High-end real estate can be purchased with cryptocurrency, according to reports from Christie's in the US.

## High-end real estate transactions using cryptocurrency

Christie's International Real Estate, a leading luxury real estate brokerage in the United States, will establish a specialized division to enable the purchase of real estate with cryptocurrency. The New York Times reported on the 24th.

In order to create a system where buyers and sellers can conduct transactions solely through digital payments without the mediation of banks, a specialized team consisting of lawyers, analysts, and cryptocurrency experts has been established. This marks the first move by a major real estate company.

The company's CEO, Aaron Karman, stated that cryptocurrency will become established in society and will gain even more momentum in the coming years.

Moreover, for wealthy individuals, especially celebrities, a significant attraction of virtual currency is that buyers can completely conceal their identity.

Until now, the seller has completed multiple transactions without knowing the identity of the buyer. The system is such that the lawyer hired by the seller contacts the buyer's representative to confirm that the funds being transferred are not obtained illegally.

The total value of the portfolio of homes that the company holds, for which the sellers wish to receive payment in virtual currency, exceeds $1 billion (approximately 147 billion yen). Mr. Karman predicted that more than one-third of real estate transactions in the U.S. will be conducted in virtual currency within five years.

Under the pro-cryptocurrency Trump administration in the United States, the real estate industry is also seeing an increase in awareness of cryptocurrency.

In June, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) directed government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to prepare a proposal for evaluating cryptocurrencies as assets in mortgage underwriting.

William Palte of FHFA is known for holding over $500,000 (approximately 7.36 million yen) in Bitcoin (BTC) and Solana (SOL) individually.

What is the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA)?

It was established as an independent government authority with the aim of ensuring the stability of the housing finance system. It supervises "Fannie Mae" and "Freddie Mac", which buy and securitize mortgages, as well as the network of banks that lend mortgages, known as the "Federal Home Loan Banks".

Christie's International Real Estate is the real estate division of the long-established auction house Christie's.

Christie's also handles art sold at auction through blockchain-based NFTs (non-fungible tokens). In 2021, a digital artist Beeple's NFT was sold for approximately 7.5 billion yen. This payment was made in Ethereum (ETH).

In 2023, the luxury fashion brand Gucci partnered with Christie's to sell original NFTs (non-fungible tokens) on the digital art on-chain auction platform "Christie’s 3.0".