CIP27 - A CityDAO House In Tuscany, Italy

[LucaTripsCommunity1]

INTRODUCTION

This is a draft proposal to see if there’s any interest in pursuing the acquisition of a house in the Tuscan hills, run it as a self sustainable vacation rental (Airbnb style) with special access to CityDAO citizens and targeted both to tourists and digital nomads.

It will become a home in Italy for the NFT holders, while at the same time being financially independent, possibly even realising a profit for the DAO.

ABOUT US
Trips Community is a DAO founded in 2017 with the aim to offer web3 alternatives to platforms like Airbnb and Booking.com
The community has over 20 years of experience in vacation rentals space and we are often on stage in international conferences to talk about Web3 in travel. The most recent ones are VRSW in Annecy, France and Hicon in Bologna, Italy.

We are VR experts, Hosts, Property Managers and guests.
We definitely know how to run a house, villa or apartment professionally.

Experimenting is our focus, and we have launched the first ever travel booking via NFT with a Villa in Spain and the first ever NFT hotel booking with a 5 stars in Venice, Italy.

THE HOUSE IN TUSCANY
Five of our members are also CityDAO citizens and crypto OGs (some from 2012)

We are perfectly placed at the intersection of web3 and hospitality to successfully run such an accommodation. Amongst our members there are people who have managed every kind of accommodation (from apartments to Villas) professionally for a long time.

Amongst as there are also professional real estate agents, and one of them has already found some examples of properties we may analyse (more below).

THE BUSINESS MODEL
On this draft we’ll keep it simple:
A house for tourists in the Tuscan hill: this is the part which makes it sustainable.
A house for digital nomads: this is a bit more experimental but our founder Luca De Giglio is the first known digital nomad in Italy (since 2001)
A house for CityDAO citizens: if you have the NFT, this is your house. Privileges will go from free nights to discounts, with the aim to keep it sustainable financially.

THE SOUL OF THE PROJECT
We want this to be a home for CityDAO citizens. Possibly the first of many, as we will take on our shoulders the task to test a model which may work elsewhere, run by other local communities. We will share the process with the DAO, and together we will try optimise for a great community.

THE HOUSE
At this stage, we have some options to look at. So take the following as real world examples, nothing more.
They have been selected by Daniele, a professional real estate agent working in Florence, Italy.

Here’s a few of the properties on the market, just so you get a feeling:

These properties range from 850,000 € to 1,600,000 €.

THE BUREAUCRACY
We have already verified and an US based LLC can own properties or companies in Italy.
E.g. Castelfalfi, previously a TUI property (the largest leisure, travel and tourism company in the world) and now belonging to an Indonesian group or Il Palagio, owned by Sting (the singer).

We will need to set up a local company of course and there’s some work to figure out the best approach, but we have our lawyers and there’s a lot of experience already in the field.

CONCLUSION
This is just to get the temperature check for the proposal, it is not in any shape or form complete!
We would like to spark a discussion, get questions, answer them and generally see what the community feels about something like that.

CONTACTS
https://www.tripscommunity.com/
info@tripscommunity.com https://twitter.com/tripscommunity
Trips

Proposal PDF (more complete)

Trips Community "A House in Tuscany" - CityDAO CIP.pdf

[shrtU]

Intresting idea, but this is too much early, even for temperature check, as for me.

[Uncle_Liberi]

Huge fan of the idea!

I’d suggest to follow a same route as with the plot: Aim for cheap and easy houses for a prove of concept before investing too heavily in the dream property.

What about the 1$-houses in Sicilia? They seem to be more like 10-20k with another 50k (?) for renovation? I’d rather have a few of those in many parts of the world (wherever the legal stuff is easiest and there is some chance of attracting nomads/tourists) than 1 perfect one.

Knowing that one can sleep for free in another country during a trip with a chance of meeting fellow NFT holders feels like a huge incentive to get onboard, because it is real and tangible. And surely will lead to lots of free marketing as that’s a super clear utility in the real world.

[calvin]

I second this! I love the idea, too, but agree that it’s too big of an investment for our size. Having some sort of accomodation priviliges will definitely add value to our citizenships, they’ll become more than “just a governance token.” I hope we can pursue and find more viable options, 1 dolar Sicily houses is a great idea in that regard.

[TigerGunner]

Hi from a Trips’ community member from Tuscany.
Yes, Sicily is nice, I love it but it is not so famous like Chianti and Tuscany are (and attractive 365 days a year) and price/size could be very interesting in that moment.
I’m not saying it is very easy to project something like that but working on it we could plan and may be…complete it

[LucaTripsCommunity1]

There’s plenty of $1 houses in Italy, but the path from that to a house we can actually use is long and full of dangers.
Renovating an old house may take years because of bureaucracy, so let’s say that the total cost of renovation is $300,000, which looks cheap, will end up costing more, and we won’t have a place for years.

It also requires knowledge we don’t have, both in renovating and bureaucracy.

We are experts in running homes, on the other hand, so this is why we’d feel comfortable with a ready property.

Of course, I understand the price tag is big, especially at this stage.

Let’s think of it this way: we have an $8M treasury, and $1M is a too big chunk of it.
I agree with it.

On the other hand, a well-formed proposal may attract more money and the Tuscany project could pay for itself without touching the treasury.

We may create a proper business plan, with a specific house, timings and all.
CityDAO then could offer a specific NFT issuance for this project only.
So, anyone who buys the CityDAO Tuscany NFT, has higher layer of access to the house.

The risk here is reputational: if CityDAO raises this money and don’t use it properly, so extra care needs to be taken in deployment.

Here’s how it could work:

• CityDAO approves and funds the creation of a business plan: this requires time, travels and research, so a bit of money here is needed).
• A Tuscany CityDAO Nft is issued
• The market buys it and the ETH goes to the CityDAO treasury: we have now money for this specific project.
• The treasury is intact, and the whole project is more valuable because there’s a soon-to-come use case for the NFTs.
• We implement it and the money is released on a milestone basis (as defined in the business plan).

How does it sound?
Any feedback will allow us to improve on it.

[ValTrips]

Just to add some details on the $1 houses available in several locations in Italy:

• if you get one a $1 house, you are also required to fully renovate it (and I assure you they are pretty old, think very rustic style made of natural stones in most cases).
• the $1 houses are usually in unpopulated/abandoned villages in remote areas with poor infrastructure in terms of transport, services and internet connection.
• the $1 house project aims to re-populate abandoned areas, so it’s targeted for individuals willing to get their residency and live in the house/village (not even sure if a company could apply for this deal, before even thinking about a futuristic DAO!)

The above points are never communicated enough in the marketing articles that you can read online. I guess it’s the usual disconnect between “theory vs. reality” that poor media outlets keep pushing online just to generate click and maybe some ads revenue.

[yesconsult]

I love fractional anything in this space. Only two real areas of interest: profit and/or helping people/the planet. I would agree that taking on a project like this could be extremely difficult. Also offering up fractional benefits needs to be commensurate with opportunity and hard to figure the individual benefits unless it has limited numbers so most likely to be a profit driver incentive to engage. Probably one for the future, but the fractional benefits approach can be awesome in other areas of travel/hospitality.

[Tex]

Alright, one missing puzzle piece.

We need a CIP to request a fundraising project.
It’s like Launchpad.

The city must appoint a group of people for selection.
If the city goes well, many projects will occur.

[LucaTripsCommunity1]

could you rephrase all this? I am not sure I understood it correctly

[Tex]

I’m in a hurry to write. I’m very sorry.
it like Kickstarter.

[Steve42]

I do think it may be a bit early on for something like this. If CityDAO is going to take this on, it would be best if it were themed somehow; pick a region or rationale that we will pursue ongoing. An example would be to pick an area in the world that has a good amount of real estate/vacation potential and begin buying it up bit by bit. Think small islands like Turks & Caicos or something in the south pacific. Rather than individual one off buys, look at buying land that can be combined into something huge like a future resort town, Metaverse mashup, etc.

[LucaTripsCommunity1]

I agree that it’s probably early, even if we’d be ready to take this on, as we are very well-placed for the execution of something at this level.
This kind of endeavor can’t be done by picking a place somewhere, you need local people there who know the customs, regulation, business environment and all.
This is a level of knowledge which takes years to be acquired.

We are at the core of the vacation rentals business (think Airbnb) in Italy and both know and are known by everybody.
We can make this happen.

Still, we’ll be here when CityDAO is ready, no hurry.