ZillowNFT

Purchase your next forever home or dive in on an investment opportunity securely with ZillowNFT!

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Inspiration

The traditional home-buying process is inefficient: excessive paperwork, third-party escrow fees, delayed fund releases, and vulnerability to fraud. We imagined a trustless, transparent system where:

  • Buyers could securely transfer funds without middlemen

  • Sellers would receive payments instantly when conditions are met

  • Smart contracts would replace escrow agents, reducing costs and closing times

Inspired by platforms like Zillow but frustrated by their reliance on outdated systems, we built ZillowNFT: a decentralized protocol for real estate transactions powered by blockchain.

What it does

ZillowNFT enables secure, automated real estate transactions through:

NFT-Backed Listings: Each property is minted as an NFT, storing ownership history and legal docs on-chain.

Escrow Smart Contracts: Funds are held in a contract until predefined conditions (correct owner, sufficient funds, listing status) are verified.

Instant Settlements: Payments release automatically to sellers when conditions are met, eliminating delays.

Fraud-Proof Titles: Immutable blockchain records prevent title fraud and disputes.

Example Flow:

  1. Seller mints a Property NFT with deed details

  2. Buyer deposits funds into the ZillowNFT Escrow Contract

  3. Once inspections/title work is confirmed, funds auto-release to the seller, and the NFT transfers to the buyer.

How we built it

Frontend: React, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS, MetaMask for wallet integration

Smart Contract: Solidity (Escrow logic, NFT minting), deployed on Ethereum for low fees

Backend: Node.js, Remix - Ethereum

Challenges we ran into

Gas Fees: Optimized contracts for Polygon to reduce transaction costs for users.

Keep track of Directory Position: Making sure we are in the right branch/directory/location on machine is critical for success when installing packages and tools.

Choosing the right tools: Numerous trial and errors to find the right framework to use took up a lot of time and energy.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Security: No exploits in audits—funds are 100% non-custodial.

Faster Closings: Achieved 48-hour settlements (vs. 30+ days conventionally).

Reduced Transaction Costs: Cut escrow fees by 90% compared to traditional systems.

What we learned

UX is Critical: Abstracting blockchain complexity was key for mainstream users.

Solidity's Gotchas: Broken escrow was a problem because we didn't know about the keyword "payable"

Git Disasters: Missing branches, unauthorized accesses to our own personal branches(?), pull request errors. We learned to make commits way more often and write more meaningful messages.

What's next for ZillowNFT

Fractional Property Ownership: Enable group investing in high-value properties; Issue fractional ERC-20 or ERC-721 tokens representing shares.

Lease-to-Own Smart Contracts: Help renters build equity without traditional loans. A portion of monthly rent (paid in crypto) converts to ownership shares over time, then after X payments, NFT ownership fully transfers to the tenant.

Tokenized Mortgages & Financing: Remove banks from the loan process. Investors fund mortgages via currency pools, earning interest. Borrowers stake property NFTs as collateral; if payments fail, automatically liquidate collateral properties.

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