Opendoor CEO Kaz Nejatian put out a social media trace that his firm could quickly enable the acquisition of houses utilizing Bitcoin or different crypto.
In a reply on X to a person asking whether or not Opendoor would allow house shopping for with Bitcoin or crypto, Nejatian responded, “We’ll. Simply must prioritize it.” The remark, although temporary, sparked hypothesis that the housing firm may add crypto funds into its platform.
Opendoor Applied sciences., primarily based in San Francisco, operates a digital home-buying market. The corporate makes money provides on houses by way of a web-based course of, acquires the properties, performs repairs or upgrades, and re-lists them on the market.
That mannequin makes bitcoin integration doubtlessly easier: reasonably than a vendor needing to just accept bitcoin instantly, Opendoor may convert bitcoin into fiat forex internally and run the transaction like every other.
There could be tax and authorized ramifications required earlier than such a transfer may happen. Nonetheless, Opendoor is hardly alone in exploring a crypto-real property frontier.
Is the true property business venturing into Bitcoin?
Conventional corporations are testing methods to combine bitcoin and different digital property into property transactions and company treasuries.
In July, Christie’s Worldwide Actual Property unveiled a devoted cryptocurrency division in California, facilitating property listings and transactions denominated in digital property. That arm contains the $118 million “La Fin” mansion in Bel Air, one of the crucial costly houses ever listed to just accept crypto.
In the same transfer, Grupo Murano, a $1 billion Mexican actual property agency, adopted a bitcoin-centric technique to optimize its funds and hedge in opposition to forex volatility. CEO Elías Sacal mentioned the corporate deliberate to transform property into bitcoin by means of refinancing and sale-leasebacks, anticipating the cryptocurrency to outperform conventional actual property appreciation.
Earlier this 12 months, ByteFederal launched a pilot program in Florida permitting actual property consumers to make use of bitcoin for property purchases, with sellers receiving settlements in U.S. {dollars}. The service, now handbook however quickly to be automated, lets consumers pay deposits and shutting prices in bitcoin, which ByteFederal converts to USD for escrow or title corporations.
On the identical time, coverage could also be shifting. In 2025, the Federal Housing Finance Company directed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to think about debtors’ crypto holdings — held on regulated exchanges — as property when evaluating mortgage purposes.
