Potential Ultities
Rent-to-own
If tentants finds temselves renting a RealT property, they might have the option of purchasing the RealTokens for the property. While purchasing all of the RealTokens for a property might be outside of the means of the tenants, the fractionalization of the property through tokenization may enable the tenants to purchase a more affordable numbers of RealTokens. Upon purchasing the RealTokens, the tenants are effectively paying rent to of the rent they are paying. if they are only able to afford 1/3 of a house, they can purchase the rights to 1/3 of the rent they are paying. Through the purchasing of 1/3 of the property’s RealTokens, they are effectively reducing their rent by 1/3. The reduction in their cost-of-living can help enable the purchasing of future RealTokens and this can help snowball tenants into owning the home outright.
Accessing Capital
Homeowners might want to leverage the capital locked up in their houses, but without
seceding ownership of the properties to anyone else. A second mortgage, reverse mortgage,
or a collateralized loan are all options available from a bank, but the bank charges high fees
or interest. Homeowner could tokenize their houses on the RealT platform, and, using
decentralized finance platforms like Dharma or MakerDAO, they can leverage some or all of
the RealTokens to secure a collateralized loan. The MakerDAO offers collateralized loans at
0.5% – 3.5%, far more compelling than interest rates offered by a bank. This service would
require MakerDAO governance to accept RealTokens as collateral and is purely hypothetical.
Tokenized REITs Without Cooperation Costs
By combining a collection of RealTokens from various RealT properties, it may be possible
to create a smart-contract REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust). This REIT could consist
of a basket of diversified properties across the U.S., offering risk protection and investment
across diversified geographic areas. The REIT, itself, would be tokenized, to reduce investor
costs of entrance. This tokenized REIT could be offered at a comparable price to RealTokens
themselves, but offer fractionalized ownership to multiple properties, not just one. All rights
to cash flows are retained by the tokenized REIT owners. Such a REIT would, of course,
have to comply with applicable U.S. securities laws and regulations.