Courtesy of a new offering from Miami, Florida-based digital banking and lending platform Milo, investors can leverage the world’s newest source of value to finance a purchase one of the world’s oldest. The company recently announced that it is offering the world’s first “crypto mortgage” – enabling digital asset holders to use their crypto to help them buy real estate in the U.S.
The program is available to both U.S. and international investors who are seeking to use their Bitcoin holdings as collateral for Milo’s 30-year mortgage loan. Milo allows customers to continue to own their bitcoin, and diversify into real estate ownership, while taking advantage of potential price appreciation of both assets. Customers can finance 100% of their real estate purchase, and no dollar downpayment is required.
“This is an exciting time for the crypto and mortgage industries,” Milo CEO and founder Josip Rupena said. “With our new crypto mortgage, we can expand our offerings to consumers that were previously denied by other banking firms just for having crypto. We have an opportunity to make sure that doesn’t happen anymore and their bitcoin wealth can now help them buy a property.”
In development since 2021, Milo’s crypto mortgage program avoids the problem that cryptocurrency holders often face when trying to use their digital assets to help fund real estate purchases. “The existing way for crypto consumers to access home credit has left them with unintended tax liabilities of selling for a down payment or worse the opportunity cost of seeing their crypto increase in value,” Rupena explained. “There are countless stories of people buying property with bitcoin proceeds only to see it increase in value and be worth millions more.”
Milo’s crypto mortgage innovation says as much about the company’s ability to embrace new asset classes as it does the firm’s commitment to helping individuals with significant assets overcome the hurdles that prevent them from deploying those assets as they choose. The company was founded in part from a need identified by Rupena when he was a financial advisor at Morgan Stanley. A private wealth client with a seven-figure net worth was unable to secure a home loan because of what Rupena called “traditional banks’ domestically focused processes.” He noted that less than a third of prospective homebuyers outside of the U.S. are successful in getting home loans and those that are approved often face high interest rates or, at minimum, a subpar customer experience. In 2020, Milo became the first company to conduct a completely remote digital closing for an international customer.
Founded in 2018, Milo has raised $6 million in funding from investors including 10X Capital, MetaProp, and QED Investors. The company has clients in 63 countries around the world, and has originated $300 million in loans from foreign nationals. The company’s crypto mortgage program has already begun granting loans via its early-access stage and plans to open the service to additional customers on its waiting list in the months to come.
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