Metaverse: The Gap Between Reality and Futurism – Connect CRE

Googling the term real estate financing metaverse will provide approximately 8.8 million hits. The results are a mishmash of companies that provide financing for metaverse real estate deals, as well as articles ranging from skepticism (Investing in Metaverse Real Estate: Mind the Gap Between Recognized and Realized Potential) to enthusiasm (The Coming Boom in Metaverse Lending for Banks). Previous Weekender articles have also chimed in on the topic, most recently with Buying and Financing LandIn the Metaverse.

But is the industry really at the point in which virtual real estate and financing deals can or even should take place? Not just yet.

In a recent Walker Webcast, Walker & Dunlop chairman and CEO Willy Walker acknowledged that the metaverse is gaining traction. However, Ive been asked whether Walker & Dunlop is thinking about financing real estate in the metaverse, Walker commented. I will be so long gone when Walker & Dunlop starts financing real estate in the metaverse.

According to L.D. Salmanson, CEO of New York Citys real estate data and insight firm Cherre, in the short term two or three years, (metaverse) is a buzzword that provides zero value to real estate owners and operators. He told Connect CRE that at this point, scammers will use it to raise money for nonsense, and visionaries will use it to raise money for things that are too early.

One reason is because of the current state of hardware and software. Salmanson explained that Apple, Meta and Google have their own hardware and software ecosystems and their own virtual reality and augmented reality environments. Using video games as an example, Salmanson said that shared universes are possible across different hardware types if and only if the software developer decides to make this universe accessible from multiple hardware environment.

The metaverse, as it currently stands, isnt a whole lot different. Even if virtual locations are accessible from different platforms, software vendors build their own, non-converging environments. I cant really picture one metaverse, Salmanson said. Rather, I see multiple, siloed hardware and software environments.

Additional challenges include current battery technology that is far behind what we need for this reality to exist, Salmanson said. The costs are also high, and current central processing units (CPUs) and graphic processing units (GPUs) arent advanced enough to support a meta world. The power consumption for these devices is astronomical, Salmanson added.

All told, the idea of buying and financing anything, let alone real estate, in the metaverse is a nice fantasy, but far from applicable right now. As operators and investors, we need to be grounded in reality, Salmanson said. We dont have the luxury of futurism for futurisms sake. Thats for science fiction writers to delight us, not for the immediate reality.

But technology isnt static, and its likely the metaverse wont stay static, either. Salmanson said that as hardware capabilities advance and AR and VR moves beyond the cartoon stage of quality, this could begin to provide rich experiences that can start replacing or enriching every day experiences, he said. But penetration here will be slow.

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Metaverse: The Gap Between Reality and Futurism - Connect CRE