Many people in the real estate sector have been talking about the “couple-clicks” home-buying experience for years. It didn’t seem possible in a transaction that usually needs a lot of paperwork, personnel, and legal checks.
This surge of possibilities is now within sight, thanks to blockchain and a blossoming universe of NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens).
You see, the two-click, faster, easier, and more secure transfer of real estate assets that everyone involved in the process – the buyer, seller, and agent – has desired for over a decade is now available to everyone thanks to Web3 technology.
What is Web3?
Gavin Wood, a computer scientist, invented the term “Web 3.0” in 2014 to describe his vision for the future of the internet.
Web3 is a truly decentralised and democratic version of the current internet, according to Wood.
“Web3 is really sort of an alternative vision of the web, where the services that we use are not hosted by a single service provider company, but rather they’re sort of purely algorithmic things that are, in some sense, hosted by everybody. So it’s like, it’s very peer to peer, right? … The idea being that all participants sort of contribute a small slice of the ultimate service,” Wood said.
“And thus, no one really has any advantage over anyone else … not in the same sense, at least as, as you know, when you, for example, go to Amazon or you go to eBay or Facebook, where the company behind the service really has absolute power over what it is that they do in providing the service.”
Web3 and the Real Estate business
Imagine a better future in which you find the house you desire, connect your wallet or online banking in one spot, and participate in an online, transparent auction with a few clicks. If you require a loan, you apply and be accepted immediately throughout the auction process.
This property transaction is now immutably recorded on a public blockchain. While Ethereum is supported, no one has the ability to edit or erase this proof, and the NFT can continue to change hands. And, of course, it is possible to do so on any decentralised blockchain.
While over $4 billion in real estate transactions have been recorded on blockchain, this quick settlement on blockchain has been achieved for the first time in history for a limited number of properties.
Just as streaming on Netflix and purchasing items online have expanded, so can real estate – a few clicks on the front end linked to smart contracts and a person owns a property. The ownership has been lawfully detached from county recording and is now on-chain.
