A version of this article first appeared in the CNBC Property Play newsletter with Diana Olick. Property Play covers new and evolving opportunities for the real estate investor, from individuals to venture capitalists, private equity funds, family offices, institutional investors and large public companies. Sign up to receive future editions, straight to your inbox. Anyone who has bought or sold a home knows how long and tedious the closing process can be. It involves antiquated paperwork requiring multiple signatures from various parties, disclosures and a heap of compliance forms. Some of the process has been digitized, but mostly not. One remedy is emerging: put it all on the blockchain. Propy, a Miami-based blockchain technology company that launched in 2017, has been trying to modernize the closing process and recently got a big financial boost to do it. In late January, Propy announced it had secured a $100 million credit facility from Metropolitan Partners Group, a private investment firm. The money would be used, it said, to consolidate title and escrow companies into an artificial intelligence-powered, end-to-end closing platform. “We have this conviction that blockchain is the next phenomenon after the internet,” said Natalia Karayaneva, founder and CEO of Propy. “The internet moved information, blockchain will move value. It already is moving money. It’s moving Treasurys. However, the real estate industry is still behind.” That’s primarily because the industry doesn’t exactly understand blockchain, Karayaneva said. Blockchain is like a massive, shared, digital filing cabinet that no one person can control. Things that are recorded on the blockchain cannot be altered. “This technology allows us to record deeds and transactions, and it’s impossible …
