Tru Realty, a full-service real estate company, recently announced the first recorded blockchain real estate transaction in Arizona, positioning this Scottsdale brokerage as one of just three in the country to have completed a real estate transaction utilizing blockchain.

In May of this year, Tru Realty became the first real estate company in Arizona, and second in the US, to utilize Propy, a blockchain-based technology real estate platform. The company saw the industry-wide impact blockchain is poised to make within the real estate industry and the technology’s ability to increase the security and speed of transactions as an opportunity to improve the process for all involved. In September, the team brokered its first blockchain sale between an Arizona-based buyer and seller.

“At a high-level, Tru Realty sees blockchain as an opportunity to open Arizona residents to the international real estate market and to improve the overall process of buying and selling,” said Sarah Richardson, designated broker and founder of Tru Realty. “Starting with a local transaction, however, enabled us to fully understand the process before extending it to outside markets. Our biggest takeaway from the process was how incredibly fast and easy it was. It alleviated so much of the friction typically associated with the process. What normally would take weeks to complete, can now be done in a matter of hours.”

Although blockchain still has a ways to go in terms of adoption, Richardson believes that as buyers and sellers start to see more blockchain transactions occurring, and understand how the technology works, demand will skyrocket.

“This technology will allow people to complete real estate transactions a lot faster, and do so all virtually,” said Chris Eymann, the home buyer. “I had my reservations about using blockchain, but it was surprisingly extremely easy to use and I didn’t have to worry about numerous appointments with notaries, escrow officers, etc.”

“As an industry, we must learn to adapt to our constantly changing technological environment.” said Richardson. “There are more successful transactions being recorded on the blockchain around the world every day, which is incredibly exciting to us. In the past, our technological capabilities have allowed us to grow and scale across the entire state. Now we can go beyond those borders–-far beyond.