Metaverse and Real Estate: What To Know

If you’re in your 40s like me, you may hear terms floating around your office like “aping, “nft,” and some sort of “coin.” Now the water cooler conversations are more than the big Kentucky Derby surprise win and someone’s new pocket listing. You’re likely to hear people talking about a new Wendy’s or Chipotle. Don’t get too excited about your lunch break. They’re not talking about a new commercial real estate deal in town. They’re talking about virtual burritos in the Metaverse. 

What is that? Something on Xbox or Playstation? It’s a much more complex than a video game. It’s what tech gurus consider to be the future of the internet. It’s somewhat paradoxical because that one term, the metaverse, is ambiguous yet at the same time, quite sophisticated. It encompasses not only virtual reality, but augmented reality as well. We’re not just talking about playing Sims here. We’re talking about a platform in cyberspace where you can buy, sell, and trade goods. Real estate happens to be one of them.

Buckle up for a quick ride thru this virtual world of real estate as explained by Cincinnati’s own Adam Koehler. As a current or future Realtor, if you don’t know Adam, he is responsible for creating that handy dandy e-signing platform you know and love called Dotloop. Take it away, Adam!

“I've been getting a lot of questions lately about the meta-verse. I guess I'm the guy you come to in Cincinnati when you have questions on anything related to Blockchain technology or cryptocurrency. I have mixed feelings about this new wave of alternate reality technologies after my past experience in the advertising world with second life. That was a meta-verse back in the 2010s that had a lot of hype around it and never really took off. Will this new metaverse excitement ultimately have the same fate?

The one thing this new metaverse has going for it is an advance in technology and a much faster Internet connection for most people. You also have big tech companies like Facebook even switching their name to Meta and supporting the tech. If they ever flip the switch then all of its users are coming along for the ride. Sort of like a design update you didn't ask for and now you can find your settings link or how to get back to your own feed. You just log in and there it is but in this case it's a much bigger task and might also require new hardware like a VR headset, Google Glasses, or some sort of augmented-reality.

You also have a lot of hype around cryptocurrency which is built on Blockchain technology and that leads us to NFT's. That's the idea that anything on the Blockchain is recorded in an immutable manner to prove ownership. Generally, there is only one of that "thing" and if you hold the private key then you can prove ownership. It's a supply and demand thing at the end of the day and they gave it a geeky name like "non-fungible token" and a super nerdy explanation from Wikipedia, "A non-fungible token is a non-interchangeable unit of data stored on a blockchain, a form of digital ledger, that can be sold and traded. Types of NFT data units may be associated with digital files such as photos, videos, and audio."

If you want to browse some NFT’s for sale the most popular marketplace is Open Sea. Be sure to buy some Ethereum tokens to make most purchases. That is the most common currency of the NFT marketplace.

These NFT's also apply to land in the metaverse. If you are a REALTOR® then pay attention to the space. There are two popular metaverses now you can check out Decentraland and the Sandbox. Think of them like open world video games like Skyrim, but in this case you can own land and your items are unique to you and can be bought and sold. This could even include a house or business on your land, built by a famous architect with your NFT art adorning the place. Your services may be needed and there will be commissions to be had. Sales last year hit $500 million and are estimated to exceed $5 billion by 2026. You can even take a look at some land for yourself with this guide from Forbes.”

Consider yourself “nerded-out” for the day. You’re welcome! Now go break some eggs. It’s okay. Virtual eggs aren’t messy.