Blockchain in Real Estate: How It’s Changing the Industry

TL;DR

• The blockchain real estate market is expected to grow from $20.1 billion in 2024 to $248.9 billion by 2029.
• Real estate could avoid $160 billion in yearly fraud losses by 2028 with blockchain.
• Success Story: Blockchain solution helped our client close international deals in 12 days, compared to the typical 45-60 days, and transaction fees dropped from $27,000 to $7,800 per deal.
• A Deloitte survey reveals 86% of commercial real estate CEOs believe blockchain will completely change the real estate market shortly

4 Key Components of Blockchain in Real Estate

• Smart Contracts: Automate agreements and cut out intermediaries.
• Tokenization: Allows property ownership to be divided into tradable shares.
• Immutable Property Records: Blockchain-based land registries cut verification time from weeks to hours.
• Decentralized Marketplaces: 15% of real estate firms already accept crypto payments, and 20% are adopting blockchain.

Examples of Blockchain in Real Estate

• Propy: Processed $4B+ in U.S. property deals and introduced Propy Keys, minting 285K+ property NFTs globally.
• RealT: Offers fractional ownership with weekly rental income. Since 2019, RealT has tokenized 800+ properties across 1,200 housing units in Detroit.
• Landshare: Built on the Binance Smart Chain, provides tokenized real estate, staking options, and DAO governance.

Challenges in Blockchain Adoption

• Most countries don’t recognize tokenized property ownership.
• Blockchain’s open nature conflicts with privacy laws.
• Outdated ERPs and CRMs can’t sync with blockchain.
• Public blockchains can be slow and expensive.

From Fragmented Deals to Instant Smart Contracts: How a Property Firm Streamlined Sales with Blockchain

International property sales are never easy. For our client, a growing real estate firm, every deal meant endless red tape, paperwork, and country-specific compliance. What’s more, deals took 45-60 days to close, with up to seven parties involved. Buyers complained about delays, the sales team had to work overtime, and leadership kept asking, “Why does this still take so long?”

The Backstory

At first, they wanted to tokenize properties entirely, splitting ownership into shares to attract more investors. But here was the problem: two of the three target countries didn’t recognize tokens in their land registries. So, we couldn’t go all in on blockchain the way they hoped, but we figured out a hybrid approach.

Our Solution 

Waiting years for tokenization laws to catch up wasn’t an option, so we built a smart contract layer that didn’t replace the official title transfer process, but improved it. It automated agreements, KYC, escrow, and payment milestones. Here’s how:

• Smart contracts connected to live property data and buyer profiles
• Automated compliance based on jurisdiction and investment limits
• A non-technical UX so legal teams and sales agents could use it
• Off-chain to on-chain syncing, allowing easy audits

We launched the pilot transaction, and the results didn’t disappoint. What used to take nearly two months (offer, approval, due diligence, payment) was done in just 9 days. No couriered documents, no endless email chains, no last-minute lawyer calls. Automatically executed contracts triggered actions as soon as conditions were met:

• Instant identity verification
• Auto-generated contracts reviewed digitally
• Escrow payment tied to verified signatures and compliance checks

Project Results

After six months and multiple successful deals, we saw a 52% increase in cross-border deals and a 3-month ROI on blockchain integration costs. More results in the table below:

Want to make your “standard procedure” faster, cheaper, and less stressful? Let’s connect and talk about what we can do for you.

Why the Real Estate Sector Needed Change

For most people, real estate purchase is one of the biggest investments they make, but the systems behind those transactions often can’t be trusted. If you look under the hood, you’ll find unsynced tools and manual workflows that don’t match the speed of modern business. And that’s why we need blockchain.

Slow Real Estate Transactions and Paperwork

Buying or selling a property across borders takes a chain of steps: paper contracts, wet signatures, title checks, escrow, legal reviews, etc. And each task asks for a separate party, who communicates over email or spreadsheets. At best, it’s inconvenient. At worst, people lose hundreds of thousands.

“We worked with property investors from the UK who wanted to expand into Europe, but it was a long and fussy process. On average, they closed one deal in 60 days, and almost all of that time was just waiting for signed papers. So, we brought in smart contracts, and now they finish similar deals in 9 days or less.” 

— shared a business analyst at Inoxoft.

High Middlemen Fees and Unclear Ownership Records

Each lawyer, broker, notary, and registry takes a cut of the deal. In pricier real estate markets, fees can reach as high as $30,000. What’s worse is that despite all this red tape, ownership records can still cause problems.

One day, you’d try to verify the title of a house overseas, only to find your records at a local city council, where you have to show up in person. And that’s standard practice, not an exception. Plus, it opens the door to double-selling, hidden liens, or outright scams.

New Market Conditions

Back in 2022, 93 companies were already working on blockchain tools for real estate, and that number has grown since. In a Deloitte survey, 86% of commercial real estate CEOs said they expect blockchain to become the future of the real estate market.

“Real estate used to be local. You knew the buyer, met the seller, and signed papers face to face. Now investors can buy properties anywhere in the world and don’t ever visit them. They want the same digital experience they get in fintech – instant, secure, and transparent. That’s only possible with blockchain.”

— explained our COO, Nazar Kvartalnyi.

Blockchain in Real Estate: How It Changed the Market

Blockchain has already changed real estate in a positive way, replacing trouble-causing methods with simpler and more transparent ones. Let’s look at a comparison:

4 Core Capabilities of Blockchain for Real Estate

Despite hesitation around adoption, blockchain is already solving some of real estate’s most frustrating problems. Below are four ways companies can use it to buy, sell, and grow.

Smart Contracts for Automated Transactions

Anyone who’s been through a real estate deal knows how many people get involved (lawyers, agents, banks), and how slow the whole process can get. Smart contracts are digital agreements that verify ownership and identities, help sign documents, and move money, all without human management.

Removing manual steps, smart contracts can save up to $30,000 in legal and administrative fees per transaction (based on the U.S. median property value of $429,000). One visible example is Propy, a blockchain-powered platform that has already closed over $4 billion in property sales fully online.

For real estate investors, brokers, and buyers, self-executing contracts also make deals more transparent and reduce the chances of paperwork getting lost or someone dropping the ball halfway through.

Tokenization of Real Estate Assets

Getting into real estate takes a lot of money and comes with plenty of roadblocks. But with blockchain tokenization, ownership can be divided into small digital shares, meaning someone can own a small percentage of a property (like 1% of an apartment in Austin or 0.5% of a hotel in Croatia) even without millions in capital.

Even better, these tokens can be traded peer-to-peer on licensed platforms, solving one of real estate’s biggest issues: it’s hard to sell quickly. For developers, it opens up new ways to raise funds. For larger investors, it lets them adjust their real estate portfolios just like they do with equities or ETFs.

Transparent and Immutable Property Records

One of the most annoying (and expensive) parts of buying or selling property is title verification. Paperwork gets lost, ownership and transaction history aren’t always clear, and fraud is a real risk.

Blockchain solves this with immutable, tamper-proof property records. Once data is on the chain, it stays there, complete with a timestamp, providing a single source of truth that speeds up due diligence and reduces disputes.

Some governments are already testing this out. Sweden’s Lantmäteriet and Georgia’s National Agency of Public Registry are piloting blockchain-based systems to manage land titles. Early results show that verification now takes just a few hours.

Decentralized Marketplaces and Exchanges

For too long, real estate listings have been controlled by central entities – portals, agents, and brokers. Each holds a piece of the real estate market, which creates hidden costs, extra fees, and uneven information.

Decentralized Real Estate Exchanges (DREX) create a strong alternative. These platforms use blockchain to connect buyers and sellers directly. Property listings are secured by smart contracts, so all terms, availability, and ownership details are verifiable and transparent on the blockchain.

And this change is underway: a 2023 Statista survey shows that 15% of real estate companies now accept crypto payments, and another 20% are in early stages, testing integrations, exploring tokenization, or building their own platforms.

Ready to level up your real estate game? Let’s build a more secure future for your company together.

Blockchain and Real Estate: What Results You Can Achieve

When used right, blockchain becomes a business enabler that pushes you forward in the real estate market. Based on our experience and what we’ve heard from clients, here are some outcomes you may achieve with blockchain.

Blockchain Technology in Real Estate: Real-World Examples

Now that you’ve learned the theory, let’s look at how blockchain works in practice. Here are three prominent blockchain real estate projects.

Propy: A Pioneer in Blockchain-Powered Transactions

Propy is a global proptech company that created a blockchain transactions platform to simplify how people buy and sell property. It’s one of the few startups in the space that’s driving real change. Here’s what it does:

• Secure data sharing
• Rental collections for property owners
• Premium due diligence without paperwork

Using Propy, property managers and real estate agents spend less time on inspections and admin work, which means fewer headaches, fewer mistakes, and lower overall costs. 

Core Features:

• Online closings, anytime: Buyers, sellers, agents, and escrow officers can complete deals entirely online, 24/7.
• Blockchain title registry: All property records go on the blockchain, so there’s a clear, tamper-proof record. It helps reduce fraud and keeps the process cleaner.
• Smart contracts: Contracts automate parts of the deal, like payment triggers and document sharing, so the process has less back-and-forth.

As of mid-2024, Propy has supported $4+ billion in real estate transactions across three U.S. states. And in a first for Europe, Propy helped close a property sale in Seville, Spain, entirely on the blockchain, with payment made in digital currency.

Last year, they also launched Propy Keys, a platform where property addresses are turned into NFTs. So far, over 285,000 addresses have been minted worldwide, linked to more than $10 billion in real estate value.

RealT: Democratizing Real Estate Investment Through Tokenization

RealT is a platform that enables fractional ownership, or lets people invest in real estate without buying an entire property. Investors can purchase small shares of rental homes through blockchain-based tokens.

Core Features:

• Fractional ownership: Investors can get started with just $50, letting more people take part even if they don’t have deep pockets.
• Passive income: Investors get their share of the rental income sent straight to their digital wallets every week.
• Professional management: RealT takes care of all operations related to tenant screening, maintenance, and rent payments.

Since launching in 2019, the company has acquired around 1,200 housing units across 800 properties, mostly in Detroit, Michigan. RealT’s approach lets people from all over the world invest in real estate without the usual high costs.

Landshare: Tokenized Real Estate on the Binance Smart Chain

Landshare is a platform built on the Binance Smart Chain that offers an easy alternative to traditional real estate investing. It lets users invest in tokenized commercial real estate properties and earn passive income with a suite of DeFi features.

Core Features:

• Tokenized real estate: Landshare offers a diverse range of tokenized properties, from residential homes to commercial buildings.
• Staking and yield farming: Users can stake their tokens to earn additional rewards and participate in yield farming programs.
• DAO Governance: Token holders have a say in the platform’s development and informed decisions through a decentralized governance model.

In 2023, Landshare expanded its offerings with the launch of the Landshare RWA Token, a real estate security token that gives investors a share of rental income and potential property value growth.

Challenges in Blockchain Adoption for Real Estate

Blockchain, as a concept, has much potential, but putting it into practice may be complex. With legal dilemmas, technical roadblocks, and traditional real estate industry resistance, progress moves more slowly than expected. Let’s see what stops the future from happening.

Legal and Regulatory Barriers

In theory, using tokens for property ownership makes buying and selling more flexible and accessible. But in many countries, digital tokens aren’t yet legally recognized. Even if a deal takes place on-chain, most land registries still want a paper with a stamp from a notary.

Some countries, like Sweden and Georgia, have piloted blockchain technology real estate property registries, but those are exceptions. For now, we’re still waiting for the legal side to catch up with the emerging technology.

Privacy vs. Transparency Dilemma

One of blockchain’s selling points is that real estate transactions are recorded and tamper-proof. That’s great for accountability, but when personal information (names, ID numbers, or loan details) is involved, it clashes with data privacy laws. GDPR is one example.

To make blockchain viable here, developers have to design a system that encrypts confidential data but allows for auditability. Getting this right takes technical know-how and legal input, something most platforms are still refining.

Legacy Systems and Integration

Most real estate firms use decade-old ERP, CRM, or listing systems that weren’t designed to work with blockchain. So any serious blockchain project needs custom middleware or even a full system redesign.

For businesses, it’s a huge decision: is the cost of software worth the benefits? Without a clear plan, blockchain could just become another separate tool, rather than the connective infrastructure it’s meant to be.

“APIs aren’t enough to make their setup work. Blockchain-based smart contracts follow event-driven logic, while legacy CRMs and ERPs use state-driven architecture, so they can’t respond in real time to immutable external events.

That’s why we start every integration by mapping out the data: where it’s stored now, how it gets updated, and how blockchain will change that. Only then can we build a middle layer that syncs systems and makes them follow the same business logic.”

— explains our senior developer. 

Ready to modernize? Let’s connect and discuss your blockchain integration strategy.

Scalability and Cost Concerns

Public blockchains like Ethereum are open and transparent, but they can be slow and costly. High fees and limited speed make it hard to use them for large real estate projects.

Newer solutions, like Layer-2 networks or private blockchains, help with speed but come with trade-offs in decentralization and harder connections. So, business owners have to choose carefully, based on the necessary blockchain use case, expected volume, and budget.

Strategic Considerations for Real Estate Stakeholders

Investing in blockchain is a strategic decision. Be you are a developer, property manager, investor, or PropTech founder, the value of blockchain depends on your business model, risk appetite, and long-term goals. Below are key things to consider before starting a project:

• Assess ROI Potential. Blockchain brings the highest ROI where transactions are complex, repetitive, or slow, like cross-border sales. Calculate what manual work is costing your team in time, errors, and external fees first.
• Enable Crypto-Based Payments. Crypto for real estate opens new buyer segments but requires secure wallets, volatility protection, and strong compliance. Smart contracts for crypto deals must meet local financial and tax regulations.
• Prepare for Legal and Operational Change. Blockchain adoption also touches legal, finance, and compliance. Ensure your teams understand how on-chain data, smart contracts, and digital identities align with regulations.
• Build vs. Partner. Having your blockchain infrastructure is more flexible but resource-heavy. Most firms prefer partnering with PropTech providers to pilot blockchain real estate features, then scale with custom integrations.

Blockchain Trends for Real Estate

Blockchain is now a well-known word not only for tech startups but also for large companies and governments. And the more it gets explored, the more changes we’ll see in the real estate ecosystem. Some interesting cases to explore already:

• Dubai’s Tokenized Real Estate: Early in 2025, the DAMAC Group partnered with MANTRA, a blockchain platform. DAMAC’s goal was to turn property parts into digital tokens so investors in Dubai and worldwide could buy and sell small shares of real estate like trading stocks. Impressively, they’ve already tokenized $1 billion worth of assets.
• FIBREE (Foundation for International Blockchain and Real Estate Expertise): FIBREE is working to speed up blockchain adoption in global real estate. Promoting Web3 concepts, providing education, networking, and research, FIBREE supports businesses looking to discover blockchain’s benefits.
• Land Records on the Blockchain: Some researchers are looking at ways to fix issues in property ownership and transactions by moving property records onto a blockchain for real estate. A digital approach could make records easier to update and harder to tamper with, keeping the data private and secure as well.

Inoxoft’s Experience in Developing Blockchain Solutions for Real Estate

Instant deals, smart contracts, and tokenized property all sound exciting, but getting from idea to realization is not easy. You can skip the hype and start building the real thing with Inoxoft:

• We define what “blockchain-ready” means for your business and turn your ideas into functional PoCs and MVPs.
• Inoxoft engineers integrate smart contracts into your existing systems, design them to follow local regulations, and scale with your process.
• Our interfaces hide technical parts and highlight what’s important, allowing easily close deals and prove ownership.
• From wallet access to protected asset management, security is a core part of our design.
• We advise and help you choose the right real estate blockchain model, understand token rules, and build with audit trails in place.

We’ve worked with hundreds of companies, earning a 5/5 rating on Clutch and the respect of real estate professionals. With us, you’ll be in good hands, so don’t wait.

Book a free consultation to start your project.

Conclusion

Ten years from now, real estate and blockchain will go hand in hand in every conversation.

Blockchain automates agreement creation, coordinates service providers, and protects sensitive information. Although it’s not a cure-all, blockchain is a strong choice for networks that need a shared database with multiple parties’ access but lack trust.

Our team has 200+ completed projects, 10+ years of experience in regulated industries, 170+ software engineers, and an endless dedication to clients’ success.

So, if you need someone to trust, contact us and let’s discuss the details of your project.