Propy (PRO)

What is Propy

THE PROBLEM

Today, the global real estate market is worth $217 trillion and makes up more than half the value of all mainstream assets worldwide3 . One great differentiator between real estate and other major asset classes is liquidity. Compared to exchange-traded securities such as equities and government bonds, real estate markets are not as organized or efficient as other markets, with incredibly slow transaction times and less efficient price discovery mechanisms. As a result, substantial capital is trapped in less liquid investments, often concentrated in certain geographic areas devoid of domestic investment opportunities. While many investors with excess liquidity would welcome the opportunity to invest in foreign real estate assets, there are currently substantial impediments to such investment activity.

China is an excellent example of this problem. Currently, Chinese citizens are among the largest groups of foreign investor in the U.S. real estate market. Chinese investors own over $28 billion in U.S. residential property4 . However, the total value of the U.S. residential real estate market is over $29 trillion5 . Foreign investment in the U.S. residential sector could be potentially equal to hundreds of billions of dollars if foreign investors were properly educated on how to invest and provided with the facility to, among other things, close real estate transactions online. In the current market, Chinese who intend to invest in foreign real estate mainly rely on family and friends to obtain referrals to local brokers, who in turn work with international brokers in selling a property. This process is time-consuming, involves too many intermediaries, and often, the property the buyers are seeking for is sold to another investor before the process is complete.

The core of the problem is the lack of international standards or comprehensively available platforms for the electronic transfer and recording of real estate. Each country (and in some cases, as in the United States, even individual counties) maintains its own registry and establishes national (or local) rules for property deed registration and transfers. Moreover, legacy property rights registry systems were developed to handle local real estate transfers but are ill-equipped to handle international ownership transfers. As a result, there is an inferior experience for people on both sides of the marketplace. Additionally, the informality of procedures prevalent in certain jurisdictions makes them particularly susceptible to fraud or tampering. There is currently no single tool available that allows a property investor to research, pay for, and reliably secure and record ownership of international property online.

THE SOLUTION

Propy aims to solve the problems facing international real estate transactions by creating a novel unified property store and asset transfer platform for the global real estate industry. Initially the Propy Registry will mirror official land registry records in which transfers of real estate are recorded. Ultimately, however, Propy’s vision is that jurisdictions will adopt the Propy Registry as their official ledger of record such that the transfer of a property on the Propy Registry constitutes the legal transfer of the property and the legal registration of that transfer. By leveraging Propy Registry and Propy’s smart contracts platform, unnecessary delays and impediments inherent to legacy property rights registrations systems could be eliminated. The Propy platform seeks to enhance the security of transactions while reducing inefficiencies through its innovative use of mobile, cloud and blockchain technologies linking buyers, sellers, investors and registries around the world.

Propy is an online global real estate store, allowing buyers, sellers, brokers, and escrow/title agents/notaries to come together through the utilization of a suite of smart contracts to facilitate transactions. Propy provides a network for these actors to connect with each other and conduct real estate purchases online.

As of the date of this paper, the Propy DApp has been developed to allow users to find properties and initiate the purchase process. The current system consists of the following features and primary functions: