Singer Vielle, a real estate brand based in London, has announced its arrival in Australia.
The tech-focused company has been developing and utilising technology as part of the property transaction process for many years, which culminated in the 2010 construction of the clicktopurchase platform — which facilitated a legal property sales process where contract notes were signed digitally.
Since 2017, the platform has been utilising blockchain technology — defined as a decentralised ledger of all transactions across a peer-to-peer network — in the sale process. In the five years since this adoption, 50,000 transactions, concerning 500 properties, have taken place.
Neil Singer, chief executive officer of Singer Vielle and clicktopurchase, stated that compared to others, his business had a “genuine 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,” he added.
According to a statement released by the company, “clicktopurchase utilises hash and encryption technology as part of the creation of the transactional audit trail; this is then recorded in the clicktopurchase blockchain”.
The statement also explained that “since all events are held in the blockchain, absolute proof of actions are held in 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.”
“The combination of speed, certainty and an immutable blockchain audit trail enables a level of corporate governance and trust which is unavailable elsewhere,” it concluded.
The agency’s emergence on the Australian scene follows recognition by both the Real Estate Institute of Australia (REIA) and the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand (REINZ) of the significance of technology in the property industry back in June.
They created a report titled Blockchain: Opportunities and Disruptions for Real Estate that concluded that “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”.
Singer Vielle also highlighted how the Real Estate Institute of Western Australia (REIWA) has partnered with TecStack in order to offer compulsory professional development (CPD) blockchain training to agents in the state, explaining that “blockchain is the future and is already making waves in the industry”.
REIWA concluded that 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”.