How Blockchain is Changing Real Estate with Michael Flight

Michael Flight is a founding principal of Concordia Realty Corporation in 1990, as well as the CEO of Liberty Real Estate Fund, the World’s First Net Lease Security Token Fund, providing Stable and Tradable Private Real Estate. Michael is a real estate entrepreneur and Blockchain Real Estate evangelist who specializes in retail real estate investment (NNN-Shopping Centers-Triple Net-Net Leased), redevelopment, real estate tokenization, and blockchain real estate. He began his commercial real estate career in 1985 and has worked on numerous successful projects with some of the world’s most well-known banks, insurance companies, hedge funds, and institutional investors.

Michael has appeared on CNBC Arabia and CEO Magazine, as well as being quoted in Yahoo Finance, Crowd Fund Insider, Crain’s Chicago Business, and E-Crypto News. Michael is a co-host of the Nothing But Net – NNN Show podcast, an educational podcast about Triple Net/Net Leased properties, as well as the educational meetups of the Chicago Blockchain Real Estate Collective. He is a co-founder of the Blockchain Real Estate Summit, which will take place on September 9 and 10 in Austin, Texas

Michael has spoken at events such as the Global Family Office Summit Dubai, FreedomFest, Investor Summit at Sea, Multifamily Investor Network conferences, the LA Blockchain Summit, Intelligent Investors Real Estate Conference, Security Token Summit, and the Liberland 5th Anniversary. Michael has been elected to public office, serves on the real estate investment advisory boards of two non-profits, and is a founding board member of Freedom of Life, a Romanian NGO that helps women achieve liberty and rebuild their lives after being trafficked.

Episode Highlights Here:

Michael Flight:

I believe that blockchain is the new financial system. It’s going to open up real estate to a bunch of people, or it’s going to open up access to people to use their real estate as collateral.

Brett Swarts:

What’s the number one secret right now you think, Michael, for how blockchain is going to be changing real estate in the near future?

Michael Flight:

I think that blockchain is really going to open up the $280 trillion. You had mentioned that the top three or 10% of the wealth in the United States is all a lot of it’s in real estate. But the number one and the world’s most proven asset class, and the longest-term track record is real estate. So there’s $280 trillion, which it’s also the largest asset class in the world. I believe that blockchain is the new financial system, and it’s going to open up real estate to a bunch of people, or it’s going to open up access to people to use their real estate as collateral. It’s gonna make it much easier for people to use this locked-up value as collateral for businesses for working and for creating. The other thing is, since 1990, or so, there’s been billions of people coming out of abject poverty, and living on $1 a day to moving into the middle class. Those middle class is going to need someplace to put their money and to preserve their wealth so that they can transfer their wealth to the next generation. It’s not going to happen in the stock market, it’s going to primarily happen, which is how it’s always happened with real estate.

Brett Swarts:

Wow, that’s really amazing. Never thought of like that. $200 trillion and the largest asset classes in the world. If I hear you correctly, you’re saying that blockchain will open up or make this accessible or be able to collateralize it and maybe even for the little guy, right? Not just for the big guys, because you can able to do things in a way that’s ultra-efficient and this is the cryptocurrency portion of this, there’s the ledger there. So for those that are like hearing this, like, what are you talking about here? Like, could you break down how that might look in a practical application?

Michael Flight:

So I like to explain blockchain as just as the internet created instantaneous communication. It’s also distributed communication so that if one line goes down, the entire internet isn’t down. It created almost free communication. So when I was starting out in the 1980s, you actually had to pay a lot of money for long-distance. Now, they’re like, everything is free. I’m talking to you. You’re in California, I’m in Chicago, but I have people that work for me all over the world, which is so cool now. That’s free. Well, with Blockchain, Blockchain is going to be the new financial system. So it’s just like the internet created instantaneous communication all over the world. Blockchain does allow right now, instantaneous value transfer, instantaneous money transfer, and instantaneous transfer of assets. So you are now going to be able to like you could never before because if you send a bank wire right now, especially out of the country, it takes 7 to 14 days to confirm that the money actually went through. Versus if you do it on a blockchain using the underlying technology that Bitcoin and a lot of these cryptocurrencies run on, I can send money to you in California, and you’ll know that it’s in your wallet, within a few minutes, or I can send the money across the world to India, Africa, or the people that work for me in Romania and Bulgaria.

Brett Swarts:

Amazing! So blockchain will change the real estate world. Like the Internet has changed the communication world, right. It’s going to be an instantaneous transfer of the value of money, a currency if you will, and the transfer of assets.