[Short #61] Real Estate NFTs

What NFTs of your 🏠 could mean in the future

If you’ve been reading this newsletter for a while, you probably understand the concept of NFTs as digital collectibles or as a token for membership well. They’re the most visually and conceptually understandable use case for NFTs.

However, I’ve peppered in posts here and there about what NFTs could look like in the future. Whether for art, gaming, music, and much more.

But what about real estate? 🤔

Ah real estate, one of the pillars of the American Dream and many dreams around the world.

It’s empowering…and expensive (money and time).

It’s a status symbol…and complicated (permits and zoning anyone?).

It’s somewhere to call your own…and a source of unpleasant surprises (imagine mold or termites unbeknownst to you).

When it comes to real estate and NFTs, it’s not as ‘sexy’. There’s less drama, no surprise airdrops, no rug pulls. And…that’s a good thing!

Sexy or not, there is a lot going on behind the scenes with the real estate industry and Web3. And for people who are fundamentally against the concept of JPEGs holding value, real estate is something that is harder to argue against when someone asks “But what’s the utility?”

TLDR: ‘Boring’ is good! Thank you for those that are working on Web3 in these spaces that don’t get the fanfare of an animal profile pic.

So what’s going on in this space? I’m going to focus on one product in particular.

Blockchain Home Registry (BHR)

So, how did I even come across this product?

Zach Gorman, co-founder of BHR reached out to me on LinkedIn a few weeks after I started writing, and we hit it off.

I’m writing about this 2.5 months later, ayo!

We ended up scheduling a conversation the week after to chat more about what he was working on, and I found it fascinating and much needed as a homeowner myself.

So how did BHR come about? This is actually a product/company built by the team from Zach’s other company, Torii.

Torii helps people go through the home buying/selling process in a seamless way. What does this mean for BHR? Zach and the team know about real estate and how technology can help the space.

When BHR released their Litepaper last week, it was a reminder for me to write about how Web3 + NFTs can help real estate. If you’re a homeowner, you’ll resonate with what the Litepaper lays out. If you’re not a homeowner, I hope Web3 makes the home-anything process easier for you if/when you’re ready to have a home.

SO WHAT’S THE TEA TPAN?

Here’s a summary paraphrased from the Litepaper, along with my commentary in italics.

As an incentive to continue reading (because I’m not going to put pictures/memes in this section lol), details on how to claim your free BHR NFT below!

Intro: Blockchain Home Registry (BHR) is aiming to be the Web3 standard for the future of home ownership. This allows the real estate industry to modernize while empowering consumers to own the data of their property.

Data ownership is a prevailing theme in Web3 and oh boy, there’s a LOT of data in real estate.

Problem: The real estate industry is antiquated due to fragmented data ownership and lack of aligned incentives between various parties in the ecosystem. As a result, consumers have a lack of info.

When a home is sold, parties are incentivized to provide the minimum about of required info. Buyers have to do the heavy lifting to understand all the available and missing info.

Solution: BHR is creating a collaborative Web3 standard to address the above problems.

What is BHR? Blockchain Home Registry (BHR) allows homeowners to claim a NFT attached to their physical real estate. The NFT provides the Homeowner with privacy-controlled access to a permanent, transferrable, historical record of their home.

Right incentive structures —> All parties motivated to adopt Motivation —> More integrations —> More informed decisions from consumers —> More adoption —> Richer datasets —> More integrations —> etc.

Big fan of mutually aligned incentives and growth loops :)

Integration Examples

• Lending: Avg home purchase is 40+ days. Imagine lenders having buyer info instantly available to them. Home loans, refi’s, or HELOCs could be as easy as calling an Uber 🚗

• Insurance: Insurance companies can instantly access home info to provide efficient and accurate underwriting. ✨

• Utility providers: Providers can share data to show homeowners what services are available and what neighbors are using. Ad space anyone? 📞

• Municipalities: BHR can be a standard to record deed transfers and asses property values efficiently for tax purposes. 🏛

• And many more!

As a homeowner, when I read this part of the Litepaper I could see the utopia that BHR was describing, and it’s…beautiful. 🥹

That said, this Litepaper and the BHR NFTs are just the first steps of many to modernize and Web3-ify real estate. Creating a proof of concept, convincing different parties to participate, and turning what is perceived as a threat (‘you’re going to take my business!’) into an ally (‘I can make more business if I join in’).

I’m excited to see Zach, his team, and many others in real estate fight the good fight to bring Web3 to real estate.

For anyone interested in learning more:

• Check out the Litepaper

• Reach out to or follow Zach on Twitter at @BSSCMP or e-mail him at zach@bhr.fyi

• Learn more at bhr.fyi

So onto the BHR NFT, here’s what mine looks like, without the…address 😉

What’s nice is when you claim your home, BHR cross-references the info with public record, so you can’t randomly claim some mansion you don’t own.

If you get one, please note that the NFT has your address on it. I would recommend you keep transfer this to a separate wallet, hardware wallet, or in a hidden folder if you don’t want to share it publicly. That said, your address is already public info, that’s how they verify you’re able to claim it in the first place.

Also, my BHR NFT is a perfect example of how real estate space is broken. My home is not 940 square feet, but public record has stated that for who knows how long. The city’s records are up to date with the square footage, but the county (where the records are pulling from) are not.

I recently learned from the city that the copies of permits are still physical. That explains why the records haven’t been updated for 7+ years and counting for my home. 😱

Anyway, who cares about TPan’s stories. GIVE ME MY FREE NFT.

For homeowners, use the code FREE50 to claim your BHR NFT. 😊

See you tomorrow!