The world is rotating towards a Virtual Reality medium to interact and exist among other humans via media and gaming, and it only makes sense to have thoughts of owning Virtual real estate online.
After Mars and Moon, there are now lands available to buy online! Yes, that’s correct; you can now buy land online in a virtual world and also own an NFT for ownership.
Read on to know what the buzz is all about!
What is Virtual (Metaverse) real estate?
It is the emerging way to own and share property in the virtual world, also known as ‘The Metaverse, ‘ estimated to reach $800 billion by 2028. A marketplace where you can deal with properties, buy, sell, lease, and build your property.
In Metaverse, you own your unique plot of land, and each plot is backed by a non-fungible token (NFT). This helps you verify and authenticate your ownership inside the metaverse. With instant records for all your past transactions, you save big time!
Everybody is gearing up for what it could be and what new business opportunities it could generate. Major companies and celebrities have already entered the market.
Two players are currently leading the race in providing a ‘Virtual land,’ Decentraland and Sandbox.
What is an NFT?
Since the dawn of blockchain technology, the buzz around NFTs has been rising. $1.95 billion worth of NFTs were traded in April 2023. NFTs are, as the name suggests, tokens of purchase or ownership.
It is a one-of-a-kind and unique to the user commodity. These prove to be the authentic digital medium for anything you own physically or virtually. OpenSea, Rarebible, and Larva Labs are some of the top NFT marketplaces.
Virtual Real Estate– How Much Are They Worth?
Though this exists outside of the real world, the attention and the market it is attracting is certainly REAL. The possibilities that a metaverse land possesses are beyond comprehension.
The time is not far when the available land slots will get filled, and the demand will exceed the supply of these virtual land plots(if these stay limited).
Future opportunities like Renting, hosting, contests, giveaways, selling NFTs, ads, and affiliates are currently eyed by influencers and celebrities.
How to Buy Virtual Real Estate?
Similar to buying Cryptocurrency, you’ll first need to open a digital wallet to manage your assets, and different metaverses operate on different cryptocurrencies.
Find a land for yourself, which you can get by making an offer for existing lands or joining a raffle.
If you’re using Decentraland, you will need Mana coins, and for Sandbox– Sand coins. Upon purchase, you also get an NFT to authenticate your purchase.
Price
The pricing for the lands varies as per the metaverse you own the land in. The different cryptocurrencies used have different valuations and further different prices of lands in the Metaverse.
Hence, we cannot really get a fixed price for it. Other factors affecting the land price are your neighbors. According to reports, someone paid $450,000 for land next to Snoop Dogg’s land in December 2021.
The average price for the day I wrote this was around $1000 for one plot of land in Sandbox and Decentraland.
Investments
Hip-hop icon Snoop Dogg, Adidas, Atari, and Warner Music Group are some of the few who have purchased lands on Sandbox.
Adidas’s partnership with Sandbox and Nike building its own ‘Nikeland,’ a platform on Roblox giving exclusive celebrity and product access, states the legitimacy of the Metaverse.
Sandbox’s associated partners below:
Advantages of Buying a Virtual Real Estate
- Purchasing virtual real estate, as buying other things online, is extremely easy and accessible to all.
- Seeing the growth and the rapid rise in land prices, it sure is profitable.
- No limitations on buying, as you can get any land you want, provided you pay the price.
- Unlike real-world estates, there are zero to no maintenance costs for virtual land, at least for now.
Disadvantages of Buying a Virtual Real Estate
- Prices can be hiked by even the slightest influence from a third party
- Lesser regulations can attract scammers
- There’s always a risk, as with crypto, there are often hikes and frequent value drops
Verdict
In its early stage, predicting what the future holds for Virtual real estate and the Metaverse is difficult. I feel it is only with time that we can get to know more about Metaverse and its potential.
Big players are lurking like sharks to own major stakes in a multiverse land and display their products and services online in this emerging marketplace.
But again, being online and with no land limitations, there is a risk in terms of the demand for land. Sure, it can stay unique to you, but how will it get more precious if there’s constant availability and options?
With tech giants like Meta(Facebook) and recently Apple moving into the Virtual reality market, who knows when the wind can change?
FAQs
The virtual real estate market is expected to rise with recent interest in the virtual reality market. Developers and users are soon expected to line up and take a chunk of this new thing.
Depending on your land and its price and when you buy it, you can make money by trading virtual land. It’s a big risk and big rewards sort of a thing.
As the process involves owning virtual lands via cryptocurrencies, historically, there exists a risk around cryptocurrency.
