Monday, August 26, 2019

Why Blockchain is a must for the real-estate industry?



Why Blockchain is a must for the real-estate industry?

Real estate is one of the high-yielding industries when spoken about investments. Having said that, it has huge chaotic and unorganized procedures. It is not easy to bring everything on the right track overnight. However, everything can be brought to normalcy and under proper order if Blockchain is implemented. 

When speaking about Blockchain and the smart contracts, I need to be sure that you understand its basics. So, here you go. 

What is Blockchain?
Now let's think of using google spreadsheet. The sheets are made up of rows and columns. Every row and every column can be broken down to cells. Now the information we enter is stored in the individual cells. The whole sheet is shared in a group, where every member holds a copy.

Now let's switch to Blockchain. Here all the information is stored in the blocks (cells). These blocks as a whole (sheets) are shared among the nodes (group). So, every node has a copy of the information shared so far. It is tamper-proof and can never be manipulated.

What are the attributes of Blockchain?

Immutability
Anything recorded on the Blockchain is immutable and can not be edited at any cost. Not even by the admin who recorded, neither by the nodes that verify the transactions. 

Consensus
For a transaction to be considered valid, all the nodes have to agree with it. If not, the transaction becomes invalid. This way, the block gains more trust, and invalid transfers are avoided. 

Peer-to-peer
Blockchain allows peer-to-peer communication, transaction, and a lot more. Third-party involvement is entirely null, and the whole process becomes a lot simple and easy.

What are the blockchain solutions for real estate?
Real estate industry is in many ways unorganized, chaotic, and opaque. Blockchain is the mandatory solution one would need to keep everything on track. The numerous irreplaceable attributes of Blockchain make it the best solution for this particular industry.  
Here is the list of challenges that the real estate industry faces and the respective blockchain-solution.

  • Transparency
The involvement of intermediaries makes the process less transparent and more complicated. The main reason is the intermediaries planning to mint extra cash when negotiating between the parties. When needs and the negotiations are carried out on the blockchain platform, the process is simple, immutable, and transparent.

  • Cross-border transactions
Charges levied for transactions across the borders is huge. Also, it is time-consuming. It requires both the parties to add the account and then conduct the transfer. In Blockchain, the two parties only have to match the keys, and then the transactions take place.

  • Finality
Of the entire transactions that take place, to know who owns what, there is only one place to go -- the ledger. Any details can be taken from the ledger. Also, anything once registered is there to stay. This attribute of the Blockchain comes handy for the real estate industry when recording land titles.

I hope you understood why Blockchain is a must when it comes to organizing the real estate industry. For more details on this topic, keep watching this space.