MarketSpace Capital Uses Blockchain to Tokenize a Multifamily Project

MarketSpace Capital, a real estate private equity firm headquartered in Houston, Texas, already had the investors for its Spot at Myra Park 250-unit multifamily apartment complex in Dallas, adjacent to the Dallas Medical Center. At about $188,000 per unit, they needed to cover a $47 million bill. But they’ve found that when it comes to real estate, blockchain and tokenization are about more than opening the potential market for initial investors.

The company, which made its first investment in 2011, has 19 to date and, over time, decided to focus on multifamily. “Our total assets under management is right around $400 million,” Sohail Hassan, one of three managing partners for the firm, tells GlobeSt.com. “The goal here is to build a quality product but target the middle class of America, which makes up about 62% of renters. Our mission is to create these assets that are affordable, available, and sustainable.”

The Dallas building is higher end on a 6.3-acre site. “We are basically building what is known as a Texas doughnut,” Hassan says, referring to a building with a parking garage in the middle in which residents park on the same floors as their units. The building is also age-restricted for residents at least 55 years old. Recruiting 68 investors at an average of $250,000 each brought in $6.5 million. Another half million from MarketSpace brought the sum to $7 million, with loans providing the rest.

“The appraisal for this project for a stabilized value, once we have an occupancy of 70% to 80%, is $66 million,” Hassan explains. An apparently attractive deal, the investors came in, raising the question of why experiment with tokenization. The frequent explanation of attracting a broader set of investors doesn’t address that in the U.S., at least, those investors will still need to be institutions or accredited individuals.

Instead, Hassan points to two different benefits. One is paperwork. Rather than maintaining records in traditional fashions and generating quarterly statements and ACH transfers, by using tokens and putting them on an exchange platform—tZERO—much of the work can be automated.

A bigger benefit to investors, though, is the ability to gain liquidity without a special event like a sale.

“In this new model, after 12 months, you are able to take this ownership and go onto a secondary marketplace,” Hassan says. And then non-accredited investors can buy portions on the secondary market. “Investors had more confidence in investing knowing they can go for liquidity in 12 months.”

If the experiment works, MarketSpace plans to tokenize the rest of its holdings. There are still potential downsides, like a $50,000 listing fee for an exchange and an annual $20,000 afterwards, as well as unclear regulatory requirements and structures as of yet.

“At the same time, it’s not a drawback to us,” says Hassan. “We welcome it.”