Real estate investor Grant Cardone says he is aggressively buying Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) and believes pairing the asset with income-producing real estate could disrupt the $4 trillion real estate investment trust industry.
Bitcoin-Real Estate Hybrid
In an interview with Scott Melker on June 21, Cardone said traditional real estate investment trusts are structurally flawed because they are required to distribute most of their income.
"It’s a broken model," Cardone said, referring to the REIT structure created in 1965. "They can’t keep currency on their balance sheet. They have no money for capex."
Cardone said real estate assets do not die during downturns, but ownership often changes when operators run out of liquidity.
"If they had Bitcoin on their balance sheet for the last 12 years, they would not have a capex issue. They would not have a redemption issue," he said.
Cardone said his firm has completed six hybrid deals totaling more than $1 billion, with about $200 million in BTC purchased without leverage.
The structure combines cash-flowing real estate with Bitcoin inside the same investment vehicle.
He described one deal involving 366 apartments where each unit effectively came with exposure to three Bitcoin.
"I get the upside of the Bitcoin and the positive cash flow," Cardone said, adding that investors also benefit from depreciation and tax advantages tied to the real estate.
“I’m Buying Like Crazy“
"Eighty percent of our investors own no Bitcoin," Cardone said, adding that several real estate investors bought Bitcoin separately after seeing his hybrid structure strategy.
He believes Bitcoin remains undervalued and should already be trading much higher. "I’d buy it right here," he said. "I’m buying like crazy."
He said Bitcoin should be trading around $150,000 to $190,000 today, though he added that timing remains uncertain.
Cardone compared Bitcoin to real estate, saying he buys assets below what he believes they are worth and waits for the market to recognize that value.
"This model that I’ve created, in the future, all the institutions will adopt this," he said. "It solves a problem. And the problem in real estate is capex."
Image: Shutterstock
Login to comment