First Property in Australia Offered for Sale via Bitcoin
Cheyenne Morrison of LJ Hooker Cairns South is the first real estate agent to list Wooroonooran Falls at Babinda for sale via Bitcoin on 20 November in Australia
Cheyenne Morrison of LJ Hooker Cairns South was the first real estate agent to list Wooroonooran Falls at Babinda for sale via Bitcoin on 20 November in Australia
While most of the real estate and property transactions involving cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin have taken place in the North Western hemisphere like Texas, London and Dubai, Cheyenne Morrison of LJ Hooker Cairns South was the first real estate agent to list a property for sale via Bitcoin recently in Australia, making it the first cryptocurrency real estate offer Down Under and definitely a first for the Asia Pacific region.
Since Wooroonooran Falls at Babinda was listed by Cheyenne Morrison, six other properties have joined the Far North paradise and offered for sale via Bitcoin. Now the race is on as to which of these properties will make history, and be sold in exchange for the highly volatile cryptocurrency.
The 30ha property is so named for the Wooroonooran Falls found on the prime real estate
Cryptocurrency Acceptance in Asia Pacific rises with First Property in Australia Offered for Sale via Bitcoin but there are still challenges…
The Far North property in Queensland at the foot of Mt. Bellenden Ker has an asking price of $1.2 million and the owner of the 32ha property authorised Morrison to make it available for 100 Bitcoin (BTC)
“It was my idea to offer the property for 100BTC because of the recent swath of publicity about Bitcoin and the seller was enthusiastic about the idea.” – Cheyenne Morrison, Realtor, LJ Hooker Cairns South
“I already owned some and it’s just sort of handy way to transfer money. It’s faster than a cheque.” – Mark Hanna, Associate at Law, Hanna & Vlahakis, on accepting Bitcoin transactions
That said, despite the popular rise of cryptocurrency transactions in Bitcoin and Ethereum, real estate transactions in the digital currency are still rare. Bernstein Senior Research Analyst Lisa D. Ellis told CNBC that, “ordinary consumer payment systems are so efficient that bitcoin doesn’t add much benefit.” Furthermore, an experiment by Ellis also found that cross-border bitcoin transactions, with a roughly 4 percent payment cost, were nearly 10 times more expensive than fintech fiat currency start-up TransferWise’s 0.5 percent. Using the digital currency was also slightly slower than TransferWise.
Cheyenne Morrison of LJ Hooker Cairns South will use Coinjar, an Australian Bitcoin company to complete the property transaction. To mitigate some of the risk, Coinjar calculates the exchange in real time, absorbs any risk to the vendor selling their property.
In the US, Wall Street Journal reports that Bitcoin transactions in real estate deals continue to rise with several states changing laws to allow the technology to be used in property transactions. The value of Bitcoin has increased dramatically, and is currently (18th December, GMT +8) more than $18,700 for 1BTC.
Other cryptocurrency real estate deals in Australia
Mount Macedon, Victoria 3441: Unique Estates agent Dominic Romeo listed the large 1.58 ha Mount Macedon property for $2.5 million and is accepting bitcoin.
Agent Edin Kara, of Ray White Sovereign Islands listed this Gold Coast four-level residence at 64 The Sovereign Mile, featuring four bedrooms, five bathrooms, a cinema, wine cellar, pool, basement parking for 10 cars and several entertaining areas for $5 million, accepting cryptocurrencies.
