Crypto Rich Chinese Using Bitcoin to Snatch Prime Real Estate Outside Country

From California’s opulent Bay Area to London’s most exclusive lodgings, Chinese nationals who made windfalls from the crypto market are snatching up priced residential properties across the globe.

Speaking to CoinDesk in a recent interview, the CEO of a crypto based realtor Propy, Natalia Karayaneva, said they are seeing an increase number of Chinese buyers willing to settle their home purchases in cryptocurrencies. This, she said, is as a result of the ease with which cryptos such as Bitcoin can be used to get funds out of China as opposed to the normal banking channels or through business connections.

“The requests we have from them start at $50,000 or $100,000 up to, the latest one was $3 to $4 million for Silicon Valley,” Karayaneva told CoinDesk.

Karayaneva explained that properties in the US and UK are the most sought after by Chinese crypto millionaires. She said most of the clients from China are interested in residential property in FinTech districts especially in London and California’s famed Bay Area.

She told CoinDesk that most of their customers want properties in locations where there is a good education system “like Stanford.” Karayaneva also told CoinDesk that “Also, they want to diversify. They want to have parts of their assets abroad in more stable countries.”

According to Karayaneva, China accounts for more than half of the 50,000 monthly visits to her company’s website.

Analysts believe that as a result of “many blockchain enthusiasts” investments in properties abroad, there is a growing number of realtor companies ready to conclude international deals in cryptos.

Expensive prices at home are just one of the reasons why Chinese crypto millionaires are looking overseas for new homes. Karayaneva says that in last year alone, the Chinese market for homes saw a hike of up to 40%.

However, there are other cryptocurrency home buys happening somewhere else from nationals other than the Chinese. According to reports, properties in Dubai’s Aston Crypto Plaza for example saw a lot of Europeans concluding deals using cryptos thanks to the initiative of British business mogul Michelle Mone.

As the world wakes up to the realities of Bitcoin and other cryptos, it is becoming increasingly clear that digital currencies will play huge roles in real estate in the coming years.