Notes from the first NFT Real Estate Transaction in Mexico City
Last year I decided to partially sell my apartment via an NFT (do we all remember NFTs?). Here are my clean notes on how I did it, what I could have done differently, and what’s next.
The idea came to me throughout the process of gathering ALL the documentation needed to complete the traditional transaction. I discussed the idea with the buyer and he immediately liked it so I started to research how to handle this in the n̶o̶t̶-̶s̶o̶ simplest way.
Minting the NFT
This was the easiest part of the process. All you need is an OpenSea account and an image of the property to be sold. Beware that usually, these platforms charge a fee to write a digital item to the blockchain a.k.a minting.
Handling the Metadata
Writing metadata into the blockchain is complicated and expensive. That’s why a Real Estate NFT transaction is a little bit more complex than another type of property deal. Metadata has to go through a storage process that could be both centralized or decentralized and on-chain or off-chain. I decided to go off-chain and decentralized to store the deed, the photos of the apartment, and a .kml file with the location.
Here’s a step-by-step on how to write metadata into a token and upload it to the IFPS (a file-sharing peer-to-peer network for storing and sharing data in a distributed file system).
What I could have done differently?
Simple. I would’ve negotiated a clause where I get a percentage of the proceeds of future sales via smart contracts. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the time to fully negotiate and exploit the benefits of the Ethereum blockchain. Next time.
What’s next?
I really think that this is the future of cities. Sure, public records will have to go digital and governments will have to find ways to safely store all property records before people get fully on board, but I do think that it’s inescapable. In the meantime, people like me will have to work hard to make it happen but, considering the social and economic benefits that this technological change could bring, is totally worth it.
