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- December 15, 2025
- Multifamily Education, Real Estate Education
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Fractional Tokenized Real Estate: Owning Property One Token at a Time
A decade ago, buying real estate meant saving for a down payment, wrangling with mortgage brokers, and signing mountains of paperwork—or wiring a large amount into a syndication and waiting years to see an exit.
Today, there’s another option quietly growing in the background: fractional tokenized real estate.
Platforms like RealT and Lofty.ai allow you to own small pieces of real properties in the United States using blockchain-based tokens. Instead of buying one entire house, you can buy a fraction of many. Instead of wiring tens of thousands into one deal, you can start with as little as $50 on some platforms.
This isn’t about “crypto replacing real estate.”
It’s about real estate adopting crypto-like mechanics—faster settlement, smaller ownership units, and digital ownership records.
So… what exactly is fractional tokenized real estate?
At its core, tokenized real estate is just fractional ownership of property, but with ownership recorded on a blockchain.
Here’s the simple version of what’s happening:
- A real property (say a rental house) is acquired.
- The property is placed into a legal entity, usually an LLC.
- Ownership of that LLC is divided into many equal pieces.
- Each piece is represented as a digital token on a blockchain.
- You buy tokens → you own a fraction of that entity → which owns the property.
If you own more tokens, you earn more rent.
If you own fewer tokens, you earn less.
The blockchain is simply the ownership ledger.
It isn’t creating fake real estate.
It’s just modernizing how ownership is recorded.
How you actually invest
The investor experience is designed to feel modern and simple, but real ownership still sits underneath.
A typical flow looks like this:
- You create an account on a platform like RealT or Lofty
- You complete identity verification (KYC)
- You fund your account (bank transfer or crypto, depending on platform)
- You choose a property
- You buy a certain number of tokens
- You begin receiving rent based on your ownership share
Where things get interesting is what happens after that.
- RealT pays rental income weekly
- Lofty pays rental income daily
- Some platforms allow you to trade tokens with other investors
- Ownership lives in your wallet or on-platform ledger, not a filing cabinet
In plain English: your “ownership statement” lives on the blockchain instead of inside a PDF.
How much does it cost to start?
This is where tokenization feels most revolutionary.
Traditional real-estate investing locks out a lot of investors simply due to high minimums. Tokenization breaks that pattern.
Here’s what’s typical today:
- RealT: ~ $50 per token
- Lofty.ai: $50 per property token
- HoneyBricks: $1,000+ per token (multifamily-focused)
- Homebase: ~$100 minimum per property
Instead of choosing one city, one tenant base, and one property…
you can spread $2,000 across 10–40 properties if you want.
That kind of diversification used to be reserved for real estate funds.
Who are the major platforms?
RealT – institutional structure with on-chain ownership
RealT focuses primarily on U.S. single-family rental properties, and each property is placed into a legally isolated structure with ownership represented by blockchain tokens. What makes RealT stand out is how traditional and regulated it feels beneath the tech layer. The tokens themselves are treated as securities, and the properties are held in LLC structures, which is very familiar territory for real estate and legal professionals. U.S. investors generally need to be accredited to participate, while international investors can come in through a different regulatory path. Once invested, holders receive rental income on a weekly basis, usually paid out in stablecoins, so cash flow feels both regular and modern. Overall, RealT feels like traditional real estate that accidentally learned blockchain, rather than a “crypto project” that later discovered property.
Lofty.ai – real estate as a DAO
Lofty.ai takes a very different approach to the same basic idea. Each property is owned by a Wyoming DAO LLC, which means ownership is not just financial but also participatory. When you hold Lofty tokens for a property, you are effectively a member of that DAO LLC and can vote on practical decisions such as rent adjustments, major repairs, changes in property management, or even whether and when to sell the property. The economic side is designed to be accessible: tokens are priced at $50 each, rent is paid out daily, and tokens can be bought and sold within Lofty’s own marketplace. Unlike many traditional real estate offerings, Lofty is open to non-accredited investors, which broadens access significantly. The overall experience feels less like old real estate adopting new rails and more like crypto building an entire real estate system from scratch.
HoneyBricks – tokenized institutional real estate
HoneyBricks operates at a more institutional end of the spectrum, focusing on larger multifamily and commercial deals. Its structure looks much closer to traditional private real estate syndications, but the ownership is digitized and the aim is to introduce more liquidity than investors would normally see in this space. HoneyBricks targets accredited U.S. investors only, and its offerings concentrate on sizable commercial properties rather than small single-family rentals. The tokens represent shares in LLCs that hold interests in these underlying properties, and typical investment sizes are larger than on more retail-focused platforms. All of this sits firmly under established U.S. securities rules, so from a legal and compliance standpoint, it behaves very much like tokenized private equity real estate.
Homebase – NFT-based real estate on Solana
Homebase takes a more crypto-native path by using the Solana blockchain and NFTs to represent ownership in single-family rental properties. Through this structure, investors can buy fractional interests in a property, trade those interests on secondary markets, and get started with relatively low minimums, often around the hundred-dollar mark. The platform is built from the ground up to support blockchain-first functionality—fast transactions, low fees, and token-based ownership—so among the options in this space, Homebase is one of the clearest examples of a crypto-native approach applied directly to real estate.
The good news (and why people are excited)
Tokenized real estate is appealing because it:
- Lowers the barrier to entry
- Allows broad diversification
- Makes income predictable
- Enables fractional exits
- Introduces liquidity where none existed before
- Reduces paperwork friction
- Allows global participation
- Makes ownership transparent
For professionals who don’t want another “job” managing tenants, this feels like real estate without the headaches.
The risks (no hype here)
This isn’t magic. There are real risks:
Platform risk
If the company behind the platform struggles, litigates, or fails, your access and liquidity may be affected even if you technically own the LLC interest.
Legal complexity
Some platforms operate under traditional securities frameworks. Others operate under emerging DAO laws. Neither is perfect. Regulations are evolving.
Liquidity risk
Yes, tokens can be sold—but that doesn’t mean there’s always a buyer. This is still private real estate.
Tax complexity
Tokenized does not mean tax-free.
You may still receive:
- K-1 forms
- State filings
- Capital gains reporting
- Crypto income reporting
Crypto risk
If you self-custody tokens and lose access, you could lose ownership.
If the platform custodies them, you depend on their security.
Blockchain is powerful—but not forgiving.
Final Thought
Fractional tokenized real estate isn’t here to replace traditional real estate investing. It’s here to lower the drawbridge. It opens access to an asset class that was once locked behind high capital requirements, long time commitments, operational complexity, and geographic limitations. In many ways, it changes who gets to participate far more than it changes what real estate fundamentally is.
Whether you approach it as a small experimental allocation or as part of a long-term strategy, the most important question remains unchanged. It is not about the blockchain, the token, or the platform interface. It’s the same question investors have always asked: Do I really understand what I own? Tokenization doesn’t eliminate that responsibility. If anything, it makes it harder to ignore—and more important to answer honestly.
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