Comment by CjHuber

5 months ago

It’s not like there aren‘t dozens of companies with real funding that try to „tokenize real estate“. I mean if that’s a good idea idk, but that means there IS real money to be made working at such companies.

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CjHuber

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strbean  5 months ago

Eh, it would be nice if there was a public title database in the US. Ideally government administered, but if we can't have that then maybe a distributed ledger would do the trick.

It's hilarious that title searches and title insurance exist. And even more ridiculous that there is just no way, period, to actually verify that a would-be landlord is actually authorized to lease you a place to live.

  • acdha  5 months ago

    > Ideally government administered, but if we can't have that then maybe a distributed ledger would do the trick.

    The problem is that it has to be government administered because otherwise you’re constantly stuck with the risk that what you see won’t survive a legal challenge. This is a constant problem for ledgers because the sales pitch is about being “trust less” or distributed in some sense that everyone can participate, but making them work is an exercise in picking which third-parties you trust to settle disputes. For the most important things, that usually means the government unless part of their authority has been delegated to a private entity.

    • strbean  5 months ago

      Yeah, a distributed ledger for managing property ownership would be pretty borked with no authority to revert thefts, enforce legal orders, etc.

      It might be an effective way to get buy in from the government if they don't have to manage much infrastructure, if they still get the (literal?) keys to intervene in things. That would require them to have the basic competency to manage their own access, though.

  • nocoiner  5 months ago

    It’s that funny intersection where abstractions meet the real world. We assume that the guy with the keys collecting the rent checks is authorized to lease it out because it’s just too expensive to assume otherwise. But sometimes that assumption is wrong and man, what a mess that turns out to be.

    Similarly, it’s like if I get back to my house tonight and someone has changed the locks on the front door, I’m pretty sure I could ultimately verify that, yes, I’m the owner, but I sure am glad that due to social norms or inertia or the sheer hassle of being a squatter that is not something I have to deal with on a regular basis.