On 17 February 2023, the National University of Singapore Institution of Real Estate & Urban Studies (IREUS) and Rajah & Tann organised a panel discussion titled “Tokenisation of Real Estate: A Myth or Reality?”.
By dividing property into smaller portions – each represented by a digital token – real estate tokenisation lowers entry requirements, and hence allows issuers to reach out to a wider pool of investors.
The fractionalisation of real estate is not a new idea. The real estate investment trust (“REIT“) traces its origins to the 1960s in the US, while here in Singapore, SREITs have been issuing shares and paying dividends to unitholders for over two decades. At the broader level, both REITs and tokenisation are premised on owning equity interest in real estate assets.
The panellists at the session discussed important topics including (i) the value that a new system of real estate commerce based on blockchain and peer-to-peer technologies can bring to the investor; and (ii) the risks associated with a relatively under-regulated sector.
The speakers from Rajah & Tann comprised Larry Lim, Deputy Head of the Financial Institutions Group, Rajesh Sreenivasan, Head of the Technology, Media & Telecommunications Practice, and Norman Ho from the Corporate Real Estate Practice.
