Property firm wants to tokenize real estate industry in Philippines

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A property firm in the Philippines wants to tokenize the country’s real estate industry. C Estates Inc. announced this week that it will launch an online platform this year that will enable investors to purchase properties using tokens. According to a report by the Business Mirror, the platform will allow the investors to buy a whole property or a fraction of it.

The slow, tedious and costly process that investors in the Philippines have to endure in order to purchase property was the motivation behind the platform, the CEO of C Estates Teru Sumida told the outlet. Buying a property in the country can be a complicated process for an investors, needlessly so. Sumida commented, “The idea behind C Estates is also to make the process of buying and selling less complicated for investors.”

The company’s COO, Elixes Becislao, believes that the new platform will bring the country’s real estate industry up to par with other advanced countries, one of which is Japan. He said, “Because in Japan, if you would like to purchase a property, it will just take you an hour or a couple of days. It’s [a] done deal. But in the Philippines, the average is around three to four months to complete the transaction. If other countries were able to achieve that, why not the Philippines?”

The company will conduct a soft launch by the end of July which will showcase the property listing and virtual trading platform. This phase will run for three months. It will give C Estates the opportunity to educate brokerage firms, property owners, property developers, buyers and investors about how it works. The platform will launch officially on November 15, giving investors the chance to buy property.

While this isn’t the first company to tokenize the real estate market, C Estates hopes to be a little different. For one, it will not sell property that’s scheduled for or currently under construction. Only complete properties will be allowed to list on their platform. Such properties are more attractive and can offer returns immediately after purchase.

In its initial phase, the company will offer properties that are legally allowed to be owned by foreign investors. It will then work with the regulators to ensure that they can list properties that can only be owned by Filipino nationals.

There has been interest in the product already, the CEO told reporters. He stated, “Because our expertise is foreign investment, we want to cater properties that can be owned by foreign people. Right now, we’ve been getting demands from Chinese, Japanese and Koreans. But mostly it’s the Chinese people that are actually buying a lot of properties.”