This article appeared in the Iconic magazine of property developer ION. 

Investing in real estate has never been easier 

With Immotokens, a Ghent start-up, anyone can invest in real estate from €50. Their goal? To create an open and accessible platform where everyone can enjoy the benefits of a real estate investment. 

Today, real estate investment is mainly reserved for people with large assets or who are supported by family. Startup Immotokens wants to change this as soon as possible. With their new platform, the people of Ghent hope to make real estate accessible and attractive for everyone. 

What? 

By now everyone knows Bitcoin, the first decentralised digital currency with no central bank or custodian. But had you heard of Immotokens? Former ION employee Edgar Warmoes recently launched a startup under this name that uses blockchain technology to tokenise property. Thanks to these tokens, you can divide a property into several smaller pieces. And whoever buys these pieces, or Immotokens, receives the income generated by the property. In other words, you buy a loan with the property as collateral. 

Rental income 

But how does it work in practice? Via the eight simple steps on the Immotoken website, anyone can become a property owner. From an overview, you select a real estate project of your choice and enter an investment amount of at least €50. Then, every six months, you receive a portion of the rental income and a portion of the subsequent sale value. And the startup itself? They get their income through the commissions on the purchase of the tokens and the sale of the real estate. 

Ixelles 

If you got the token bug while reading this article, you can already invest today in a small studio in Ixelles, Brussels. This is the first, and for now the only, project for which you can buy tokens. But in the future Immotokens wants to enable investments in larger properties, like supermarkets or offices. We are curious!