Our solution is a rental marketplace for cryptocurrency payments, where properties can be listed for single rental prices or for auction sales.
The Loqul marketplace will function similarly to other rental marketplaces, both on- and off-chain with the added feature of crypto transactions and secure proofs of payment. Inspired by current NFT marketplaces on Cardano, rental agreements and payment receipts will be managed on our platform.
The user will be able to see different rental property listings posted by landlords and their descriptions. Once they find a property they’re interested in, they can place an offer of interest for the property, in the case of a standard listing, or participate in the auction. All transactions are handled by smart contracts.
The auction will be formatted like an eBay listing; users can see the highest bid, the time left on the auction, and, if applicable, a “rent it now” option. To be able to submit a bid or even list a property, users will have to connect their wallets and show their IAMX identity. (We hope to be using Atala Prism in the coming months). These listings can be for a whole property/unit or just a room, allowing landlords to increase revenues while decreasing tenants' housing costs.
Upon auction close or rental contract payment accepted, landlords are issued 12 NFTs of the rental agreement that will be sold to the tenant every month; thus, acting as an NFT-receipt and irrefutable proof of payment. These receipts can be used to calculate a "crypto credit score" and assist users in acquiring other economic identities on the blockchain.
To ensure the best possible User Experience, we have partnered with: ADA****Handle, COTI, Genius Yield, GeroWallet, MELD, and MLabs.
Landlords, Tenants, and Roommates will be held accountable through a rating system, similar to that of Uber and Lyft's rating system. That way, roommates and tenants alike will be incentivized to not damage their reputation. Similarly, Landlords can now be held accountable for their actions and are encouraged to service tenants swiftly.
Our target audience is Landlords that have 1-4 Units that they manage on their own (B2B), and Gen-Z/Young Professionals/College Students since they are already open to having housemates (B2C). We are also looking to partner with larger property owners and property managers interested in using our platform.
97% of U.S. landlords own between 1-4 units and 73% of those Landlords are individual investors. We believe that these investors could benefit from a simple, secure, affordable system to handle their payments and tenant search; while experiencing increased revenues over traditional rental solutions.
Gen Z includes people who are more likely to own/be interested in crypto, share living spaces, or be willing to adopt new real estate marketplaces. We especially see this type of model attracting more students, or college towns, and cities where there is a large young professional population with high rental costs such as Miami, NYC, and LA.
Our main objective is to deliver a blockchain solution with real-world impact and utility to all parties involved in a transaction. By introducing transparency, speed, secured payments, and a frictionless process enabled by the Cardano blockchain, we believe that we are adding real-world value to property owners, tenants, and the Cardano community as a whole as we bring new fresh users to the ecosystem as they explore new and more valuable mechanisms on web 3. Through our partnerships and strategic advisors, we have collaborated with other projects for future integrations growing the ecosystem as a whole. By building a great set of smart contracts and applications we are helping both individuals and businesses enter the ecosystem, benefit from it, and grow in a trusted and frictionless manner.
Our performance indicators include:
- New Addresses and identity credentials to track new users
- Number of properties listed and turnover rates
- Number of tenants on the site
- Transactions are done through our protocol
- Assets Minted on our protocol
- Products that our end users use eg. (ADAHandle, ADAdomains, IAMX, GeroWallet)
- Revenues for property owners
Risks we see:
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Losing users due to some friction of not wanting to do payments in crypto/ADA/stablecoins. Nonetheless, our partners & our web development team will work to improve and make the process as frictionless as we can, so users will not be hesitant to pay with crypto.
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Homeowner associations/condos could possibly fight our systems. In fact, this is a valid concern because many HOA’s or condominiums have rules against renting, or subleasing, which could cause problems as we launch in different markets. However, we are able to assign this liability to the landlord, while we implement compliance processes for these specific case scenarios.
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Getting blockchain-friendly legislation passed. Florida (where we plan to launch our beta) is one of the most crypto-friendly states. Also, we are a part of the Florida Blockchain Business Association (FBBA.io) which has already succeeded in getting crypto-friendly bills passed in the Florida legislature.
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Expanding/scaling to new markets/jurisdictions. As we prove the concept through high traction on our beta in Miami, Florida, we plan to expand to other metropolitan areas with the proper due diligence in hopes of being embraced as we enter these new cities. Furthermore, Loqul's long-term vision is Global. We are aiming to build the future of living, a global protocol that uses global currencies.