Wednesday, September 14, 2022
Crypto Buyers
Posted By Babs De Lay on September 14, 2022, 4:00 AM
The real estate business can be creative at times. It's not always: "Write an offer, get an inspection, wait for the lender to send an appraiser and finish your loan."
For example, I had friends (a social worker and a librarian) wanting to purchase their first home, but they had little in the bank for a down payment. Except ... the husband had his original baseball-card collection, which had value.
We went to a creative lender I liked and presented the idea of buying a home with old printed pieces of cardboard, and the lender said "I think I can get you a loan, but let me talk to the underwriter."
So, a day later, the lender came back and said my buyers could use the cards as a down payment but would have to: A. Sell the cards for the appropriate amount for the down payment and B. provide a receipt for the sale.
My buyers figured out which ones they needed to sell, and we found a great house where they still live today. If I recall, one card was a Mickey Mantle.
Another, mint-condition Mantle card sold last month for $12.6 million—the most paid for a sports memorabilia card and possibly the most for any kind of sports memorabilia to date. A Honus Wagner card recently sold for $7.25 million—the second highest amount for memorabilia in all of sports—so far.
Something tells me that the legends of the all-American game of baseball would not have minded that their faces were used to buy housing for first-time buyers.
Other clients I worked with had a slightly different problem when they handed me a neatly wrapped piece of tissue paper to say they would use "emeralds" as their earnest money and down payment. When I opened the tiny packet, I saw 10 green pieces of what looked like Jujube candy. I had no idea if they were real gems or what their value might be, and neither did my broker.
In this case, the seller of the home wanted assurances the stones were real. My broker went to O.C. Tanner and had the gems appraised and found that they did have appropriate value, which satisfied the seller.
I asked our favorite mortgage broker—Julie Brizzee with Intercap Lending—if a buyer could use cryptocurrency as a down payment. She replied, "It's like selling a car for the down. I would have to provide documentation of value—an appraisal of value—then a bill of sale and receipt of funds."
My own brokerage is not set up to accept cryptocurrencies. Regardless, I would still have to prove a buyer's earnest money of any kind (cash, check or wired funds) was valuable currency that could be transferred into an escrow account once the buyers' offer was accepted.
About The Author
Babs De Lay
A full-time broker/owner of Urban Utah Homes and Estates, Babs De Lay serves on the Salt Lake City Historic Landmark Commission. A writer and golfer, you'll find them working as a staff guardian at the Temple at Burning Man each year.
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