Opendoor CEO Kaz Nejatian put out a social media trace that his firm could quickly enable the acquisition of houses utilizing Bitcoin or different crypto.
In a reply on X to a person asking whether or not Opendoor would allow house shopping for with Bitcoin or crypto, Nejatian responded, “We’ll. Simply must prioritize it.” The remark, although temporary, sparked hypothesis that the housing firm would possibly add crypto funds into its platform.
Opendoor Applied sciences., primarily based in San Francisco, operates a digital home-buying market. The corporate makes money gives on houses through a web-based course of, acquires the properties, performs repairs or upgrades, and re-lists them on the market.
That mannequin makes bitcoin integration probably easier: moderately than a vendor needing to simply accept bitcoin instantly, Opendoor may convert bitcoin into fiat forex internally and run the transaction like every other.
There could be tax and authorized ramifications required earlier than such a transfer may happen. Nonetheless, Opendoor is hardly alone in exploring a crypto-real property frontier.
Is the actual property business venturing into Bitcoin?
Conventional corporations are testing methods to combine bitcoin and different digital belongings into property transactions and company treasuries.
In July, Christie’s Worldwide Actual Property unveiled a devoted cryptocurrency division in California, facilitating property listings and transactions denominated in digital belongings. That arm contains the $118 million “La Fin” mansion in Bel Air, probably the most costly houses ever listed to simply accept crypto.
In an identical transfer, Grupo Murano, a $1 billion Mexican actual property agency, adopted a bitcoin-centric technique to optimize its funds and hedge in opposition to forex volatility. CEO Elías Sacal mentioned the corporate deliberate to transform belongings into bitcoin by refinancing and sale-leasebacks, anticipating the cryptocurrency to outperform conventional actual property appreciation.
Earlier this yr, ByteFederal launched a pilot program in Florida permitting actual property consumers to make use of bitcoin for property purchases, with sellers receiving settlements in U.S. {dollars}. The service, now guide however quickly to be automated, lets consumers pay deposits and shutting prices in bitcoin, which ByteFederal converts to USD for escrow or title firms.
On the identical time, coverage could also be shifting. In 2025, the Federal Housing Finance Company directed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to think about debtors’ crypto holdings — held on regulated exchanges — as belongings when evaluating mortgage functions.