(916) 719-6205
Call Us
Real Estate Decentralized
‘Tellus Blockchain Protocol’ Aims to Harness the Benefits From Blockchain Technology
Date: 8/10/2018
Author: David Howie
.jpg)
A trustworthy and accurate public record of property ownership is essential to enforce property rights. As far back as 2600 B.C., in ancient Mesopotamia, property rights were recorded on clay tablets with an official land register for settling property disputes. Over time, the register system has evolved with advances in technology, but the concept remains fundamentally the same. The goal of the ‘Tellus Blockchain’ is NOT to change this established model of enforcing property rights, but rather, to enhance the system of recording property rights. We seek to create an additional tool to enforce property rights through an immutable, open-source recording system that applies a combination of blockchain technology, decentralization, automation, and smart contracts to gain new efficiencies for the real estate industry.
To be clear, the current system is not broken, but we insist that it can be improved upon. In general, a decentralized database system is slower than a centralized one; however, the artisanal communication among several centralized databases for a single real estate transaction is highly inefficient and more cumbersome than a decentralized network. Therefore, we believe that a decentralized database designed for real estate transactions would offer a 21st century enhancement to an antiquated industry.
A trustworthy and accurate public record of property ownership is essential to enforce property rights. As far back as 3000 B.C., in ancient Samaria, property rights were recorded on clay tablets with an official land register for settling property disputes. Over time, the register system has evolved with advances in technology, but the concept remains fundamentally the same. The goal of the ‘Tellus Blockchain’ is NOT to change this established model of enforcing property rights, but rather, to enhance the system of recording property rights. We seek to create an additional tool to enforce property rights through an immutable, open-source recording system that applies a combination of blockchain technology, decentralization, automation, and smart contracts to gain new efficiencies for the real estate industry.
To be clear, the current system is not broken, but we insist that it can be improved upon. In general, a decentralized database system is slower than a centralized one; however, the artisanal communication among several centralized databases for a single real estate transaction is highly inefficient and more cumbersome than a decentralized network. Therefore, we believe that a decentralized database designed for real estate transactions would offer a 21st century enhancement to an antiquated industry.
Through the years, there has been little innovation in the way real estate transactions are managed. Today, real estate agents find prospective listings through a variety of techniques such as online referrals and word of mouth. Once identified, real-estate brokers then list these properties on local MLS and/or similar marketing and listing platforms. Prospective home buyers engage in a search-and-discovery process and look for available and suitable listings, generally with the assistance of a real estate agent. Once a suitable property is identified and an offer is secured, the property is placed under contract and into escrow. If all goes smoothly, the transaction is completed in about 30 days. The MLS is one of the greatest innovations in the real estate industry in the past 100 years.
The MLS essentially created a local marketplace for agents and brokers to list and market their properties, as well as a valuable source of accurate, real-time market data. Yet, one of the main problems with the MLS system is that it has transformed into a collection of centralized data centers that are subject to local politics, and sometimes even controlled by for-profit entities. Today there are hundreds of MLS’s across the U.S., and yet not one comprehensive platform or system that can access all of the data easily. This has led to business models which aggregate data sources onto a few centralized proprietary systems, creating oligopolies. In turn, these aggregators repackage and sell the data which originally came from the community.
The proposed ‘Tellus Blockchain Protocol’ would disrupt this model and put the power of the data back in the hands of the community.
The premise of our ‘Tellus Blockchain Protocol’ aims to harness the benefits from blockchain technology for improving real estate transactions. Recent advancements in technology that make transactions more secure and efficient, like blockchain, have yet to make their way into the real estate value chain. With the advent of blockchain technology many things become possible.
For example, the development of immutable records that are secure and tamper-proof, a distributed ledger with consensus from all parties with an integrated settlement layer, or a decentralized real estate title registry system to record the chain of title on a network free from corruption, all become possibilities with blockchain technology.
#Blockchain #RealEstate #Decentralized #SmartContracts
Similar Articles...
_edited.jpg)
David Howie is the CEO and Founder of the Tellus Title Company, a blockchain real estate start-up. David began his career in real estate over 15 years ago and currently is on the Board of Directors of two other real estate firms in California.
At Tellus Title Company we have the right team, the right idea, at the right time. Innovation in the Real Estate Industry needs to start at the most basic level and from there it can ripple into the rest of the ecosystem.
This is why a tech company became a title company and developed the Tellus Blockchain Protocol.
With the evolution of Blockchain technology, we are bringing the latest advancements in technology to the real estate industry.