Virtual houses in a digital age

For someone who is interested in both the housing market and the potential of blockchain technology I recently came across the idea of virtual worlds or ‘Metaverses’. Such ‘worlds’ you may have seen in films such as Tron, Ready Player One or even any of The Matrix films.

There are several of these virtual worlds including Cryptovoxels, Decentraland & Sandbox. These are online ‘worlds’ and can be viewed using a laptop or some with a TV and a compatible virtual reality headset such as an Oculus.

Can you buy virtual plots or houses?

Yes you can. I accessed the Cryptovoxels website and although it’s Origin City had sold out of plots, you can buy plots on the secondary market. There are islands that link to Origin City via bridges which are due to be marketed soon.

It has a Minecraft feel about it. When I looked at the site a few months ago I virtually ‘met’ someone via their online avatar whilst walking around one of the localities and ‘chatted’ to someone by typing in speech bubbles that had bought a plot and was building a house.

The plots you can buy using the digital token ETH which is the native token of the Ethereum blockchain network. Ethereum is the second biggest cryptocurrency after Bitcoin and arguably has more use cases. The plots seem to be marketed from a pound sterling equivalent of around £700 to over £19 million! How much are they actually worth? I suppose whatever someone is prepared to pay for them.

Can you get mortgages for them?

There are even virtual mortgages for some of these platforms using DeFi (Decentralised Finance) where the lender will have ownership of the virtual plot or building until the mortgage has been repaid. If the mortgage is not repaid, then the lender auctions the virtual property.

Whether those who are wondering around these virtual worlds are likely to remove their virtual headset to go and view an actual house (or even afford to, given the high property prices in many parts of the UK) who knows.

I, for one, will be a lot happier meeting people in this reality, in an actual house, seeing their real faces, eating real food, and playing music from my turntable, CD player or cassette deck. I have all 3 before you ask. Proper retro. Or maybe I’m just showing my age.