Australians Look to Virtual Real Estate Amid Overheated Real-Life Property Market
Categories: Crypto News US AUSTRALIA
As prices in the real-life property market surge out of control, some Australians are settling for the next best thing – buying virtual properties.Those who cannot afford to get into the actual property market purchased digital real estate to the tune of A$59 million in April alone, despite a 35.3 percent first-quarter drop in the Everyrealm Metaverse Index, which tracks virtual property across 14 different metaverses. Many of Australia’s most prestigious addresses and landmarks have gone on the market at rock-bottom prices. Right now, 47 Aussie addresses are listed for sale in one virtual marketplace where people can “buy” property, or rather NFTs based on the real world. Dr Simone Brott, senior lecturer in architecture at the Queensland University of Technology and author of the book Digital Monuments, says that new platforms selling virtual land are popping up every day. As she notes, “When you buy a virtual piece of real estate, you’re buying an asset just as if you were buying a bricks and mortar building. If that asset appreciates, you can sell it for a profit.” Brott also notes that, unlike real world property where you can only make a profit once, when you sell a real estate NFT to a second buyer who then sells it to a third, depending on how the deal was set up you might end up earning royalties each time the NFT changes hands.Canstar personal finance writer Nicola Field confirms that some virtual property owners have made big gains. “But, as is often the case with anything crypto-related, it’s a fair bet plenty have also lost money on virtual property.”