Real Estate Investor Magazine South Africa August 2018 | Page 14

COVER FEATURE
fraudster has the computing power to hack the records
stored across the decentralized network of millions of com-
puters.
Disintermediation
With property and land titles moved to the blockchain,
transactions will be simplified because escrow agents will
no longer need to store and validate records. With fewer
parties in the transaction, it’s going to be easier to close
deals faster and at smaller costs.
Time
With the current state of systems in use, any information
must be checked manually. Most importantly, it takes a long
time to verify the parties involved including checking the
signatures of the individuals. On the contrary, blockchain is
capable of verifying the identity of the individual based on
their digital signature and doing so very quickly. A new UK
based company called Clicktopurchase is one of the first
blockchain real estate agents. They have sold property val-
ued in excess of £200m over the blockchain and report an
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AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018 SA Real Estate Investor Magazine
average transaction time of 11 minutes.
Getting back to Sweden’s experience, it’s obvious there’s
huge potential for a positive transformation here. The time
from signing a contract to registering a sale can take be-
tween three to six months. With the Blockchain system,
“it could be hours,” Jörgen Modin, chief solutions architect
at ChromaWay, tells the WSJ. Modin added that the buyer
and seller don’t even have to be located in the country for
the deal to go through. (Image below illustrates Sweden’s
process)
Implementation challenges
Just like with any new tech, there are poised to be some
obstacles along the way. Blockchain education, the need to
change legislation and implementation costs are the most
prominent ones. However, the more we utilize blockchain,
the easier it is to see that its benefits largely outweigh the
challenges associated with it.
Read next month part two of how blockchain will impact
real estate investment.