Roofstock to leverage Teller Protocol to enable financing of tokenized real estate properties with the USDC Homes lending pool
October 18, 2022, San Francisco, CA — Roofstock, the leading digital real estate platform specializing in single-family rental (SFR) properties, today announced the first property sale via non-fungible token (NFT) enabled by Roofstock onChain (ROC), its web3 subsidiary. ROC facilitates instantaneous sale and settlement of single-family rental (SFR) properties listed on its NFT marketplace powered by Origin Protocol. Located in Columbia, South Carolina, this property is the first sale of ownership of a home utilizing an NFT marketplace purchased with Circle’s USD Coin (USDC). Utilizing web3 technology enables properties to be purchased more efficiently and transparently with lower costs, compared to conventional residential real estate transactions.
“I never imagined I could buy and finance a house with a simple click, rather than going through the time-consuming and cumbersome traditional settlement and mortgage process. I’m grateful Roofstock paved the way for the rest of the market,” said the buyer of the SFR South Carolina property, Adam Slipakoff, a seasoned real estate investor. “Instead of waiting months for underwriting, appraisals, title searches and preparing deeds, I was able to buy a fully title-insured, rent-ready property with one click. Best of all, I am no web3 expert – the Roofstock onChain platform made it simple and easy.”
Each home is titled in a limited liability company whose ownership is associated with a unique Home onChain, which is an NFT on the Ethereum blockchain. Each Home onChain is transferred using smart contracts, which are deployed on the Ethereum network, and the entire transaction takes place transparently on the blockchain.
"For Roofstock it is a major milestone to provide a radically simple way for SFR properties to be purchased and sold with one-click using web3 technology,” said Geoff Thompson, Chief Blockchain Officer at Roofstock onChain. “We’re excited to provide home buyers access to various web3 financing options, ushering a new era of real-world asset ownership through our partnership with Teller," added Sanjay Raghavan, Head of web3 Initiatives at Roofstock onChain.
The Teller Protocol will be used to provide financing options for this and future properties. Buyers can seek a loan for up to 80% loan-to-value of the sale price of the NFT with USDC Homes, a DeFi lending pool maintained on the Teller Protocol. USDC Homes is not affiliated with Circle, the issuer of USD Coin (USDC) and Euro Coin (EUROC). USDC Homes partners with a network of underwriters and data providers to verify identity and provide creditworthiness reviews for lenders. Buyers are able to seamlessly convert USD into USDC through Wyre. Teller has tapped Polygon to facilitate loans due to Polygon’s low gas fees and decentralized network.
“The USDC Homes lending pool on Teller connects real estate markets with DeFi. We are excited for USDC Homes to power financing capabilities on Roofstock onChain’s property marketplace. Now, their users will be able to finance real estate purchases with crypto loans on-chain.” said Ryan Berkun, founder and CEO at Teller.
“This sale is an exciting milestone for Roofstock and their commitment to making the process of purchasing real estate more accessible,” added Kash Razzaghi, Chief Revenue Officer at Circle. “Circle is thrilled to work with Roofstock and bring the benefits of USDC - a more efficient, secure, and transparent method of value exchange over the internet - to the world of real estate.”
Liquidity providers extend individual property-backed loans to borrowers through the USDC Homes pool on Teller. USDC Homes also offers both unsecured and secured lending options, where ETH, BTC, USDC, and other popular coins can be provided as collateral. Though all transactions related to the loan take place on-chain, borrowers can include off-chain data such as their credit score when applying.
“Cutting out intermediary fees is one of the pillars of Web3, and this is just the beginning. As more and more real estate is brought on-chain through NFTs, we will see more efficient and liquid markets for these traditionally illiquid assets,” said Matthew Liu, co-founder of Origin Protocol.
Like in every Teller pool, users can participate as lenders or borrowers. Borrowers can raise the loan request to finance the purchase of the Home onChain (NFT associated with the underlying SFR property) on USDC Homes. Once the lender approves and funds the borrower’s request, the USDC Homes platform will use the funds to purchase the LLC NFT and after that, transfer the NFT to an escrow account, a multisig wallet, until the borrower pays back the entire loan with interest on Polygon network.
“The Roofstock team is innovating on the bleeding edge of real estate financing. Roofstock onChain allows buyers to finance SFR properties efficiently without going through the traditional settlement process. With Polygon's low gas fees and robust security, we are delighted to be the bedrock of this next stage in DeFi.” said Hamzah Khan, Head of DeFi at Polygon.
“We are excited to be the fiat to crypto on-ramp for a real estate NFT purchased with USDC, and to continue to bridge the transition between traditional and digital economies," said Yanni Giannaros, CEO and co-founder at Wyre.