Pakistan’s real estate industry is estimated to be around $400B with roughly $5.2B spent on construction each year. Real estate in Pakistan is one of the most sought after investment avenues but unfortunately, 90% of Pakistanis can not afford to make this investment because of the steep & rising costs of properties across the country.
However, xstate, a start-up based out of Islamabad, looks determined to solve this problem by making real estate investments possible for everyone. Rightfully so, they go by the tagline “Ab hogi zameen sab ki”. xstate does this by fractionalization of real estate. They first pick a prime property that is secure from all aspects & also has a great appreciation margin for the future and allows anyone to buy tokens of that property priced as low as PKR 5000. xstate then holds the property till the expiry of a preannounced holding period. After the expiry of this period, xstate sells the property in the market through a transparent auction and returns the proportionate share to each of the buyers. This allows all buyers to benefit with the same rate of return as the appreciation in property value. XSTATE also has a novel exchange where people can trade their asset tokens in a P2P fashion and liquidate their holdings anytime. Through innovation xstate is making real estate transactions affordable, secure and liquid for everyone.
Asif Khan, the co-founder of xstate, shared his vision “ xstate is a property equity crowdfunding platform that makes real estate investments possible for everyone through fractionalization. Our goal is to solve several of Pakistan’s economic problems by making real estate investments liquid and accessible. We also want to create a new shared economy through our partner program so that every person can have the opportunity to benefit from the ever-growing real estate industry.”
In addition to the extremely easy user interface & investment process, another thing that sets them apart from the competition is their emphasis on safe and shariah-compliant operations. Only those properties are listed on the platform which are located in prime locations with no NOC, possession or litigation issues and are legally owned by xstate.
“Unfortunately, our middle class doesn’t currently have any good avenues to save and invest. Through xstate we want to change that and our mission is to inshaAllah provide a secure and halal way for the common people to save” Altamash Janjua, xstate’s co-founder added, while discussing the philosophy behind the concept.
The xstate platform can be accessed anywhere from a mobile or computer and is completely transparent and scalable. Launched only 3 months ago, they have so far listed 3 properties and more than 300 investors have invested in excess of PKR 53 Million with them. Keeping true to their aim of opening real estate for everyone, their youngest investor is a 17-year-old with the investor pool having tonnes of diversity in occupation, age & other demographical factors. Another interesting factor was that many women also made purchases through their platform and this highlights the financial inclusivity of the idea. Pakistanis from over 20 countries have already bought shares in properties through xstate and the team is seeing tremendous interest from the diaspora. Xstate thus has enormous potential to become an important vehicle to increase the inflow of precious foreign exchange into the country and also to improve the domestic savings rate.
Property crowdfunding and fractionalization of real estate are areas that are currently unregulated in Pakistan. This area is seeing phenomenal growth around the world. Smartcrowd.ae in Dubai, Propertypartner.co in the United Kingdom and Lofty.ai in the United States are some noteworthy examples. xstate is trying to bring the same value to the citizens of Pakistan and is now making it possible for everyone to buy real estate. Check out www.xstate.com and become part of the proptech revolution in Pakistan.
Cover image via xstate.com