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Two condominiums at an Upper East Side residential development are under contract to sell for bitcoin.
It is the first bitcoin real estate transaction in the city's history, the New York Post reports. The units are at Magnum Real Estate Group’s development at 389 East 89th St.
One of the under-contract units is a 624 SF studio priced at $875K and the other is a 989 SF one-bedroom with a den asking $1.5M. There are two separate buyers involved. Magnum is using a third-party service called BitPay to accept the bitcoin payment and then convert it to traditional currency.
“It’s like a currency exchange. They accept the bitcoin and give us the dollars,” Magnum Executive Vice President Stuart Marton said.
“It wasn’t easy, but we are doing it,” Magnum President Ben Shaoul said.
In commercial real estate, sellers are increasingly willing to accept bitcoin when trading property, and landlords are now more likely to use it for rent payments.
“Cryptocurrency is becoming the biggest move in terms of modifying the way people make transactions, most notably in real estate. So if you pit residential against commercial — it really depends,” Tariq AlWahedi, founder of new travel platform Cryptobnb told Bisnow in January. “Right now we are seeing the craze hit both industries, equally.”
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