Lofty

Real Estate Investing With Instant Liquidity – Lend & Earn

Investing

Blockchain

Personal Finance

Hey Product Hunt! I'm Jerry, one of the founders at Lofty. We started Lofty because we got frustrated during our own experience trying to invest in real estate. We believe the entire process, from buying to selling, as well as the ownership period, including management, should be much easier given the technology that's available. So, we set out to build Lofty, which we hope will one day become the NASDAQ for real estate. We first launched on Product Hunt in 2022. At the time, all you could do was buy, manage, and sell partial ownership in a limited number of properties. Since then, we've greatly improved the product and have built many exciting new features, specifically the ability to buy AND SELL legal ownership of real estate properties with instant liquidity, and the ability to lend money for market-making on the platform in exchange for a cut of trading fees. So, here is a comprehensive overview of Lofty and what we offer today. What is Lofty? Lofty is a real estate marketplace, where people can buy and sell fractional ownership in real estate properties in seconds. Anyone can come to list a property on Lofty for sale. We convert the equity of the property into tradable tokens on the blockchain through a process called "tokenization". They can then list as much or as little of it as they want for sale on the marketplace. There are thousands of investors from around the world using Lofty to invest and build their own real estate portfolios. Many of them have also listed and sold partial ownership in properties they already owned (including their primary residences). We’re one of the only platforms that lets you buy AND sell fractional ownership with no restrictions or lock-up periods. Now, we’re launching a new feature that allows you to instantly buy and sell ownership in properties without the requirement of a traditional counterparty. For the first time in the world, you can now buy and sell equity in a house (grants you legal ownership + management control) with the same experience as trading a share of AAPL on Robinhood. How does ownership work? Every property’s deed is legally held by a unique WY DAO LLC. Unlike a traditional LLC that has a centralized managing member/partner, these LLCs are algorithmically managed through smart-contracts on the blockchain without a human manager. Every member has equal power and voting rights based on how much of the LLC they own. So, by owning 10% of a DAO, you legally own 10% of the underlying property. The tokens/shares are legal representations of ownership in the LLC; whoever owns tokens also owns the LLC, which means they also own the property. Co-ownership of properties is very common in the US and is no different than if you co-owned a house with family members or close friends. But instead of informally discussing how to manage things over the phone or in meetings, the management process is formalized through the “governance program”, where members vote on all management decisions. One token equals one vote and a super majority of 60% is required for any decisions to pass. We don’t manage your properties nor do we sell properties to you. Instead, you’re directly buying from and selling to other people on the platform. Your funds never touch our accounts and you settle directly with each other using the blockchain through smart contracts. We don’t take a cut of your earnings or charge you management fees. Instead, we make a 6% transaction fee for every transaction on the platform. It’s split, so the seller pays 3% and the buyer pays 3%. Now anyone can invest and actually legally own real estate without worrying about breaking the bank. Anyone from around the world can participate; you don’t have to be an accredited investor. Our smallest users have invested $50 while our largest user has invested over $2,000,000. No crypto understanding or experience needed, you can pay with credit cards or ACH transfers. But, you can also directly pay with crypto currencies if you'd prefer. We currently accept ALGOs as well as USDC on Algorand. Within the next two weeks, we'll also be accepting USDC on Base, Polygon, and Solana. To sign up, just create an account on Lofty - https://www.lofty.ai/ Instant liquidity + lending! Check it out here - https://liquiditypool.lofty.ai/ We’re proud to introduce our newest feature, the automated-market-maker and liquidity pools! You can read more in-depth about how this all works in our learning center. We took some concepts from decentralized exchanges (dexes) in the web3 world and adapted them to better fit a real world asset like a house. The algorithm borrows liquidity from people on the internet. It uses this borrowed liquidity to trade with Lofty users, which allows you to buy and sell ownership instantly without needing a traditional counterparty. The result is for the first time in the world, you can now directly buy and sell legal ownership in a specific property with the same speed and user experience as buying AAPL or TSLA on Robinhood. On the other side, you can also now lend out your real estate ownership and/or money for yield. This is especially beneficial for lending out your real estate ownership, because you can continue to collect rental income from the property and vote on governance decisions, while also getting yield from lending. You can view our lending platform here and if you don’t have USDC (a stable coin) to lend out, no worries. We have our own on-ramps at Lofty and honor 1:1 exchange rates between USD and USDC. You can also directly convert USD to USDC on Coinbase, then send it to your Lofty account. This feature is completely opt-in. Some of our users only invest in real estate, some only lend out funds, while others interact with both. Referral Credit If you refer a seller to our marketplace and they end up listing a property for sale, you'll receive a $1,000 cash referral bonus. Additionally, if you refer anyone who spends $250 within the first month on the platform, you’ll both receive a $50 gift certificate to use on any property on the marketplace. If you have any questions, please ask them below. We're really excited to share this new update with the Product Hunt ecosystem!