A Las Vegas couple are accepting cryptocurrency to buy their $ 5.8 million home on The Ridges, Summerlin – and capitalizing on the increasing use of digital currency in real estate transactions in southern Nevada, real estate executives say .
Although valley homeowners have marketed that in the past they would accept cryptocurrencies for their offerings, Las Vegas Realtors said it was rare for direct transactions with Bitcoin or any other digital currency. Instead, people have more often used digital currency as proof of purchase and later converted that into cash before buying the home.
“That happens especially in the luxury segment,” said realtor Zach Walkerlieb, the owner of Willow Manor, which is owned by Keller Williams Realty. “We’re starting to see evidence of funding that says, ‘I can buy this property, but I just need to convert it to cash.’ This is almost the same thing when someone shows me a $ 5 million stock account. All you have to do is convert the stock into cash. This happens more often than you imagine because there are so many people who have made a lot of money with crypto and have not yet made any transactions. I have a friend who owns millions of cryptocurrencies and currently has a $ 70,000 a year job. He has so much in crypto and no other money in stocks. “
Clark County’s property records show the two-story home 14 Drifting Shadow Way was built in 2009 and purchased for $ 2.74 million in November. It has since been extensively remodeled by real estate agent Madison Blau Benshimon, an agent for the Ivan Sher Group of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices, and her husband Michael Benshimon. She is the listing agent for her home.
The house measures 7,813 square feet with six bedrooms and 6½ bathrooms. The remodel created more open space in the house and new finishes to give it a more modern feel as people are in gray, beige and white, Benshimon said.
Benshimon said they bought the house to live in, but after the renovation decided to take advantage of the market with luxury sales and prices soaring.
“The house was built in 2009 for someone who wants to be on The Ridges, but for all purposes it’s like a new house,” said Benshimon. “Nobody has lived in this house since the renovation. “We updated the style, opened up walls and made the floor plan flow better. We’ve updated everything cosmetically with brand new European oak floors, a brand new kitchen, quartzite worktops, automatic sliding glass doors and lights. “
The master suite has a spa-like bathroom with an oversized shower and tub on a beach pebble bed, she said.
It has a pool, backyard spa, plus an outdoor kitchen in a gazebo, fire pit, and putting green. The house is on almost half an acre.
Benshimon said that the cryptocurrency has entered the selling process because of her background as an investor and several family members involved in buying and selling the digital currency.
“The main benefit of cryptocurrency adoption for the home is expanding the pool of buyers,” Benshimon said. “There are a lot of people who have made a lot of money in cryptocurrency and they may not necessarily want to liquidate that money to make a purchase. With the opening of this new form of payment, there are more people in the crypto space who might not otherwise have done it. “
Title companies are not set up to accept cryptocurrencies, Benshimon said. People have digital wallets to hold their digital currency, but title companies don’t, she said.
“Right now it should work in such a way that the buyer would have to send the money directly into their digital wallet to the seller,” said Benshimon.
Sher said this is the first time his team has included cryptocurrency in its purchase options. He said as more and more companies and individuals interested in investing in digital currencies find their way into the real estate industry more and more.
A number of luxury homes have already made millions in cryptocurrency sales, including the sale of a Miami Beach penthouse that closed this month for $ 22.5 million in digital currency, the largest known cryptocurrency property purchase to date in Florida, according to news reports.
“We’re excited to take a step forward and open our listing to cryptocurrency holders,” said Sher. “Buying a home with crypto has many advantages. It is an especially great opportunity for those with significant cryptocurrency profits to diversify their wealth. “
Aldo Martinez, president of the Las Vegas Realtors Association, said he hadn’t seen cryptocurrency used to buy houses, but he knows that when people closed cryptocurrency they converted cryptocurrency into cash and used the money in their portfolio to make the purchase .
Martinez said when Nevada legalized marijuana, some of the owners of these companies were unable to use the banking system due to federal law against its use. Those owners turned to cryptocurrency instead to park their money, and from there, companies developed a vehicle to take the money out of the digital currency in order to convert it into dollars to make those home purchases, he said.
Rick Cenname, sales manager at Equity Title of Las Vegas, said they get questions “all the time” about using digital currencies like bitcoin – a transaction, if it involves title companies, could be risky due to its volatility in trading. he said.
“We made a retrospective crypto deal because people were smart enough to know they turned it into cash to transfer it to us,” Cenname said. “We don’t have the mechanism to deal with crypto. We’ll walk them through the process to make sure they get it right. When Bitcoin rose to $ 20,000, it was the first wave of people wanting to buy a home before realizing they had to exchange it. It is coming. There will be a mechanism by which we can do that, but I don’t know when it comes into play. We have the demand to use them, but we are not there yet. “
All private transactions that transfer digital currencies come with risk as they are irreversible, said Kim Walker, an accountant based in Las Vegas.
Walker said that digital currency real estate transactions cannot be used as tax evasion. Whenever someone sells or uses their digital currency, a capital gain transaction must be reported on their tax return, she said.
The IRS views Bitcoin the way they conduct stock transactions and it’s tax fraud if not reported and people are targeted if they’re not careful, she said.
“They (the IRS) are not stupid, especially when it comes to Bitcoin,” Walker said. “You’re focused on it right now.”
Walkerlieb said he expects title companies to be able to use digital currency in a secure transaction under a so-called smart contract in five or ten years.
“It will definitely be implemented in the future, and it just depends on when it becomes widespread and federal regulations allow it,” Walkerlieb said.