Real Estate Investing

BLOCKCHAIN. Yeah, yeah yeah. By now almost everybody knows what that is (up from only, say, 10% of people a year ago). BUT, what can it be used for? Ah, digging deeper the obvious is blockchain can speed up transactions, cut costs, enable more transparency and............well, lots of "stuff". Of course some sectors are embracing the blockchain technology faster than others and those "others" best start making commitments.....soon. One of those others is real estate. Everything from funds escrow, funds distribution, liquidity, title search and changes, etc are all areas where the real estate sector can vastly improve. Hey, the insurance industry is REALLY full bore into new technology and if they can.......so can the real estate crowd.

(Bill Taylor/Managing Editor)


"If you search the internet for the "top five ways that blockchain will impact X, Y or Z,” you will surely be offered the same results over and over again. Removing a central authority, speed, trust -- all of these blockchain benefits also apply to real estate. In real estate, though, all of the examples seem to be trite, and if you really break it down, you realize there is a reason no one has taken these blockchain projects on -- because they don’t really change anything.

I have been thinking about how we are applying blockchain to the real estate space. Blockchain could have a large impact and change the way real estate gets done, but it requires big changes, not just minor tweaks.

A Quick Overview Of Blockchain

Blockchain is a distributed ledger technology. It is the technology that Bitcoin and many other cryptocurrencies run on. Think of it as a ledger of transactions that, instead of being stored in your own desk at home, is stored and encrypted on thousands of computers around the world. All of these computers agree, not only on which transactions have occurred but also on what order they have occurred in. Anyone can download the blockchain onto their own computer and become part of the network..."


Source: Roger Smith, Forbes Council, Forbes.com