accepting btc or finding a way to convert your btc to pay that agent.

..
if you are trying to ask if you can buy a crypto-token. that is backed by a house.. um. forget it,
people want to live in houses. and so they are not going to have some landlord/agent have the house constantly on the market swapping ownership every 5 minutes just to tokenise a house.

the only way that would work realistically is if there are neighbourhoods of empty houses where landlords/management changes are not in question in regards to residents/occupants having to form new occupant contracts and pay rents to different landlords often.

because even people just renting/leasing dont want to have change of management every 5 minutes. and a crypto token would only then work if the house was not actually owned by a person(to avoid these ownership changes) but a custodian that remains in charge to keep the rent coming in to one entity. which means you dont actually own the property via a token. you just own shares in the custodian company that owns the property
by which you then run into problems of if the company managing(custodian) of leased/rented property goes into bankruptcy themselves.

Buying something legal with bitcoin? Are you serious, JonnyDrama? Judging by the words of the media that demonize bitcoin at the whim of governments, bitcoin are only needed to buy illegal goods.
/sarcasm off

Cash conversion makes it possible to buy real estate almost anywhere in the world. With some reservation, of course. If the purchase of a house needs to be legalized, then you will have to buy a car wash like in "Breaking bad" in order to legalize the income. After that, with clean money, can purchase real estate legally and get an answer to OP's question. :)

The said Portuguese case is interesting to read through on the original source, since it states some additional information that needs to be taken into account:

- It is the first of a kind in the country, since the payment form was 100% BTC, without having to go through a conversion to fiat as in prior sales in the country. This is thanks to a very recent new regulation that affects the Order of Notaries.

- But it does carry some additional steps. Namely:

The above data must be sent in addition to the Central Department of Investigation and Criminal Action, and to the Financial Information Unit.

In addition, if the purchase exceeds a counter value of 200K €, then:

All in all, one needs to make sure that the origin of the crypto is properly and clearly justified in the eyes of the authorities …

See (original source GTd into English):
https://www-idealista-pt.translate.goog/news/imobiliario/habitacao/2022/05/06/52164-casa-em-braga-e-comprada-por-3-bitcoins-e-a-1a-transacao-100-cripto?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=es&_x_tr_pto=wapp

https://www-idealista-pt.translate.goog/news/imobiliario/habitacao/2022/04/01/51658-comprar-casas-em-criptomoedas-ha-novas-regras-a-espreita?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=es&_x_tr_pto=wapp

A financial tech company called  Milo  (https://www.milocredit.com/crypto/) has established world's first crypto mortgage through which borrowers obtain bitcoin-backed loans to buy real estate in the US. This mortgage plan can help reduce the risk of losing money due to a rise in Bitcoin. The company allows potential borrowers to pledge their  Bitcoin  (https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/currencies/cryptocurrency-mortgage-fintech-company-milo-first-us-bitcoin-property-loans-2022-1) to purchase property and qualify in financing 100% of the purchase with no dollar down payments required. The borrower will continue to own the Bitcoin through the course of the transaction and leverage on his crypto to invest in real estate. So instead of selling your crypto for a down payment to qualify for a mortgage Bitcoin holders can pay monthly mortgage payments using crypto or fiat currency.

yes thats a situation that can work for buying your dream home(by finding your dream home and then sorting out a workable mortgage solution.. as you stated) that makes payment monthly rather than lump sum upfront.
but not the points i was making about selling btc upfront to then invest in real estate/pegged tokens as an alternative to btc.

exiting btc upfront to then buy a crypto token backed by real estate is a bad time to do so now.
also even in your example. of milo. you actually do give up ownership. by putting it into a custodian. (not your key not your coin)
whereby that custodian(gemini/coinbase) can go into bankruptcy (MTGOX, btc-e, cryptsy, etc  example)

oh and just organising a mortgage(no matter how its funded) is still a bad time with real estate costs being at a high right now.

If you're looking for real estate property in Brazil there is real estate start up named Gafisa accepting bitcoin in exchange for real estate property. For this Gafisa have partnered with Foxbit.

Bitcoin transaction on real estate is a much needed one, because on every transaction the bank gets involved without reason. Based on the on-chain data Brazil stands 6th position in terms of value transacted through cryptocurrencies. Brazil have got good number of users compared to other countries.

Brazil Real Estate Gafisa Now Accepts Bitcoin (https://crypto.news/brazil-real-estate-startup-gafisa-bitcoin-payment)

I know that now you can buy appartments in Dubai absolutely legaly by crypto, try google serach!

USA basically allows this as well. Not directly in the sense that you could buy with crypto but more like you could get a house from someone and they will not ask you if you paid or not. All both sides needs to do is turn the ownership of the house from one person to another person, whatever payment happened behind the doors may not be seen or known.

This would be a shady deal of course and the house seller would be in trouble as well and there are taxes that are not paid so IRS will be an issue, but you could still do it. There are people who are buying drugs illegally and drug dealers are not paying taxes neither, so I am not sure if this is totally illegal at all, you could be charged with just avoiding taxes, all the other parts are allowed.

As long as Bitcoin is not yet declared to be illegal in your own country then most probably you can find a real estate company that can be willing to accept Bitcoin as payment...but in case they don't then why not just convert your BTC to fiat cash and use the proceeds to buy a real estate property that you are eyeing - it would be almost the same story. Now, as pointed by another forum member here, this is not the best time to be buying anything especially real estate as the value of BTC is not going up so maybe the best thing to do is to HODL on and then just rekindle your desire once maybe BTC can be reaching its new ATH. Good luck on your endeavors.

Where do you live and what country and region do you want to buy property in, Your question is too general and not clear to answer. If you want to buy real estate where you live, you can go to local real estate companies for more specific advice than asking here. It depends on where you want to buy bitcoin is legal or not.

This is the indirect use of bitcoin and you can buy any stuff with this method because you will use legal cash in this but also after tax deduction but what @OP is asking about any real estate agency or company allowing direct bitcoin payments and finalise the deal.So there is difference as bitcoin adoption needs to be there or find some agent where he is living to make this happen.

I remember seeing an article when the big DOGE boom happened a few years ago which was talking about a guy looking to sell his house and accept DOGE (I hope he didn't end up doing it seeing the price of the coin now).. Anyways, that tells me buying (or selling) real estate for crypto is definitely possible. My advice would be if you were really looking to acquire some real estate with Bitcoin then talk to a realtor in your area. Nobody would know better than them and if you're serious, they would try and find a way to make it work since they get a commission.

I don't think it really matters if you buy your property with btc or FIAT because in most countries buying something with BTC triggers a tax event which means you'll pay a capital gain tax for your profits whether you use bitcoin or FIAT when you buy your real estate.

Maybe there are a few 3rd world shit hole countries exception to this rule but I am pretty sure you don't wanna buy a property in those countries. Do you?

Isn't there a lot of stable coins in crypto that can be used to make these transactions? If the asset is traded with crypto assets it will not be difficult even though the price has decreased in value because the pair with Fiat will continue to follow the nominal that must be paid at that real time.

Up until today, very few that you will read that someone is paying crypto for real-estate purchase. I guess, it will only happen if the seller is already into crypto and if he wants to receive payment in crypto. Otherwise, even these crypto projects dedicating in real-estate is finding it difficult to penetrate this market because it is hard to sustain this business. Many people still prefer the traditional way of payment method when it comes to real-estate business. If someone is paying crypto with his real-estate purchase, it will hit the news. Which translates that, it is a big deal for real-estate and so the adoption is still rare.

To purchase a real estate asset legally with crypto, you will have to go countries where crypto is accepted legally, because without that, it will be a bit difficult doing that except you happens to meet a real estate agent willing to transact with you in crypto one on one.

There's no other option if the property you want to buy is only accepted in cash or even if the owner wants to receive the payment in crypto but there has to be some taxation and paper works that will matter due to this sale.

That's why they have to go through it like having an actual transaction, p2p and then they'll also talk about the tax and other paper works. It's all a matter of talks and agreement.

If not, then just go with the traditional way of selling it for cash and hand over the money to the seller but it will take time.

We don't need to move to countries where bitcoin is legal, nowadays to increase liquidity a lot of companies or individuals dealing in real estate accept bitcoin as payment but they will convert to fiat immediately because the volatility of bitcoin is unpredictable.

If you are living in a country where bitcoin is not legal then you can use p2p to transact, not too difficult and no need to move to other countries.

Sure you can get it for yourself but you would have to do your own research (DYOR) so as not to fall prey to scammers. Do well to consult real estate experts for guidance. You would definitely get it if you are real and genuine.

It's very rare to buy a property with cryptocurrencies. Even if you know some country where it is done, it's no use for you if you do not live in that country. Obviously you won't buy the property in some other country if you can't visit that place  physically.
The best you can do is to cash out your crypto and then buy the property in your country.

Although he can buy a property without actually visiting to any country as the documents for that property can be send electronically via emails and the payment can be done instantly via bitcoins. However there is a possibility that the property agent may scam him in the process due to the fact the person is not present physically at the location.
Also I would like to know from which country OP belongs ?

We can juxtapose(compare and contrast) both crypto and real estate as key areas of modern investments in real estate maintenance, supervision and leasing of the facility on yearly basis can be can sometimes prove to be cost effective but in crypto the only issue of concern is the volatility so as a long time investment crypto is better. According to Forbes list of 2022 Richest real estate owners we have the following as te top 3:
Donald Bren Net Worth: $16.2 billion (Up from $15.3 billion in 2020)
Stephen Ross Net Worth: $8.3 billion (Up from $7.2 billion)
Sun Hongbin Net Worth: $6.9 billion….
These men are not among the top richest men in the world but the richest man in the world Elon Musk has not only invested in crypto but also publicly identifies with it. This shows tat crypto is a veritable area of investment.
Also while real estate is a tangible area of investment crypto can be used to buy this assets also for long term sales

Almost in every country it is a must to be present in person when a property is being registered on his/her name. The transaction can be made electronically, and this too have got limitations. In my country it is mandatory to be in person and the transaction needs to be made electronically or through cheques. My country haven't got any such registration of property in exchange for bitcoin. Hope this will happen soon, even if people have the willing they won't buy it considering the 30% tax on capital gains.