Electronic Signatures: Dawn of a new Era for Real Estate

Technology is a tool. Some technology is fun, some wasteful, and others are changing industry paradigms.

Of all the recent technology available for real estate agents, in my opinion one of the biggest game changers is the ability to sign documents electronically with DocuSign™ .  Another sharp tool for the mobile real estate professional that will save you time, effort, gas, and your sanity.

Welcome to the dawn of the virtual brokerages.  Do you really want to go into a fancy real estate conference room and sign dozens of real estate contracts and disclosures?  Having a physical office is so outdated, when my mobile office travels with me with laptops, portable scanner, printers, and mobile broadband access.  Welcome to the age of the mobile real estate professional where documents can be signed anywhere you have a computer.

Worse yet, do you want to deal with faxes, scanners, overnight mail, and conflicting schedules?

Imagine this:

Recently I had some Clients that were purchasing their first home.  He was in San Diego,while his wife was out of state.  His job had long hours where he could not be reached, she did not have access to a fax machine and would have to drive for miles to the nearest office depot.  The price range they were in required writing multiple offers and being able to present them quickly as new inventory came on the market.  Time was of the essence.

Using Docusign solved our problem.  Anyone with an active e-mail address can opt for this quick, legal, accurate, and safe way to obtain signatures and initials.  Documents can be sent out for signature and returned quickly for presentation in moments vs. hours.

The signed results come back via e-mail in a clean, easy to read, secure package in Adobe PDF.  These documents can then be forwarded to other agents, escrow companies, lenders, or for archived document storage.

Advantages of DocuSign include:

• Easy to use – passes the “Can my Mom use it test?”
• Reduces or eliminates paper use, printing, ink, overnight or same day courier charges.
• No missed signatures – documents cannot be returned until fully executed.
• Fast – important in getting the best real estate deals.