As a real estate broker by trade, I always wonder when will the blockchain craze hit the real estate industry. I have found two upcoming Real Estate ICOs that hitting the market in July. My post is simply sharing what I find and my opinion of their whitepaper - this is not a recommendation to buy.
Preface: about the real estate industry (and rant of a real estate broker)
Real estate (IMO) is one of the slowest industry when it comes to catching up with technology. There are many reasons why it is the way it is… but many wonders, why does title search take so much time? Why is mortgage underwriting so slow? Why do you need a human appraiser, inspector and etc?
Well, the short answer: It's complicated. The real answer is there are so much flaws in the current process that rely on human interaction (and the human doing the right things) it's impossible to automate it. It also tangled with one of the biggest purchase for many people and a gigantic physical asset without a person examine it in person, it is not possible to determine the value or the condition.
Reality aside, what is very possible is to build new process that can be automated, like title search and underwriting. Imagine a world where all the information is recorded and verified, you’d get your mortgage issued and title cleared in a couple of hours.
REX
The Blockchain version of Zillow
Rex is proposing a solution for the next generation global online real estate advertising & marketing platform with a long term goal to be the transaction coordination platform in major markets. The REX token is the reward for participating on the platform such as listing properties and sharing market insight. Real Estate and related industry professionals can use the REX token to access additional feature and advertising opportunity.
TRANSLATION
REX is Zillow on blockchain that aspire to replace traditional listing service organization and make property information decentralized and transparent.
TOKEN SALE
Rex will sell 140,000,000 REX of the total 250,000,000 supply in two token sales; one is scheduled on July 10th (Pre-launch) and the second one on July 31st. No detail has been announced yet. They will also have a bounty program announced in the middle of the month and hiring Rex ambassadors to promote the platform (pick me, pick me)
TIMELINE
According to the latest blog post, a pre alpha platform is scheduled to be live in January 2018 targeting China, US and Australia. Then in the next 3 years, Rex will be taking a phase approach to cover the various aspect.
KEY TO WATCH
The key for Rex to success right out of the gate is to have a excellent UX experience for real estate agent to input, upload property data and killer UI for potential buyer to search and browse property. Without them, this platform will fall short and be just another real estate site but worst without syndicated data.
Another issue Rex will need to solve is how to keep the property status and data up-to-date? Without a centralized syndication service, I can not imagine users will be able to keep up with updating data in two locations.
Propy
Global Decentralized Title Registry & Property Store
Propy is developing Propy Registry: a blockchain endowed with a suite of smart contracts to track and execute real estate transactions according to regional regulations, as well as PRO: a utility token that would be required for asset transfer and other on-chain events. By using Ethereum, Propy allows each party including the broker, buyer, seller and title agent/notary - to sign off on a transaction using a private key, while still operating within the existing legal framework.
TRANSLATION
In the grand vision of Propy, they’re here to move the entire process from choosing to closing a home to blockchain and executed by smart contract. This will provide the much needed infrastructure change required to move into the brave new world. They are also aimed to remove the middlemen/middlemowen involved in the traditional model to build a P2P property purchase model.
Wait what?
I don’t think they are suggesting that where the real estate future lies in for sale by owners because is utterly unpopular today. There is a reason there aren’t many people who sell their own house in the United States because the amount of work it involves. The appeal of Propy for me is moving the title transfer process on the blockchain and become verifiable in the future.
The giant question in my mind is… will King county or any state be moving all their record to a blockchain? Without grand adoption on a state or at least county level. The reality of this piece of the plan wouldn’t really work.
TOKEN SALE
The token sale is starting July 20th 2017 for the PRO token. Each token will be selling at 1USD, an 35M token will be sold in the ICO with a total amount of token cap at 100M.
Final Thoughts
For me both token are definitely something to watch for but either of them have a well thought through plan on addressing the real challenges take will prevent their product to take off.
*Rex: Getting the latest & accurate data and the best in class product UX
*Propy: Be able to work with government and local agency to onboard historical records and product adoption
I think both offerings have potential but will which one will materialize and be able to move the big rocks on their roadmap?
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