Smart contract logic

Inspiration

Purchasing and selling real estate is a tedious and tiresome affair, prone to human errors and high broker fees, especially with a large amount of data available within the market today. Countries such as Nigeria, Uganda, and South African struggle with proof of ownership of land, while international investing activities have become increasingly difficult and error-prone.

We developed this blockchain-based real estate app to make it easy to acquire and sell properties from the comfort of your laptop or smartphone. Sellers can now directly list their properties without the assistance of a realtor, respond to buyer inquiries, while investors are able to view the most accurate and up-to-date information, property reviews, and submit offers within a few key presses for properties they are interested in. Whether you would like to purchase your dream home, sell an estate in a hot market for profit, or pass on the torch as an investor, it has got your back!

What It Does

We understand that buying and selling a home can be complicated, which is why we created a network to put you at ease. it makes it as easy as filling out two pieces of paper, uploading them to Ethereum, and minting your house into an ERC-721 token that verifies your right to own property in your municipality. You can sell your house by providing the documents for escrow or bid on another person’s house by sending an ETH offer which will be released once the seller signs the sales agreement.

How We Built It

We built our platform using React and web3.js on the frontend, with an Express/Node.js backend that leverages the Ethereum blockchain to store transaction data and listings/bidding history. We opted to use Netlify as our hosting platform because of its versatility in deploying static sites quickly and easily. We used solidity to develop our smart contract as it enables us to communicate with the Ethereum blockchain and deploy and update contracts

Technologies Used (Our Stack)

INest Stack

In only 24 hours, we were tasked with creating a web application to support investors purchase and sell properties.

Stack	Technology Used
Front-End	React, Figma, Solidity, Material UI
Back-End	Node.js, Express
Cloud/Hosting	Netlify
Blockchain	Solidity Smart Contracts, Ethereum

Challenges We Ran Into

Delays when getting Ethereum from a testnet faucet
Deploys failing to build while trying to deploy on Netlify
Node.js backend was tedious and the app was large to develop in a day

Accomplishments We're Proud Of

Creating an Accessible Design
Implementing most designs into code through styling
Building a functioning smart contract

What We Learned

Through the process of developing INest for NSBEHacks 2022, we learned many skills that will help our team as we work on other projects in the future.

Prioritization of features
Git and project management skills in a fast-paced team environment
Greater collaboration for data analysis and modeling
Importance of planning and user research prior to developing an application

Business Viability

Revenue Streams

Platform fees, similar to but lower than realtor fees
Integrating a point system, where the user can earn points through using the system to save on gas and/or platform fees.
Google ads, monthly subscription to get rid of ads.
Premium Accounts with more users to one account (family plan)

Obtaining Users

Working with private investors and institutional clients.
Target certain demographics & adapt to environments such as universities, highschool and other communities with need for accessible housing opportunities.

Lowering Expenses

Deploying & building a web app allows for extensive A/B testing of users with respect to new features
Scalable backend technologies provide throughput to scale the technology needed.
Minimalizing on "additional features" by having the goal set to peer-relationship building

Competitive Advantage

Less monetization, no mandatory costs or insurance
Faster turnaround time compared to brick and mortar brokerages
Rather than over-complicating the entire purchasing and sale process, we made it as simple as possible
Not presenting an overwhelming amount of data like other platforms (MLS, REALTOR.COM)
Ability to export and share data with team members and accountants/lawyers if necessary.