A modern-day Domesday Book

Just as the quantity theory of money factors in the velocity as well as the supply of money, we might apply the same principle to the housing market. The velocity of housing transactions is notoriously slow. It takes months to buy or sell property because of the complexities involved, including the searches and the rights.

One can imagine how time-consuming it would be to sell a car if the buyer had to sell his or hers and so on down the chain. All the transactions would have to occur on the same day, and if one dropped out, all of the transactions would fail. This is what often happens in the housing market.

We could increase the velocity of housing sales by using AI to generate a modern version of the Domesday Book. A modern AI-generated Domesday Book, would essentially be a comprehensive, publicly accessible ledger of land ownership and property rights throughout England and Wales, and possibly the UK.

AI could maintain an up-to-date, immutable record of property ownership, similar to a blockchain-based registry. This would eliminate the need for extensive title searches and legal verification because they would already be in the public domain.

If property rights were encoded in smart contracts, transactions could be executed automatically once predefined conditions (such as payment confirmation) are met. AI could instantly verify whether a transaction complies with legal requirements, zoning laws, and planning permissions. These currently have to be laboriously checked by hand one at a time.

By maintaining a tamper-proof record of land ownership and transaction history, AI could reduce fraudulent claims and ownership disputes, areas which currently require recourse to law. AI could be used to assess disputes over property boundaries, rights of way, or contractual breaches, potentially resolving many conflicts without the need for litigation.

With an AI-managed property register, individuals could access property records, verify ownership, and complete transfers with minimal legal intervention, greatly reducing the time and the costs required and making property transactions more accessible.

In essence, an AI-driven Domesday Book could streamline property transactions, making them faster, more transparent, and considerably lowering the costs involved in the process.

Dr Madsen Pirie