Life Sciences Has The Demand; Now, It Just Needs More Deal-Makers

A major private-public investment partnership will back the $1.4B transformation of the Bunker Hill Public Housing Development in Charlestown. Private developers, led by the real estate family office of private equity billionaire David Rubenstein, Declaration Partners Real Estate, will…

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Buying property can be a messy business. The chain of ownership for a piece of land or building can span decades or even hundreds of years, and over that time, all sorts of convoluted issues can arise, including clerical errors, forged documents, illegal deeds or missing heirs.

Title companies offer some protection from those problems, performing extensive research to ensure the smooth transfer of ownership. However, blockchain technology could replace some core functions by creating an indisputable ledger of ownership that proponents say cannot be tampered with, eliminating opportunities for accidental errors or fraud in documentation. 

Industry experts say that as blockchain becomes more readily used in the buying and selling of property, title companies will be less necessary. But the sluggish pace of digitizing public records, coupled with the complexities of actually evaluating legal ownership of a property, could keep title companies functioning as-is for at least another decade.

“I think they'll have plenty to do for a long time. But if we're moving in this direction of being more digital, then over time, what they'll be doing will be smaller and smaller, just because more of it will be digitized,” Redfin Chief Economist Daryl Fairweather said.

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