Virtual Land Parcels Selling For Millions In Real Dollars

Want to own a piece of virtual reality real estate? You may need to get in line. As Bloomberg reported on Friday (March 19), property deals in virtual reality “are surging and attracting millions of real-life dollars. It was inevitable, then, that someone would start a fund.”

That fund is an invite-only opportunity created by Republic Real Estate, which plans to buy parcels in online “metaverses” and turn them into virtual hotels. The minimum investment is $25,000, per Bloomberg.

“Real-world real estate is very uncertain now,” Janine Yorio, head of Republic Real Estate, told Bloomberg. “Housing prices are at an all-time high. Meanwhile, offices are empty, hotels are empty. This feels insulated from a lot of those real-world risks.”

She added that Republic — which used its own funds to purchase more than 30 parcels in four metaverses — is negotiating with a real-life hospitality brand to collaborate on a virtual hotel/bar. The hospitality company would collaborate on the design and pay Republic Real Estate to operate it. The idea is to create a site that’s similar to a chic hotel in real life, a place that’s so popular that it draws in other developers and retailers who build nearby.

“Buying land today in virtual worlds may end up feeling a lot like buying land in Manhattan in the 1750s,” Yorio said in the Bloomberg interview. “There is massive growth ahead, and now is the time to get in on the ground floor.”

The price of virtual property is booming, according to NonFungibl. Last month saw the most expensive virtual land sale to date, when eight lots in the gaming platform Axie Infinity sold for a total of $1.5 million.

This comes at a time when NFTs are gaining increased legitimacy. News broke earlier this week that the auction house Sotheby’s was working with the digital artist Pak on its first adventure in the NFT world. A week earlier, Sotheby’s competitor Christie’s sold an NFT work by the artist Beeple for $69 million.