Blockchain Based Residential Smart Rent
André S. Proença, Tiago R. Dias, Miguel P. Correia
TL;DR
The paper addresses inefficiencies in real estate rentals caused by intermediaries and proposes a GDPR-compliant, blockchain-based platform to empower landlords and tenants. It combines a permissioned Hyperledger Fabric network with on-chain assets (PropertyAsset, ContractAsset, Proposal, RentalInfo, Payment, EncryptedId), off-chain storage for personal data, automated payments using stablecoins, and digitally signed contracts. The implementation emphasizes secure identity, data privacy, and auditability through a React frontend, Node-based blockchain interface, and Kubernetes-based deployment, with Solana supporting fast, low-cost stablecoin transactions. Evaluation demonstrates GDPR alignment and provides performance benchmarks that reveal scalability challenges, suggesting increased network capacity and replication to enable broader real-world deployment.
Abstract
The real estate market includes complex and inefficient mediation processes. Renting a property envolves multiple entities with different responsibilities and interests. Therefore it is imperative to establish a trustful relationship between parties through intermediaries such as notaries, banks or real estate agencies to avoid eventual disputes. Although an intermediary ensures trust, the current process still has some drawbacks concerning efficiency, costs, transparency, bureaucracy and data security. The blockchain technology aims to reduce this issues by providing transparent and secure real estate transactions. We propose a GDPR compliant blockchain-based residential smart rental platform, designed to allow both landlords and tenants to establish rental contracts and make rental payments securely.