Thread by @Jane14457995

4) includes having represented thousands of persons in purchase and sale of residential and commercial real estate over the course of 30 years (plus more as a paralegal); acting as a referee appointed to sell properties in foreclosure for 20 plus years; having been licensed as a

5/n real estate broker; having owned two real estate related companies; having acted as attorney for lenders; having bought numerous real estate properties from individuals, corporations & banks; having represented landlords and tenants for several decades; 6 years as a closer

6/n representing a large title company in the US; and acting as a mobile closer for several lenders. I am very interested in alternatives to traditional finance; in fact, my current home &office were both purchased through creative options crafted as a result of professional

7/n contacts & experience.

Having said all of that, my issue and why I may sound a bit like I rain on parades in this space, is that I care a lot about investors. My philosophy is kind of like that of @mcuban & others we know from Shark Tank. So many well meaning & good-

8/n intentioned people go to the "tank" with interesting and creative ideas. The vast majority, though, are just not investable. This is often because they haven't had enough life experience, or professional advice, to know yet what they don't know. Sometimes the sharks

9/n get it wrong, of course -- some things go on to be financial successes. But those are few and far between. My issues with real estate, finance & blockchain coming together are that it's still way too early, and most people haven't thought it through. If you find yourself

10/n talking a lot about "gray" areas & securities (especially with fractionalized r/e interests) it's because you don't know enough yet and haven't gotten sufficient advice, experience or counsel. Most people are so excited by the prospects of freedom, innovation & creativity

11/n in the blockchain space that they say, wow, I have a great idea, let's explore this! Let's get likeminded thinkers together and see where it goes! That would be fine and good, but unfortunately, most of them also say "and let's mint a token and start charging people to buy"

12/n our token! And that is the part that irks me. I would never in my wildest dreams, create a token and have people pay for it and put money in my pocket, until I had spent a huge amount of time and money of my own, getting answers to those "gray" areas and getting proper

13/n legal, tax & other professional advice. I just wouldn't. I'm not saying that people who do this are bad or immoral or corrupt; I don't think they are. I just think they are naive, & too accepting of a "let our token fund us and figure it out later" mentality, which would

14/n be just the kind of thing that the SEC is always howling about needing investor protection for. Also, people in this space don't adequately consider not only the security law implications, but the fact that even in the US laws vary heavily state to state. I heard one

15/n person say, for example, that an LLC can't have more than 15 people, and another said there's no limit. Well it may be entirely true that X state has no linits and Y state does. I heard someone talking about being willing to pay real estate brokers 6% commission because

16/n if they didn't, they'd end up paying that 6% to a mortgage broker anyway. Well, maybe that is true in some states, but it's certainly not how things are done in NY. I also heard a lot of talk about using blockchain to bring people together who may have properties for sale

17/n or want to do an installment purchase agreement or want to lease, for example, and they want that peer to peer transaction. Of course those are great ideas, but we already have Craigslist, FSBO & other sites that do that. I've never actually paid a brokerage commission for

18/n any property I've purchased except one, because I have been able to utilize contacts to find properties for the most part. Also, I don't think people fully understand smart contracts enough & that some areas might be really success on blockchain but they are going

19/n to be cases, for the most part, where the parties are willing to assume greater risks. For example, rent to own is not a simple concept. I purchased my farm with an installment contract; I did so because I'm an experienced attorney with a strong real estate background and

20/n the seller was a lawyer I knew personally. Lease to own can have very complex terms that are not easy to reproduce on blockchain unless you subtract out many conditions and just say, ok, I've done my due diligence ahead of time with professionals and there are no more

21/n contingencies and this is simply, when the ledger shows I've paid, the deed gets released. But there is probably going to have to be either very high assumption of risk or a side real-paper contract. For example, I am appointed to sell properties as a referee for banks.

22/n When I do those sales, I am required to read extensive "terms of sale" to the potential buyers; to verify that they have the funds for downpayment; and to make them sign off on certain risks. They don't get to go inside the properties before sale. They are buying subject

23/n to any tenants who may be in the property, known or unknown, whom they may have to evict. They are buying it with the understanding that as long as the bank can convey "insurable" (not even marketable, just insurable) title, they have to take it. They are buying it knowing

24/n they may be overpaying in price for the property and that it may be totally unlivable inside. They're often paying expenses that would normally be on the seller as part of the sale. It's a very risky way to buy, yet people do it and often flip the properties and make good $$

25/n if they know what they are doing or have such high risk tolerance. And yes, blockchain could do that for such high-risk purchases. But it's also not going to add much more utility than if you did it in real life, using no attorney, no title company & were just willing to

26/n assume all that risk & buy. Blockchain doesn't really make the transaction a lot simpler except that it could allow for payment in crypto, and you don't need to physically attend the auction. But you could also probably find sellers willing to do it that way, on Craigslist.

27/n So, my apologies for this long read, but I just want to say I'm not in any way opposed to RealFi projects launching on blockchain, but I am going to tend to be critical of ones that I feel are marketing to people to buy their tokens if I sense that they haven't dotted "i"s,

28/n crossed "t"s and generally thought this all through. A litepaper that speaks aspirationally is meaningless to me. You can be good and kind and excited and I'll be glad for your excitement and hoping that you get it figured out. But I won't be an investor. As I said, I did

29/n in the past invest in $poly, an eth token project which as specialized in and gone all in on the concept of fractional sale of real estate interests and other securitized interest. They have a huge team of experienced professionals and advisors. At one point @IOHK_Charles

30/n was even in some way a consultant or fan of theirs which is how I learned about them. They constructed an entire platform devoted to this space which I feel has promise. But I got out because after a year of the token price going nowhere I decided to sell, with the idea

31/n that I might by back in later when the concepts have more regulatory clarity; and also, in the hope that a #cardano platform might do the same. But hey, maybe they will migrate to #cardano on #milkomeda :). In the meanwhile, I wish you all good luck with your projects in

32/n this space, but even more importantly, a lot of homework and good advisors. And please have a conscience about token launches and taking money from investors for projects that you wouldn't be prepared & proud to seek investors for on a program like SharkTank 😀.

Apparently this was 32 "tweets" long, so will have to aggregate it another way...