Today's podcast is part 4 of 4 (maybe 5) podcasts about the Metaverse and what it really means to the real estate industry, real estate agents, and our future. 
8 - Can you own part of the Metaverse (like real estate)? 
Yes. In fact, virtual metaverse-based 'land' is selling now. Remember, these are the early days. 
Gambling on virtual land in a virtual world could leave you with virtually nothing. Please remember the legend about the man who was selling the Brooklyn Bridge.  Legend claimed that he sold it at least twice a week. He did sell it several times including at least once for $50,000! The new owner would discover he was the victim of a con when the New York police officers would stop the “new owners” from setting up toll booths in the middle of the bridge. That said, people are indeed using real money to buy 'land' in the metaverse. After the dust settles, there will be real transactions happening with real money being transferred for virtual land in which to build virtual buildings. 
From CNBC:
Sales of real estate in the metaverse topped $500 million last year and could double this year, according to investors and analytics firms.
Real estate sales on the four major metaverse platforms reached $501 million in 2021, according to MetaMetric Solutions. Sales in January topped $85 million, the metaverse data provider said. It projects that at this pace sales could reach nearly $1 billion this year.
Republic Realm paid a record $4.3 million for land in the largest metaverse real estate platform, Sandbox. The company is developing 100 islands, called Fantasy Islands, with their own villas and a related market of boats and jet skis. Ninety of the islands sold in the in the first day for $15,000 each and some are now listed for resale for more than $100,000.
For investors, the big question is how to assign value and risk to an asset whose scarcity is artificial and whose future is a blank slate. Over a dozen platforms are now selling real estate in the metaverse, with new ones sprouting up almost weekly. So far, real estate sales have been concentrated on the “Big Four” — Sandbox, Decentraland, Cryptovoxels and Somnium. There are a total of 268,645 parcels on the four platforms, all of varying sizes.
Does location matter?
A rush of companies, major brands and investors are pouring into the new land craze, hoping to get in on the ground floor of the next digital Manhattan or Monaco. Yorio said land value in the metaverse will be determined by what owners do with a property — like designing a popular attraction, museum or feature —rather than location.
“You can teleport anywhere so location isn’t as important,” she said.
Yet other investors say that just like in the real world, location in the metaverse is everything when it comes to real estate. Prices for parcels near Snoop Dogg’s planned partnership and virtual world in Sandbox are fetching a premium, along with parcels near the Atari development.
(You think you had appraisal problems before!)
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