Bayuti sees value creation with real estate Shariah tokenization

UK-based Shariah investment company Bayuti is on a mission to flip the mindsets of too many people who don’t think to question their overreliance on conventional mortgages – describing these debt structures as being inherently value-destructive.

From homeowners to institutions, the main interest would be to maximize the value of their properties. As such, Bayuti Founder Anouar Adham told IFN Investor the means to acquiring any property should be similarly aligned to a value-optimization approach – which is where the conventional system fails.

“Central banks are saying ‘We want to have around 2% of inflation per annum’. That's basically the sweet spot to the core problem, as the system in itself is inflationary in outlook.”

While cryptocurrencies posed as an alternate financial system, Anouar said its main missing element was the lack of an inherent value-creation aspect – which led to him founding Bayuti, consolidating his extensive experience from working at behemoths like BNP Paribas and Qatar Islamic Bank.

“Blockchain technology can build something that makes sense, to create a token backed by real estate which is also income-generating. In a Shariah structure, the tenant is also an owner in the property. So there is an alignment of interest, all focused on value creation.”

The investment platform that Bayuti built removes some of the pain points of managing a physical property – which is very different from other assets and instruments like equities – due to the operational oversight and costs involved.

“Depending on the property, the cost may not be negligible. With Bayuti, you can still invest in a property without all the headache that you would have on the operational side. You can really scale it and have a well-diversified portfolio to end up with a better risk-adjusted return.”

Finance grounded in justice

For Anouar, this mission with Bayuti is not merely a religious mandate but a universal blueprint for finance grounded in justice. The central pillar of this justice is the elimination of debt, replacing it with equity and shared risk.

“In the conventional home market, if the interest goes down, the property prices go up. As a buyer, whatever concession you won on the interest decrease, you’ve lost it on the higher capital price of the property.”

Bayuti’s flagship product, CrowdToLive, is Anouar’s practical answer to the mortgage crisis. Instead of a debt agreement that sees a borrower pay crippling interests over 25 years, CrowdToLive is a co-ownership model.

Under Bayuti’s model, the buyer and the firm jointly own the property. The buyer occupies the home and pays an affordable rent on Bayuti’s portion, simultaneously buying back equity incrementally. The goal is to make the home-buying process accessible, interest-free and seamless.

The reliance on debt and interest, or Riba, is fundamentally exploitative, Anouar emphasized. “Reform is not enough. We need to replace the entire system with one grounded in tangible assets and genuine partnership.”

Tokenization: The poor man’s way to co-exist with trillion-dollar banks 

But the ambition to scale this model – and to truly compete with the multi-trillion-dollar conventional banking sector – requires more than just clever legal structuring. It requires a technological edge that can enhance liquidity and open participation to the broader market. This is where Anouar’s vision of real world assets tokenization comes into sharp focus – his definitive unique selling proposition.

Tokenization involves transforming property ownership into digital tokens on a secure digital ledger. For the investor, this means fractional, accessible and highly liquid exposure to stable, asset-backed real estate, bypassing the typical high barriers of private funds. For the homebuyer, it ensures that the equity backing their co-ownership is verifiable and transparent.

Anouar sees tokenization as the catalyst that will distinguish Bayuti from other ethical financing models and traditional competitors, some of which – as seen in the rise of other Shariah compliant platforms like EdificeX —are already exploring blockchain solutions.

Liquidity: The key to making the Bayuti dream

However, the structural integrity of the co-ownership model is only sustainable if investors providing the equity can enter and exit the asset easily – a factor in which traditional debt structures still hold a significant edge.

The key is liquidity as an equity partnership is only attractive if investors can enter and exit easily, Anouar says. While tokenization solves this by allowing investors to trade fractional stakes globally, “it must have a minimum size in order to be liquid.”

This innovation, Anouar explains, is critical not just for attracting capital, but for rebuilding confidence with a demographic that may be skeptical of any financial system – Islamic or conventional – that lacks transparency.

In the end, Bayuti’s journey is about more than just a new financial product; it is a profound declaration that the global economy does not need to be built on a cycle of endless debt. For home buyers, the path to a healthier housing market runs straight through the ancient streets of Shariah principles, paved by the cutting-edge technology of tokenized real estate. Anouar is convinced that the age of fairness in funding is about to dawn, giving ordinary people a real, debt-free stake in the world around them.