A UK real estate agency, recognised as at the forefront of blockchain adoption in property, are bringing their successful offer to the Australian market.
Singer Vielle, a tech-focused London agency, has been developing and using technology as part of the property transaction process for many years. As far back as 2010, Neil Singer, the CEO, built the clicktopurchase® platform which enabled the property sale process for the first time to be concluded legally online by the digital signing of electronic contract notes.
“Since we were using encryption and hash technology, we were then the natural and obvious users for blockchain in property transactions.”
— Neil Singer, CEO Singer Vielle and clicktopurchase®
The clicktopurchase® platform commenced using blockchain in 2017 and was world first in using blockchain as part of the sale process, delivering security and trust at a level not available to the industry previously. Since, over 50,000 transactions have been recorded in blockchain, concerning over 500 properties. Some $600m of properties are currently recorded.
“Many ‘blockchain’ businesses raised money, gained hype and disappeared. We had a genuine use case for the technology which is why we have the longest running blockchain ledger worldwide in the property sector. We are delighted to be offering our know-how and platforms to the Australian property market.”
— Neil Singer, CEO Singer Vielle and clicktopurchase®
clicktopurchase® uses hash and encryption technology as part of the creation of the transactional audit trail; this is then recorded in the clicktopurchase® blockchain. Since all events are held in blockchain, absolute proof of actions are held in a tamper-proof manner. This provides the ultimate in trust since the blockchain prevents anyone from being able to challenge the audit trail around the sale. All actions are recorded.
The combination of speed, certainty and an immutable blockchain audit trail enables a level of corporate governance and trust which is unavailable elsewhere.
The Real Estate Institute of Australia and the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand, in collaboration with the RMIT University Blockchain Innovation Hub released on 27th June 2022 their report “Blockchain: Opportunities and Disruptions for Real Estate”. The report states the huge significance of the technology to the property industry.
“Released on 29 June 2022, Project Blockchain shows real estate agents can position themselves at the centre of the trust economy and prepare for future challenges and prospects presented by the rapidly expanding blockchain space.”
— Real Estate Institute of Australia.
Interestingly, the Real Estate Institute of Western Australia has partnered with TecStack to offer compulsory professional development (CPD) blockchain training to Western Australia real estate professionals. Their website states:
“Blockchain is the future and is already making waves in the industry. It is essential that the real estate profession adapts and evolves with the changing technological environment to ensure the agent can cater to the changing needs of their clients.”
— Real Estate Institute of Western Australia.
“If agencies and businesses would like to commence embracing blockchain in real estate now, as opposed to just talking about, they are welcome to reach out and contact us.”
— Neil Singer, CEO Singer Vielle and clicktopurchase®
Blockchain is a database. Significantly it is one which is immutable, tamper-proof. This is achieved by data inputs being “hashed” and moved into “Blocks” of data, with a subsequent Block incorporating new data inputs along with the inputs from the previous Block. As a result, each Block is dependent upon a previous Block, hence a “Block-Chain”.
Data is “hashed”, which means it is converted into a representation, a code, of a given length which will appear meaningless. However, the smallest change to any data input will change the output hash completely. Since each Block contains hashed data, changing any input within the chain will change every subsequent output which means tampering is impossible.
Blockchain ledgers are copied onto multiple servers, so the database is “decentralised”. Combining the “Chain of Blocks” with this decentralised system creates a method to hold data in a manner which is tamper-proof and 100% reliable.
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© 2024 Singer Vielle Ltd
© 2024 Singer Vielle Ltd
