Over the past couple of decades, the real estate industry has made headlines in several significant markets around the world. In the United States, the decline of the housing market led to one of the most significant economic recessions in American history. There is now speculation that a similar bubble is occurring in China and may lead to a massive economic downturn for the emerging giant should this bubble pop.

Current Problems in the Real Estate Space

As is the case with many industries dealing in large transactions, there exist a number of stages in any real estate deal where problems can arise. Common among these are the complicated bureaucratic processes, the rampant attempts at fraud, or simply blameless and unintentional mistakes caused by an error, human or otherwise, in the public records.

In a very general sense, though, what tends to cause these issues is the same criticism levied against many industries where blockchain is being proposed: a lack of transparency. Understandably, there are reasons why many would not want complete transparency in a real estate transaction – the housing market deals with private property, and very expensive private property, at that. Transactions of this scale need not always be a matter of transparent public knowledge.

Addressing Real Estate Problems with Blockchain

So how can the application of blockchain aid an industry bogged down in so many convoluted steps ripe for complication and exploitation? In short, by getting rid of them.

These items and processes that make real estate such a complicated field – things like bureaucratic approval, paperwork and record keeping – are relics of a time when there existed no other real alternatives. However, with records long since moving toward digitalization, these transactions and records are now ripe to be integrated into blockchain’s distributed ledger to ensure their transparency and legitimacy.

When used to conduct real estate transactions, blockchain speeds up the process not only by being done by computer, but because the ledger itself is able to verify ownership, ensure all documents are accurate, and transfer the property deed. All of this is backed up and verifiable through the standardized and publically accessible nodes present in the blockchain network.

Companies Using Blockchain in the Real Estate Space

Application of blockchain to large-scale industries is still emerging and many companies are still feeling out the technology to find the proper implementation of a viable use case. One such company is Ubitquity, which promotes itself as a secured blockchain dedicated to real estate record keeping.

Ubitquity has created a system of securely storing records that makes them immutable, yet easily accessible and shareable to anyone that the title owner is seeking to conduct a real estate deal with. Additionally, they have begun implementing and integrating their record-keeping strategy into other related industries, such as government records, aviation title insurance, and escrow.

TraDove’s Blockchain

As blockchain technology continues to find successful use cases in specialized and niche industries, we at TraDove seek to unite these industries together in the B2B sphere. TraDove is developing its own proprietary B2B Blockchain Payment Network which utilizes a currency-pegged token to facilitate fair, secure and transparent B2B transactions around the world.