No Down Payment For Crypto-Based Home Mortgages; Digital Coins' Role In US Real Estate Deepens

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Crypto mortgages let homebuyers keep bitcoin, put down nothing

It took Vincent Burniske months to get a seven-figure loan to buy two small apartment buildings in a coveted Miami neighborhood. The sports-media consultant had money — but much of it was tied up in crypto.

Digital wealth meant little to banks when it came to a mortgage. And Burniske, 63, wanted to keep his coins rather than trade them for dollars. 

“If you cash out, you have to pay sizable tax and you're leaving a lot of upside on the table because you're getting out early,” he said.

Then came an option that wasn't available when Burniske found the properties late last year: a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage secured by part of his Bitcoin and Ethereum holdings.

He nailed down the loan from Milo Credit, a Miami-based startup that's seeking to tap into the burgeoning pool of crypto loyalists who want to diversify their wealth while hanging on to their tokens.

Crypto mortgages are the latest example of the deepening role of digital coins in the U.S. real estate market, with property buyers and lenders alike embracing the volatile currencies to underpin deals for hard assets.

Last year, Fannie Mae started allowing borrowers to use crypto for their down payments. New buildings going up in tech hot spots like Miami are accepting digital tokens for deposits on condos. A house in Tampa, Florida, even sold as an NFT earlier this year. 

The home loans offered by Milo represent a new twist. Instead of simply paying for property with tokens, borrowers pledge their digital holdings as collateral, with no down payments necessary.

That enables the holders to keep their coins, avoiding taxes on capital gains and theoretically benefiting from rising values for both the tokens and the