Buying a house with bitcoin

[TheTruth4]

"Buying a house with bitcoiN"

Haha, yeah, that's right letter - not bitcoins, but bitcoin. If you know what I mean

[1713446940]

1713446940

[BitCoinNutJob]

To buy real estate, I think you have to register the property (it's in your own interest, at the Land Registry for England and Wales) and that act implies payment of taxes related to the transfer of real property (stamp duty of 4%?), no matter the mean of payment you used.
But do your home work.

I read, From midnight on 24 March, Budget Day 2010, the threshold at which stamp duty becomes payable on homes was lifted from £125,000 to £250,000 - for first-time buyers only.   And im a first time buyer.

+ rinse all bitcoin through satoshi dice could = tax free property purchase in UK in theory?

You don't want to live on a boat. Water leaves no legacy. You live by water, you die by water. She provides, and then she takes you.

Buy an island for like 50k-100k on the next bubble, pay some locals good money (still cheap money) to build you a nice open floor plan, and enjoy your newly built house on an island named Satoshi Island

I see some people are living for cheap on boats, no council tax and free mooring is possible also, thats 700pcm saved for me.

You can buy an island for 50-100k ?  what am i missing where are these babies at?

[Kluge]

I tried selling my last house with BTC in US before listing. Ended up getting a USD offer at ask, but never had a BTC bite. Fwiw. I think we're starting to make headway into car purchases... houses are probably a good way off. Not as far away as Branson's space travel, though, so if you try, I'd guess you at least have a better chance than him.

"Buying a house with bitcoiN"

Haha, yeah, that's right letter - not bitcoins, but bitcoin. If you know what I mean

"bitcoin" can be used to mean either singular and plural, like sheep.

[Swordsoffreedom]

I tried selling my last house with BTC in US before listing. Ended up getting a USD offer at ask, but never had a BTC bite. Fwiw. I think we're starting to make headway into car purchases... houses are probably a good way off. Not as far away as Branson's space travel, though, so if you try, I'd guess you at least have a better chance than him.

"Buying a house with bitcoiN"

Haha, yeah, that's right letter - not bitcoins, but bitcoin. If you know what I mean

"bitcoin" can be used to mean either singular and plural, like sheep.

Well a few houses in Canada were sold for Bitcoin and I have seen a few threads here and there about it but it certainly is uncommon to see it now with sites like Bitpremier probably being the best places to look for houses.
However you might have a point about car purchases being done in Bitcoin it is getting to the stage where it is becoming popular enough that some people may be willing to trade their car for some.

[Trading]

In Europe, is much more hard to find houses for sale in bitcoins. Maybe next year.

But we already see a few cars for sale.

[turtoro]

I have got a luxury seafront flat for sale in Cyprus and 1 in Montenegro in Btc if you are interested

[AlexM]

Something i thought of is if the BTC was "won via gambling" and then you buy a house well thats non taxable in UK no?

BTC won through gambling is tax free in the UK. From what I have been told the revenue look at it like this. Bob paid £500 for 100BTC. He gambled and surprisingly increased his holdings to 110BTC. Bob sells 100BTC for £50000, and the 10BTC winnings for £5000. Bob owes capital gains tax on £50000-£500 initial stake. The £5000 is tax free.

The revenue only cares when the sum of money is over capital gains limit for the year, so you can put away £10k or £11k capital gains tax free each year as can a spouse.

[zimmah]

Something i thought of is if the BTC was "won via gambling" and then you buy a house well thats non taxable in UK no?

not sure about UK, but in the netherlands you'd still have to pay tax on gambling profits

buying/selling houses in BTC would seem nice at first, but cars and houses have many documentation to prove ownership and all, so avoiding taxes will be pretty much impossible. They will ask questions.

[_Miracle]

Talk to (several) tax advisors first before making any assumptions.


Maybe this will help? http://www.bitlegal.net/

I'm looking forward to when bitcoin is used regularly for the purchase of real estate (especially in the USA).
Having an escrow company who specializes in R.E. transactions would be a good start. A long standing escrow company who integrates bitcoin into its existing services would be an even better start.
Maybe a company like Old Republic (nothing to do with the Star Wars game ;-). It's been awhile but ORTC (Old Republic Title Company) used to have another company (Orexco) associated with it who facilitated 1031 exchanges acting as an intermediary so it would be nice to see them also stepping into potentially facilitating "like exchanges" for crypto currencies.  


Good luck house hunting and wishing you even more good luck in finding an advisor competent enough to guide you.

[DolanDuck]

If you aren't on a hurry I would recomment waiting a couple of years before buying a home with your btcs,
if in 2014 you would buy a decent/big house, probably in 2016 you will have a castle...

[hashman]

No offense but you'd have to be a total idiot to buy real estate with bitcoin.  We are still in the era of fiat mining.  Not even the richest 0.001 percent pay hard cash for real estate unless of course they are in a huge hurry and willing to take a loss.  Get some money counterfeited by the bank for you, er, I mean get a loan! 

[JypsiCreme]

Depends on how many BTC I can earn between now and then. But seriously, if the value of a few bitcoins goes up high enough in say, five years to buy a house... would you be able to hold off spending them long enough to buy that house?

[JypsiCreme]

I think I would end up blowing it on a car... or maybe bacon. Lots of bacon.

[MICRO]

home sellers accepting bitcoin using bitpay/coinbase?
sounds crazy but i like it

Yeah its happening right now , take a look at https://www.bitpremier.com/ .

Not sure about uk but u will need to pay tax, that is for sure. And wont be to hard to find somebody to accept bitcoin as payment, when u offer it they will accept. Nobody would turn down a sell opportunity .

[MICRO]

And f*** UK, just buy this one https://www.bitpremier.com/items/view/495 . Isn't it awesome ? LOL

[BitCoinNutJob]

No offense but you'd have to be a total idiot to buy real estate with bitcoin.  We are still in the era of fiat mining.  Not even the richest 0.001 percent pay hard cash for real estate unless of course they are in a huge hurry and willing to take a loss.  Get some money counterfeited by the bank for you, er, I mean get a loan!  

If the UK housing market crashes and you have a mortgage is that better vs cash purchase?  (you'd have negative equity but i guess you can dump the mortgage is that the advantage?)

Also with cash buys you get on average 7% cheaper purchase to begin i have read.

[BitCoinNutJob]

If you aren't on a hurry I would recomment waiting a couple of years before buying a home with your btcs,
if in 2014 you would buy a decent/big house, probably in 2016 you will have a castle...

Its the deal or no deal problem, when your bitcoin starts becoming 90% of your total net worth its time to diversify no?

[CryptoKilla]

You will most likely have to pay taxes no matter which way you purchase the property. I would think your best bet would be to find someone who is selling a property and looking for bitcoin for it. It would be a challenge to have a realtor accept bitcoin especially if they have never heard of it.

[redwhitenblue]

Buying with bitcoin will mean avoiding tax vs cashing out bitcoin before purchase in UK im pretty sure?

I am not sure about UK tax law, but I am pretty sure that US tax law says that when you exchange one property for another property you will need to treat it as if you first sold your first property for cash and then used that cash for the 2nd property.

An example of this is as follows:
You have 100 shares of company ABC that you bought for $1 each (total cost basis of $100). The shares of ABC are now worth $50 each (total value $5,000, total appreciation, $4,900).

You exchange these 100 shares of ABC for 20 shares of company XYZ. Company XYZ are worth $250 each and the total
value of these 20 share is $5,000.

My understanding is that you would need to pay taxes on the 4900, which is the difference between the value of the shares you bought verses the cost basis of the share you purchased.

2.) Negotiating for a lowball price will be harder with bitcoin

I don't see how this would be the case. BTC is easily converted into fiat. If a buyer or seller is desperate (or otherwise urgently wants/needs to complete the transaction then the other will have an advantage.

3.) General lack of choice, we need ebay to accept bitcoin or like a bitpay for property

There are many services that assist merchants/sellers/businesses in accepting bitcoin (coinbase, bitpay, MtGox(before they failed).

[BitCoinNutJob]

Thanks catfish et al for taking the time to provide some great info im going over the posts/info, i might have to hire yous for consultancy once we at $5k BTC .

But I applaud your sentiment re: diversification - if your entire net worth is currently Bitcoin holdings, then you're taking a big risk and - with the volatility of Bitcoin - loads of emotional stress watching the value gyrate. UK residential property though? Have you considered buying some gold coins with the Bitcoin? Easy enough to do - plenty of reliable people selling bullion for BTC (I started off selling my mined BTC for silver and gold bullion in 2011...) - and if you wish, discreet enough to not declare to the taxman. Gold is currently cheap...

Like i said though im still waiting for this UK housing market crash (i do see a 30% drop sometime soonish maybe yes but could be 10 years who knows?).  So far ive paid about what... £50k - 60k? in rent over last years. 

Investing elsewhere requires some skill, could go with gold/silver but what else i have no clue, sticking some money in property might not provide any return but at least im not paying 600 PCM anymore which would be a great saving?