The move comes as the government enacts regulatory policies for cryptocurrencies, and developers in Miami are increasingly open to accepting crypto for purchases.
Avanti Way Realty launched a cryptocurrency division, led by longtime Bitcoin real estate agent Erik Mendelson, The Real Deal has learned.
The Doral-based brokerage is looking to train agents and help clients handle real estate transactions involving cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum and Tether. Many crypto-rich clients are cash-poor, and don’t necessarily want to convert their coin to cash, Mendelson said. Mendelson, a licensed mortgage broker as well, said these buyers can use crypto-backed mortgages to finance their purchases.
Most real estate agents don’t understand how to broker a crypto real estate purchase, said Avanti Way co-CEO Andres Korda. Mendelson, who has been involved in crypto-related real estate deals totaling more than $20 million, teaches a class that agents can count toward their continuing education credits.
He’ll first work with the top tier of Avanti Way agents, about 80 of them, in a one-on-one capacity, Korda said. Mendelson is also working with the brokerage’s finance and title departments to create a streamlined process for crypto buyers, and Avanti Way is repackaging and branding its courses to include crypto real estate lessons.
Avanti Way, also led by co-CEO Enrique Teran, has nearly 2,000 agents.
“Our lifeblood is on customers, and they want to be around like-minded agents, the world they come from,” Korda said.
Foreign buyers, in particular, may be interested in using crypto because it may allow them to bypass banking regulations in their home country, or cryptocurrency is already the currency of choice in that country.
President Trump last week signed the Genius Act, a law that regulates stablecoins, which are cryptocurrencies pegged to stable assets like the dollar. The total market value of cryptoassets recently surpassed $4 trillion — “about the same size as the Florida real estate market,” Korda said.
Mendelson said that now that the government is enacting regulatory policies around cryptocurrencies, “the timing of this division couldn’t be better.”
Developers are also starting to dip their toes back into the crypto buyer pool. At the planned Rider Residences, Rilea Group is marketing to those buyers, including in other countries.
In April, Rilea completed its first wallet-to-wallet deal for a unit at the Wynwood condo project, which means the buyer sent their bitcoin to the developer’s wallet. The developer then keeps the deposits with a third-party escrow agent, so after it receives deposits, the funds are converted to cash via Kraken.
PMG also announced in May that it is now working with Shift4, a payment processing company. PMG’s Ryan Shear says the developer will allow buyers across all of its Florida condo projects to use the platform to convert their Bitcoin or other crypto to cash.
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