Cryptocurrency has officially arrived on the property market, with a stunning piece of land being offered up for sale not in traditional money, but Bitcoin.
In what is tipped to be a first in New Zealand real estate, Century 21 First Choice Realty in Wellington is selling a section in Kaiuma Bay, in the Marlborough Sounds, for Bitcoin currency.
The section - one of 14 which have been released in the development - is priced about $200,000.
Bitcoin has fluctuated significantly over the past few months; worth between $12,000 some days and just over $20,000 yesterday. If sold at the latter worth, the buyer would pay 10 Bitcoin for a $200,000 section.
Developer Joseph Lupi, the owner of Wellington's Century 21 branch, said they thought the sale was an exciting new venture that had garnered a lot of interest.
"It's a beautiful spot and we're having no problems selling them in normal dollars...we just thought it'd be cool to see what the interest would be like.
"There might be a follow-up story in a week's time when it's sold.''
The section is 3000sq m and sits among stunning views of the water. It is about 45 minutes from Blenheim and 50 minutes from Nelson.
Lupi, who also invests in Bitcoin, said they had received a lot of emails and phone calls from people wanting to know more about the sale. He confirmed they had a few serious potential buyers.
"There's a lot of people who have made a lot of money on Bitcoin. There's a lot of people sitting on hundreds of thousands, so it gives them a chance to transfer that from a cryptocurrency to a hard asset."
As far as they were aware, the Bitcoin sale would be the first.
Checks had been made through the Real Estate Institute, which confirmed no transactions done in Bitcoin had been done in New Zealand, he said.
Lupi also did not have any worries about the risk of the Bitcoin value dropping suddenly; saying all currencies fluctuated.
"[Sale by Bitcoin] won't happen much because you can't pay a mortgage with Bitcoin. You've got to have a mortgage-free property to be able to do it. So it's not going to be a regular occurrence.''
