The reported first real estate purchase made with cryptocurrency has happened in Chile. The announcement was made last week by Yuval Ben Haym, who is the regional manager of Remax, a real estate operator with activities at a worldwide level. Ben Haym informed that this purchase was completed last year, during November, and that the transaction secured a plot of land in Temuco, a southern city of Chile, for a customer.
Ben Haym was optimistic about the use of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as payment options in real estate, and announced they are open to accepting these kinds of currencies. He stated:
From this time to the future several properties will be able to be paid with this new means of payment.
Bitcoin and Real Estate in LatamChile is just one of the Latam countries that has debuted bitcoin as a payment option available for properties and land. Prior to this report, several purchases of the same kind have been made in countries of the region. The first purchase was reported in Venezuela in August when an apartment was purchased with $12,000 worth of USDT.
Then, La Haus, a proptech company, informed of a real estate transaction in Colombia made with bitcoin earlier this month. In this purchase, the buyer used Lightning Network to pay for part of the property, which was a luxury apartment in a complex located in Santa Marta. The same company had already registered a sale of this kind in Mexico, where a buyer located in Peru made a remote purchase.
Analysts state that sales of this kind are likely to become more common in time. Guillermo Torrealba, General Manager of Buda, a regional exchange, stated:
It is normal that we are seeing the beginning of this business of cryptocurrencies with properties, because Bitcoin can be seen as an investment.
Nicolas Herrera, studies submanager at Toctoc, another proptech firm, also states that with their new restrictions, banks are making the task of acquiring a house difficult for most people.