Bryan Ellis’ thoughts on The Virtualization Of The Real Estate Industry
“Virtual Real Estate Investing” is a relatively new concept. There are many variations on what this term means, encompassing everything from using the internet to aid in real estate investing efforts to participating in online games such as SecondLife.
To separate fact from fiction, I asked Bryan Ellis for comments. He’s the man many consider to be the father of this new form of investing.
Ellis says he adopted the term “virtual real estate investing” sometime before Y2K after he realized that making money online is conceptually very similar to making money with physical real estate.
One example of the parallels between virtual and physical real estate Bryan Ellis cites is the similarity between the monetization of domain names versus physical property. “These types of assets - websites and physical real estate - can be monetized in very similar ways like buy lo/sell high, leasing/rental and advertising opportunities” he says.
The similarities really are obvious. For example, if you’re the owner of a desirable property, its desirability is (in a business context) largely due to its being in a location that is of interest to others. Similarly, ownership of a desirable domain name is valuable for the same reasons. Regardless of the type of asset, you can sell or lease or use any number of strategies to turn the assets into cash.
In our next installment of this series on virtual real estate investing., Bryan Ellis will share the internet analogies to the physical concept of real estate development.
