Last month at The Burnham-Moores Center in the University of San Diego, the institution’s Executive Director, Stath Karras, hosted an expert panel to discuss the rise of digital real-estate and opportunities in the Metaverse.
The panel’s line-up included industry experts representing leading Metaverse and real-estate firms. Selected speakers include the Co-Founder of The Metamall Group, Neel Naicker, Qualcomm’s Vice President and General Manager of XM Hugo Swart, and CRG Partner and Senior Vice President of Workplace Strategy Geoffrey Kasselman.
The event was an introduction to the Metaverse for many of its attendees, and the panel explored emerging immersive technology and its potential for the future of retail, work, living, and real estate.
Experts on Metaverse Real Estate
Panellists expressed excitement towards the opportunities presented by the Metaverse, especially for businesses and brands attempting to expand outreach in the web 3.0 age.
Digital twins, a virtual representation of an object, person, and environment, present a streamlined avenue for firms to recreate real-world presence and business procedures digitally accurately.
Naicke added,
“A digital twin allows prospective tenants or buys to get analysis in real-time to be able to figure out future of building and transact globally”
Solutions exist that enable firms to quickly convert a property, externally or internally, into a digital twin so that businesses can conduct operations from within virtual reality (VR) spaces.
Currently, tech companies are distributing easy-to-use tools that allow firms to digitise an environment quickly. Enterprises such as Matterport have democratised digital twin tools with a mobile app, and drone surveying firms like Skyfish have provided tools to collect accurate real-world data of a location.
Naickle also said,
“You can have people across the world see it [a digital twin of a location] in this immersive environment with all the information that you can pull – accounting, leasing, all of it – in real time”
According to the Metamall Co-Founder, digital twins provide potential tenants with a tool to virtually view properties in real-time.
For construction groups, the technology exists as a tool to overlay potential structural changes, view internal wiring or plumbing, and provide walkthroughs, Naickles explained, adding there is “something in it for everybody.”
The Metaverse Real-Estate Boom
The current Metaverse boom is leading to various new digital opportunities for companies. In February, industry analysts revealed that the Metaverse real estate marketplace reached roughly $500 million in 2021, with a potential to double in 2022.
CNBC reported that the “big four” Metaverse platforms Sandbox, Decentraland, Cryptovoxels, and Somnium secured the digital marketplace with approximately 268,645 parcels of virtual land. Last year, back-to-back sales on Decentraland and Axie Infinity totalled around $5 million.
PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) also purchased digital land for over $10,000 on the Sandbox platform, which enables the global consultancy firm to connect to new customers and increase engagement with existing clients with digital opportunities.
