Zome Real Estate, a Portuguese real estate company, made waves in May 2022 by conducting the "first transfer of a digital asset to a physical asset" in Europe. The sale of a T3 house in Braga was completed entirely using cryptocurrencies, with the house being purchased for three Bitcoins, roughly €110,000. The transaction was facilitated by Zome's partnership with law firm Antas da Cunha ECIJA and Crypto Valley.
Since then, Zome has continued to offer houses for sale in exchange for cryptocurrencies on the Cryptohouses platform. Currently, they have a T8 house in Braga for sale at 65 BTC, equivalent to €1.3 million.
Now, Zome has launched the Hub Metaverse, becoming the "first Portuguese real estate agent to have a business unit" in the virtual world. This platform allows users to visit real estate in the virtual world using a browser. The company is also working on a feature to allow multi-users using avatars to visit properties and plans to launch a virtual reality glasses feature in 2023.
"We want to be at the forefront and provide new experiences to our customers, giving them the opportunity to explore this new world of virtual reality in the metaverse, in a highly convenient format," said Carlos Santos, Zome's chief technology officer.
This move into the metaverse represents a significant step forward for Zome and the real estate industry as a whole. It allows buyers to explore properties in a new, immersive way and facilitates transactions using cryptocurrencies. With Zome leading the way, it's likely that other real estate companies will follow suit in the coming years.