Is metaverse real estate worth the cost?

Imagine a virtual world where people can live, work, shop, and talk to each other while sitting on their couch in the real world. This concept is what is commonly called the metaverse.

The word “Metaverse” didn't become well-known until October 2021, when Facebook changed its name to Meta. At that time, the company said it would spend $10 billion on technologies over the next year to build up its idea of the metaverse.

People consider the metaverse to be the next step in the evolution of the internet. It will come in many forms, such as games, online communities, and business meetings where people work together using a digital copy of themselves, or an avatar.

What is the Metaverse?

People use avatars to represent themselves in the metaverse, talk to each other, and build up the community virtually. Digital currency is used to buy clothes, items in video games, and many other things in the metaverse. Users can also use a virtual reality headset and controllers to go through the metaverse for fun, with no goal in mind.

A book that helped spread the idea of the metaverse was Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. It was turned into a movie that Steven Spielberg directed. The dystopian sci-fi book from 2011 is set in the year 2045, when people go to a virtual world called The Oasis to get away from the problems on Earth. Users can access the world through a virtual reality visor and haptic gloves that let them grab and touch things in the digital environment.

While the novel, and the subsequent movie, is a quite extreme examples. It helps people understand what the metaverse is all about. It's a way to connect with other people online. Then, this technology can be linked to things like NFTs, real estate, and even cars or pieces of art.

What is Real Estate in the Metaverse?

You can buy real estate in the Metaverse in the same way you would buy an NFT. In the metaverse, people buy and sell homes.

The idea behind a metaverse platform is that it connects the real world to the virtual world. For example, Sandbox is a metaverse platform that can be used as both a game and a virtual world. In most video games, players just play through the levels until they beat the game. In Sandbox, however, players can take ownership of the world itself. People buy, sell, and trade land plots.

Anyone can buy in the metaverse, but it's important to know why you want to buy digital property and figure out if it's a good investment. For example, the metaverse is probably a good place for someone to promote their business or invest in something tech-forward. People who might not be able to invest in real estate in the real world can do so in the metaverse, where property prices are usually much lower than in real life.

It is also possible to use cryptocurrencies to buy real estate in the Metaverse and in real life. With the help of XEROF you can use your favorite cryptocurrencies to purchase real estate from any broker globally. 

What is the cost of Virtual Real Estate?

Prices for virtual real estate change based on the demand, but they have been going up so far. When one of the "big four" owners of real estate in the metaverse, Decentraland, held its first auction in 2017, a piece of land cost just $20. By 2021, they were selling for $6,000, and by the beginning of 2022, they had gone up in price to about $15,000. In the Metaverse, a plot is 106 yards by 106 yards, and its number of pixels shows how big it is.

With more people becoming interested in the platform, the price of a metaverse property seems to keep going up. Most homes cost between $6,000 and $100,000, but there are always exceptions. For example, a property next to Snoop Dogg's in the Sandbox was bought for $450 000. This was one of the biggest sales to date for virtual real estate.

Impact on The Real Estate Industry

The metaverse means that the real estate business will change in big ways. Here are a few to think about:

• It allows more people to invest in real estate: The real estate in the metaverse comes in different shapes, sizes, locations, and prices. It can be bought in many currencies. Because it's cheap and easy to get to, almost anyone can invest.
• It puts more importance on size and location than on how useful the property is. In the real world, size, location, and how useful the property is are all important factors. In the metaverse, people buy land, so they can build on it or rent it out. This gives more weight to size and location than to how useful it is.
• It can be a place to do things in the real world: People may host more trade shows, exhibitions, weddings, and other social events in the real world on the metaverse in the future. This could make fewer people want to buy brick-and-mortar properties for these uses.

However, there are other impacts, such as the following points.

Eliminates house hunting

Imagine if finding a house wasn't so hard. No more driving around, spending time on the road to look at house after house, or reading floor plans that are hard to understand. In the metaverse, you can do this because you can look at properties from the comfort of your own home and decide whether or not to buy them. When compared to photos or floor plans, virtual tours can help people feel more connected. They can also help you learn more about the pros and cons of a certain property.

Timesaving

Meeting potential buyers, setting up and showing homes, and going to closings with clients take a lot of time and work. Clients can see the property on their phones or computers with a virtual tour. 

Those who are genuinely interested in the property will call and ask for more details. If you're a real estate agent, this can give you more time to work on other important parts of your business. In this way, Metaverse real estate can be quite a time saver.

Effective communication

AR-enabled mobile apps can help make communication with clients more efficient. Clients can see a 360-degree AR model of an apartment, house, or other property that interests them with just a few taps. They can look at different properties, compare them, and analyze them. Real estate agents can easily add to the virtual instructions about every detail of the property to make them much more clear.

It’s also possible to, for example, scan your furniture into the 3D space and see how your existing furniture fits into the new home before signing any contracts. This makes it easier for buyers to imagine themselves living in the home.

Unlimited design options

To physically stage a property, you have to solve numerous logistical problems. For example, moving big pieces of furniture into a house with many stairs or narrow hallways is a big job that only professionals can do.

This can limit what the buyer can do with the design. With virtual staging, however, buyers can choose the furniture and decorations that work best in the space, and they can easily add to and change the layout to suit their tastes. 

Since virtual staging services use digital renderings of furniture and decorations, there are many options for each room. Even better, agents can pick a different staging design for each potential buyer, which makes the experience even more unique.

Conclusion

The Metaverse has several uses, including real estate. It can be used to make life easier for both buyers and sellers of real estate. For buyers, it will be possible to tour the property, put their furniture in virtually, and have all details laid out in front of them. 

For sellers, they can stage the property differently for each potential buyer to optimize the potential in each viewing. On top of this, there is less physical labor involved in showing Metaverse real estate. These things, as well as the additional benefits, make it so that the Metaverse will be key in the future of the real estate business.