The need and the problems
Why do we do this?
Real estate prices have been rising steadily across the globe over the last few decades. While incomes have been rising in parts of the developing world, they have stagnated in much of the developed world. This has meant that real estate ownership has evolved from almost a basic right, to becoming a pipe dream for a large portion of young people in one generation. It has become the first point of contact between monetary policy and the average people. The worse the monetary policy in a jurisdiction, the harder people's lives become, and real estate is how is manifests.
The market is even more broken for commercial real estate. In most places, commercial real estate (office spaces, malls, data centres), the type of real estate with higher, more stable yields, better potential for value increase, and higher quality tenants is an investment most people don’t even consider because of how high the barriers to entry are. Having high growth assets be inaccessible to the majority is a problem leading to extreme wealth inequality within jurisdictions.
Cross-jurisdiction transactions would help the cause there. However, investors rarely explore assets outside their locality, part of it is general lack of transparency, part is unnecessary friction in cross-market transactions on fiat money rails.
This concentration of wealth also results in lower transaction volumes, resulting in an illiquid market steadily moving towards lower liquidity. These problems lead to suboptimal allocation of resources in the wider picture, loss of potential value for property owners, and lack of options and a high barrier for entry for potential buyers. Resulting in a slow, inefficient market that leaves a lot of value on the table with every transaction. In other words, it's an industry ripe for disruption.
Last modified 2mo ago