Real estate transactions require a significant amount of document sharing. Multiple email exchanges between buyers, sellers, their agents, lawyers, financiers, etc. make the process very cumbersome. More importantly, if one person is delayed, the others may not notice the delay. Therefore, blockchain can be used to share documents and data on the progress of the transaction process, increasing transparency. In Japan, SBI Holdings, SBI Real Estate Finance, and Sumitomo Real Estate Sales are collaborating on SREC, a blockchain-based solution.
So far, the company has conducted a demonstration of SREC using R3's Corda enterprise blockchain, and following the success of the demonstration, it plans to build a data sharing platform for the general public.
Another high-profile real estate blockchain project is the UK’s Coadjute, which also uses the Corda blockchain.
Coadjute is designed for a similar purpose: consider all the documents you need to share in a real estate transaction: deeds, surveys, mortgage notes, contracts, etc.
But the challenge with many blockchain solutions is getting enough people to use the same platform. If only a few companies use it, those that adopt the solution can only use it for the subset of transactions where the counterparty is onboarded.
Coadjute in the UK has successfully addressed the recruitment issue. In the UK, a number of companies provide software to real estate agents, so rather than onboarding real estate brokers directly, Coadjute partnered with multiple software platforms.
So what's great about Coadjute isn't just its business idea and its execution – it's its go-to-market strategy.