Metrovacesa, the Spanish real estate developer that has Santander and BBVA banks as its main shareholders, launched on February 7 a project to market homes through the Decentraland metaverse. The initiative is carried out in alliance with Datacasas Proptech, startup specialized in the online sale of properties.
The project is a virtual shopping center in the Decentraland metaverse, which can be navigated through an avatar, just as if it were a role-playing video game. In the Interfaceyou can interact with companies that buy land there, as well as it is possible to see Malaga Towers, a real estate complex that has properties for sale in physical reality in the city of Malaga in Spain.
In the event that an interested party wishes to buy a property in Malaga Towers, they can make the payment through digital currencies or, better said, through NFT. This makes Metrovacesa and Datacasas Proptech describe themselves as the first companies to market physical world properties in a metaverse.
Advertising
Thus, Santander and BBVA banks enter the metaverses indirectly from their investments. Santander owns 49.36% of Metrovacesa for having 74,869,836 of its shares and BBVA owns 20.85% with 31,622,838 shares.
This is not the first time that Metrovacesa has created a business in the cryptocurrency industry. The company, which has been present in the real estate market since its founding in 1989, has been launching projects related to the ecosystem for four years using non-fungible tokens (NFT) of its assets.
In this opportunity, they not only designed Malaga Towers in Decentraland so that those interested can see it. The interface also allows those who enter to view information on the towers, their 3D model, videos of the project and plans. The user can be assisted by a virtual salesperson and know the following steps to reserve one of the homes, which can be a 100% digital process.
“Blockchain will change everything in the real estate world”, said the CEO of Datacasas Proptech
Santiago Cabezas-Castellanos, the CEO of Datacasas Proptech, declared: “In 2021 we have sold new construction properties for a volume of more than 12 million euros, many of them through the client’s mobile”. Considering this, he estimated that “blockchain will change everything in the real estate world.”
Likewise, Metrovacesa believes that it communicated: «The metaverse, which is defined as the convergence of physical and virtual reality in a space of interaction, is currently in full expansion and brings together an increasing number of companies from different sectors of activity that are not only present in the metaverse, but also market their products or services.
That is why both companies joined forces with the launch of this project in Decentraland who confess that it will work in a certain way as a case study. What they want to see is whether their business model can win customers in this digital arena. “The alliance with Datacasas reinforces our open innovation strategy and our commitment and commitment to Spanish proptech”, they indicated from Metrovacesa.
“Our goal with this proof of concept is to create a laboratory in the metaverse in which to test: a new relationship channel with a 100% digital customer profile and their desire to purchase a physical or virtual home, forms of payment and investment through NFT, in short, to analyze if there is a new business model in the metaverse”.
Carmen Chicharro, Commercial, Marketing and Innovation Director of Metrovacesa.
This project joins others that have been emerging in Spain in the metaverses. As CriptoNoticias reported, in January 2022 another ecosystem, called CatVers, was launched so that the inhabitants of Catalonia can interact with each other in the digital environment. Its objective is to become a reference environment for Catalan culture.