Homebuyers can secure a home loan using cryptocurrency as collateral with the partnership of Propy and Abra, furthering evidence the world of mortgage and crypto lending markets are merging.
The Abra Borrow platform allows customers to use crypto as collateral to borrow US dollars with flexible repayment terms and interest rates as low as 0%, said Propy, a real estate blockchain startup headquartered in Palo Alto, California in a release. Propy uses NFTs to close the entire real estate deal online.
“While digital asset investment has skyrocketed, many investors are still unable to use their cryptocurrency holdings to directly fund the most important purchases in life like property,” Bill Barhydt, Abra’s CEO said in a statement.
Abra Borrow users can seek Propy certified real estate agents to help them buy or sell property, including making down payments on mortgages.
In April, Propy auctioned off a 70-year-old brick home in Gulfport, Florida for an equivalent of $654,310, in the first NFT house sold in the U.S. The blockchain startup used Ethereum for auction, where the winning bidder used the cryptocurrency Ether.
Mortgage companies are tapping into emerging blockchain and cryptocurrency lending markets looking beyond artificial intelligence technology to speed up the origination process.
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LoanSnap launched a crypto-mortgage program that relies on AI technology, cryptocurrency, and linking a real-world mortgage lien to a digital NFT. Founded in 2017, LoanSnap originated about $7.3 million in crypto-loans across 27 homes that have a total value of $43 million.
LoanSnap’s Bacon Protocol platform allows investors to make “stable coin” investments, a form of cryptocurrency pegged to the value of the U.S. dollar, which are then pooled to fund digital, AI-enabled mortgages. The mortgage liens are then linked to an NFT, which in turn serves as a form of collateral for the stable coins funding the transaction.
Other active players include Milo, Miami, Florida-based mortgage lender that allows borrowers to pledge cryptocurrency to finance up to 100% of the property purchase price and Vesta Equity, Sarasota, Florida-based investment firm that provides a marketplace for home equity investments using blockchain and NFTs backed by verified real-world real estate.