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The information asymmetries of the real estate industry

Brandon Donnelly avatar Brandon Donnelly

Touring and generally looking at buildings is, in my opinion, an important part of being a developer. Whenever I tour a project, I always learn something new. Because invariably, someone will say something like, "the building inspector made us do X." Immediately after you then email all of your project teams and ask them if they've run into this same problem. And then, hopefully, you're a little bit better than the last project.

This kind of knowledge transfer is a good thing, but I also think it's a reminder of just how opaque and fragmented information is within our industry. There's a lot of information and experience that simply isn't stored anywhere, other than in someone's head or deep on someone's hard drive never to be found ever again.

Sometimes it might be part of a firm's competitive advantage and they don't want to share it with others. That's fair. But in my experience, most people in this industry are more than happy to share what they know and where they've made mistakes. It helps us all get better. But might there be a more effective place to share this knowledge beyond individual conversations, conferences, building tours, and group chats?

There has to be. And my prediction is that it will eventually live on a blockchain.

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Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly.