Miami firms now offer home loans in crypto, but many traditional lenders doubt such practice will gain scale.
3 min
Some Miami developers have enabled buyers to purchase homes in cryptocurrency since at least 2021. Now a pair of Miami lenders is going one step further by offering home mortgages in digital currencies.
Milo, a fintech company in the lending business, made the first crypto home loan in March, when it provided a 30-year mortgage in bitcoin for a Miami duplex.
The firm says the early response among other crypto-oriented home buyers has been so enthusiastic that it is already looking to double the size of its Miami office to 100 employees to handle the anticipated demand.
XBTO, another cryptofinance company with offices in Miami, said it is also gearing up to offer crypto mortgages this year, in partnership with a traditional Miami-based mortgage lender.
“Between crypto millionaires who don’t want to sell their cryptocurrency and foreign buyers who have trouble entering the market, we see a huge demand,” says Joe Haggenmiller, head of markets for XBTO.
Kieran Gibbs is one of the newcomers to the city who has expressed interest. The professional soccer player from the U.K. moved to South Florida last year to play for the local Inter Miami CF. He said that he has been receiving half of his salary in bitcoin since January and that he is in talks with XBTO to secure a crypto mortgage.
“I’m renting my property at the moment and I’d like to buy,” Mr. Gibbs said. “The trouble is I haven’t been here for long enough to get enough credit, so it’s difficult for me at the moment to get a mortgage.”
Crypto mortgages are structured much like traditional mortgages and are lent out to home buyers in dollars but are meant to appeal to people who have large crypto holdings they don’t want to convert to dollars.
These mortgages require additional collateral in the form of a cryptocurrency, and the agreements allow the lender to take ownership of the home and the additional collateral in the event of default. If the value of crypto falls, the borrower may have to put up more crypto or other collateral.
Many traditional lenders are sceptical that loans in digital currency will ever gain scale, and analysts list numerous risks and complications when lending in crypto.
For one, they point to the legal pitfalls of engaging in a space that is still largely unregulated. Volatile fluctuations in the price of digital currencies could mean that lenders may require a borrower to put up additional collateral if the crypto price drops significantly.
“Anyone in the digital asset space should proceed with a great degree of caution,” says Richard Levin, an attorney and chair of the fintech and regulation practice at the law firm Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP.
Even proponents of these loans say that the new companies are already encountering logistical issues.
“Integrating the legacy mortgage system with the new crypto environment is an operational nightmare,” says Lorenzo Delzoppo, an attorney who specializes in disruptive technology and who is consulting XBTO as they finalize their mortgage product.
Still, he adds, “It’s all incredibly exciting.”
Crypto mortgages are only the latest way that Miami businesses have experimented with the nexus of real estate and digital currencies, a trend that is on display this week during Miami’s bitcoin conference and other crypto-related gatherings.
Propy, a property-tech company whose chief executive resides in Miami, made headlines in February for being the first to process a U.S. real-estate transaction as a nonfungible token, or NFT.
Real-estate developer PMG, in a partnership with the crypto-derivatives exchange FTX, said it has accepted more than $20 million in cryptocurrency payments toward preconstruction purchases of about 60 condo units at its E11even Hotel & Residences.
Lofty, a condo project in Miami’s Brickell district, is providing a digital NFT art piece as an amenity along with the purchase of a unit.
Milo, meanwhile, is offering interest rates for crypto mortgages between about 4% and 6%, which skew a bit higher than what banks tend to charge for dollar-based loans. The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 4.67% last week, according to mortgage-finance company Freddie Mac.
The crypto lender allows borrowers to take out loans of up to 100% of the purchase price by pledging their bitcoin as collateral. XBTO will require purchasers to put down 10%.
Reprinted by permission of The Wall Street Journal, Copyright 2021 Dow Jones & Company. Inc. All Rights Reserved Worldwide. Original date of publication: April 5, 2022.
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What a quarter-million dollars gets you in the western capital.
Alexandre de Betak and his wife are focusing on their most personal project yet.
4 min
As Paris makes its final preparations for the Olympic games, its residents are busy with their own—packing their suitcases, confirming their reservations, and getting out of town.
Worried about the hordes of crowds and overall chaos the Olympics could bring, Parisians are fleeing the city in droves and inundating resort cities around the country. Hotels and holiday rentals in some of France’s most popular vacation destinations—from the French Riviera in the south to the beaches of Normandy in the north—say they are expecting massive crowds this year in advance of the Olympics. The games will run from July 26-Aug. 1.
“It’s already a major holiday season for us, and beyond that, we have the Olympics,” says Stéphane Personeni, general manager of the Lily of the Valley hotel in Saint Tropez. “People began booking early this year.”
Personeni’s hotel typically has no issues filling its rooms each summer—by May of each year, the luxury hotel typically finds itself completely booked out for the months of July and August. But this year, the 53-room hotel began filling up for summer reservations in February.
“We told our regular guests that everything—hotels, apartments, villas—are going to be hard to find this summer,” Personeni says. His neighbours around Saint Tropez say they’re similarly booked up.
As of March, the online marketplace Gens de Confiance (“Trusted People”), saw a 50% increase in reservations from Parisians seeking vacation rentals outside the capital during the Olympics.
Already, August is a popular vacation time for the French. With a minimum of five weeks of vacation mandated by law, many decide to take the entire month off, renting out villas in beachside destinations for longer periods.
But beyond the typical August travel, the Olympics are having a real impact, says Bertille Marchal, a spokesperson for Gens de Confiance.
“We’ve seen nearly three times more reservations for the dates of the Olympics than the following two weeks,” Marchal says. “The increase is definitely linked to the Olympic Games.”
According to the site, the most sought-out vacation destinations are Morbihan and Loire-Atlantique, a seaside region in the northwest; le Var, a coastal area within the southeast of France along the Côte d’Azur; and the island of Corsica in the Mediterranean.
Meanwhile, the Olympics haven’t necessarily been a boon to foreign tourism in the country. Many tourists who might have otherwise come to France are avoiding it this year in favour of other European capitals. In Paris, demand for stays at high-end hotels has collapsed, with bookings down 50% in July compared to last year, according to UMIH Prestige, which represents hotels charging at least €800 ($865) a night for rooms.
Earlier this year, high-end restaurants and concierges said the Olympics might even be an opportunity to score a hard-get-seat at the city’s fine dining.
In the Occitanie region in southwest France, the overall number of reservations this summer hasn’t changed much from last year, says Vincent Gare, president of the regional tourism committee there.
“But looking further at the numbers, we do see an increase in the clientele coming from the Paris region,” Gare told Le Figaro, noting that the increase in reservations has fallen directly on the dates of the Olympic games.
Michel Barré, a retiree living in Paris’s Le Marais neighbourhood, is one of those opting for the beach rather than the opening ceremony. In January, he booked a stay in Normandy for two weeks.
“Even though it’s a major European capital, Paris is still a small city—it’s a massive effort to host all of these events,” Barré says. “The Olympics are going to be a mess.”
More than anything, he just wants some calm after an event-filled summer in Paris, which just before the Olympics experienced the drama of a snap election called by Macron.
“It’s been a hectic summer here,” he says.
Parisians—Barré included—feel that the city, by over-catering to its tourists, is driving out many residents.
Parts of the Seine—usually one of the most popular summertime hangout spots —have been closed off for weeks as the city installs bleachers and Olympics signage. In certain neighbourhoods, residents will need to scan a QR code with police to access their own apartments. And from the Olympics to Sept. 8, Paris is nearly doubling the price of transit tickets from €2.15 to €4 per ride.
The city’s clear willingness to capitalise on its tourists has motivated some residents to do the same. In March, the number of active Airbnb listings in Paris reached an all-time high as hosts rushed to list their apartments. Listings grew 40% from the same time last year, according to the company.
With their regular clients taking off, Parisian restaurants and merchants are complaining that business is down.
“Are there any Parisians left in Paris?” Alaine Fontaine, president of the restaurant industry association, told the radio station Franceinfo on Sunday. “For the last three weeks, there haven’t been any here.”
Still, for all the talk of those leaving, there are plenty who have decided to stick around.
Jay Swanson, an American expat and YouTuber, can’t imagine leaving during the Olympics—he secured his tickets to see ping pong and volleyball last year. He’s also less concerned about the crowds and road closures than others, having just put together a series of videos explaining how to navigate Paris during the games.
“It’s been 100 years since the Games came to Paris; when else will we get a chance to host the world like this?” Swanson says. “So many Parisians are leaving and tourism is down, so not only will it be quiet but the only people left will be here for a party.”
