Aerospace Engineer Uses Bitcoin Cash to Buy $415,000 Home in Seattle

  

A young aerospace design engineer has used bitcoin cash to buy a three-bedroom $415,000 house in Tukwila, a suburb of Seattle, Washington. The 23 year old investor, Cary Kuo, had to endure a lot of bureaucracy but was eventually able to use his cryptocurrency holdings to pay for a ten percent down-payment on the property and get a mortgage for the rest. 

This is assumed to be the first time ever someone has used any cryptocurrency to acquire real estate in the regional market, according to the Seattle Times. 

It can also be a precedent for someone securing a traditional mortgage in the US nationally for such a transaction, as most publicized real estate for bitcoin deals have so far involved paying the sum outright without the added difficulties of getting an approval for a loan. 

  

The previous owners of the house, as well as the real estate agents involved, were skeptical when they first heard about the buyer using bitcoin cash or other cryptocurrencies to pay for the house. 

But, after doing some research and due diligence, everyone came around to accept the idea. They even found a residential loan financing company, Guild Mortgage, which was willing to back the deal. 

Dealing with the public sector was a different matter however. When the loan company contacted government-sponsored Fannie Mae (Federal National Mortgage Association) to ask if cryptocurrency can be used as an asset for securing a mortgage, the agency had two terms. 

Kuo had to produce a full paper trail documenting how he acquired the cryptocurrency and convert the down payment sum into fiat to transfer to the seller. Local taxes for the sale also had to be paid with USD. 

Oleg Tkach, the Guild Mortgage manager who helped secure the loan for Kuo, commented: “Unless something changes with cryptocurrency, I believe it’s going to become more common.”