Blockchain Real Estate Sounds Good, Yet to Take Hold in South Florida
Of all the verticals ripe-and-ready for the application of blockchain technology, real estate may hold the most immediate promise. At the Blockchain Event 2022 in Fort Lauderdale, FL, a group of blockchain professionals gathered to discuss “How Blockchain is Disrupting Real Estate.”
The panel featured three “veterans” of the south Florida crypto real-estate market and a lawyer. Madison Roberts, founder at Crypto Estate, helped represent the first buyer to pay for real estate in Miami with digitized tokens. The $7.2 million crypto-condo purchase occurred back in January 2021.
Roberts said blockchain could be employed for secure background checks used by realtors. She pointed to two advantages of using blockchain to record titles:
- Eliminate fraud. With a secure ledger, there’s no way to alter the documents contained withing the blockchain.
- Reduce time. Crypto-titles could be processed quickly. “We’re talking about going from 30 days to 30 minutes, she said.
Jason Bennick described blockchain as a secure data storage system revolving around technology. As CEO at Blockrails, he provides “a secure, cloud-based platform that uses artificial intelligence to detect, isolate and prevent fraud in payments and business transactions,” according to his website.
“We talk about making real estate a digitized asset,” he said. For example, Bennick spoke of securitizing a property and offering tokenized shares of the real-estate to multiple investors. He called it “fractionalized real estate.”
Blockrails offer a product to escrow agents and title companies that secures real-estate paperwork using blockchain technology. They also market technology for transacting earnest-money deposits using blockchain.
Laura Pamatian, founder of HeightZero Real Estate and Consulting, runs the “oldest independent advisory firm in the blockchain space to focus strictly on real estate,” according to her website.
Her company works with CRE owners, developers and portfolio managers with the goal of monetizing the use of blockchain technology.
Sheynel Smith, an attorney headquartered in the British Virgin Islands, also contributed to the discussion. As director at Driftwood Group, Smith helps clients navigate legal-risk and compliance issues in the digital environment.
Pamatian, who acted as moderator for this session, says involvement in crypto-transactions is the way of the future. “It’s a marketing opportunity,” she says. She’s talking with potential clients about:
- Equity solutions, including tokenization
- Capital raises, such as security token offerings
- Title transfers using on-fungible tokens (NFT's)
- Smart buildings, employing AI and augmented reality (AR) tools
- Asset management using AI and machine-learning tools
- Asset valuations using-AI and machine-learning tools
- Digital twin productions for use in the Metaverse
- Next Gen sales gallery productions using virtual reality (VR) tools
- Transactional offer-and-sales management with on-chain features
- Expanded buyer-pool opportunities using cryptocurrency and crypto loans.
Bennick says he’s talked with a few companies about managing real-estate transactions using blockchain (as well as the National Realtors Association), but no takers yet. Though “use cases exist,” he’s still searching for a demonstration project.
“Everyone is reticent to move away from the old brick-and-mortar system,” he said.
Another issue is the recent decline in the value of digitized currencies. “Ninety percent of housing developers won’t take crypto now,” Bennick said. “They want cash.”
Edited by Erik Linask
