“Virtual Real Estate Investing” is a relatively new concept. Everything from using the internet as an avenue to make more money in real estate to online games such as SecondLife seem to be included in the popular definition of this term.
To separate fact from fiction, I asked Bryan Ellis of BryanEllis.com for comments. He’s the man many consider to be the father of this new form of investing.
When I began using the term virtual real estate investing in the late 1990s, I did so because I saw clear parallels between the strategies used for profiting from physical real estate and those that would create income in the online world, said Ellis.
Bryan Ellis cites the similar strategies one can employe to make money from “virtual property” and “physical property” as a primary parallel of the two markets. “These types of assets - websites and physical real estate - can be monetized in very similar ways like buy lo/sell high, leasing/rental and advertising opportunities” he says.
I must admit: Its easy to see the parallels. Consider this: If you own a piece of real estate in a desirable neighborhood, your real estate has value because other people are interested in that location. Likewise, if you own a desirable domain name, others will find value in it because it serves their purposes. Regardless of the type of asset, you can sell or lease or use any number of strategies to turn the assets into cash.
In our next installment of this series on virtual real estate investing, Bryan Ellis will share the internet analogies to the physical concept of real estate development.
