Owning a home is one of the biggest dreams for many, yet the process of buying any property can be laborious and flooded with additional fees, delays and disappointments. Blockchain may just be able to chain that. Below Finance Monthly benefits from expert insight from Kai Peeters, the Founder and CEO of HiP, on the implementation of blockchain in the real estate sector.

We are now bearing witness to blockchain based technology coming out of its infancy, and showing how it can be applied to vastly improve multiple markets - including the archaic property market. With a few established businesses and technology giants warming to blockchain, we have to start asking more profound questions about/around how it could improve the situation for a buyer/ buyers and the real estate market as a whole.

The current housing market simply does not work for the majority of first-time buyers. Working exclusively with traditional financial institutions, real estate markets around the globe confine first-time buyers in long-term unmovable loans that put enormous pressure on young people looking to buy a home. This is why, despite interest rates being reasonably low, the number of new mortgages has been declining since the 1990s. Meanwhile, the minimum deposit is largely unaffordable for people who earn average wages, and without help from their family it is virtually impossible for them to get on the property ladder. Technology can transform the way we buy and sell real estate by eliminating additional costs and disorganization of our housing market, Smart contracts that can handle that aspect more efficiently.

Having a decentralized real estate platform addresses current market issues, and introduces the individual investors who can fill the void left by traditional financial institutions and inject more life into the market. This can also allow property to become a more valuable asset in itself, where each buyer is able to release equity without losing ownership, and raise money free of debt. Being able to turn equity into currency and have control over debt levels brings the choice back to the buyers, owners and investors.

The upcoming platform HiP was designed with all those benefits in mind, especially for first time buyers, who can use an inbuilt calculator to enter the price of the property they want to purchase as well as the down payment and monthly payments they can afford. HiP will then calculate the remaining amount needed to buy the property and this outstanding amount is offered out to investors. This means that the first-time buyer will own a percentage of the property whilst also being entitled to a proportional percentage of profit and capitals gains when sold. Investors on the HiP Exchange who have co-financed the property will also receive return on their percentage of the real estate equity they own.

This is a new world of opportunity for first time buyers who now have access to other financing options that were previously unattainable to them. With HiP focusing on the way we fund properties, and other innovative minds using blockchain based technology in other areas of the real estate sector, it is only a matter of time until the array of problems within the real estate markets becomes a thing of the past.