A newcomer to the world of investments in the notion of “Virtual Real Estate Investing“. What is meant by “Virtual Real Estate Investing” ranges from online games like SecondLife (where real profit can be made) to the use of internet technologies to make normal real estate investors more profitable.

To get the facts, I sought out the man generally considered to be the father of virtual real estate investing: Bryan Ellis.

Ellis says he adopted the term “virtual real estate investing” sometime before Y2K after he realized that making money online is conceptually very similar to making money with physical real estate.

One example of the parallels between virtual and physical real estate Bryan Ellis cites is the similarity between the monetization of domain names versus physical property. “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.

The parallels really are obvious. For example, if you’re the owner of a desirable property, its desirability is (in a business context) largely due to its being in a location that is of interest to others. Likewise, if you own a desirable domain name, others will find value in it because it serves their purposes. So it doesn’t matter if you own physical real estate or virtual real estate – you’ll likely use similar strategies to turn them into money in your pocket.

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.