Step Away from the FAX Machine!

Melissa- you are so right about needing to step forward into paperless technology.  It does make life easier and helps the environment at the same time.

It is time that we all get better at not killing trees and use the technology.

Paperless technology is the way of the future and now is the future.

I don't own a fax machine. Why because there is online fax services all over the place. Why would you use anything else.

I'll have to add to the chorus and give kudos to paperless.  Fax machines are obsolete; some folks in our office don't even know how to use one; they grew up with the Internet.  Completely paperless solutions are not only environmentally friendly, they can be a selling point to your clients who are more likely to be tech-savvy. It's about time the real estate industry goes paperless.

Thanks,

Nick Sweeney
The DotLoop Team
dotloop.com

Melissa, how smooth was the transition to this program (suite of services) when your MLS switched over?  Did you get much push back from your members or did they welcome the change with all the new features?

Do you have any suggestions on how to pay for the upgrade or did you just raise dues?

Thanks from Boise, Idaho!

@Jim Paulson,

Well if there is any indication here in San Francisco...  Instanet's implementation earns itself a new badge: "Insta-Disast-A" or "Insta-Mess" or "Insta-Crap" - these are all terms I'm hearing from other SF agents who are trying to use it.

Many of us worked through the implementation of Winform/Ziplogix, it was intuitive and the US support team listened.  Yet somehow something bad must have happened and our CAR (State Association) and SFAR (Local Association) got into a pissing match, giving us 'plebes' no choice but to migrate to Instanet.   I've spoken to many who are cussing under their breath about the whole changeover.  I remind them that the forms are on SFAR website and they thank me - quickly downloading what they need...

Many SFAR agents including myself have been forced to take a step backwards in time and are printing our forms, filling them out by hand, scanning and putting them through Docusign since the chosen Instanet e-signature platform doesn't seem to work.  (Even our SFAR Board member put out an email to stop using it until it was 'debugged'.  The irony of it was they didn't even have a 'Signed Date' field.  This program was unleashed upon Oregon State Association of Realtors in late 2008 (almost two years ago - and in software years that is like generations ago - you'd think they would've already fixed it!)

But what the heck - why should they care about a user that only does about 24 - 30 transactions per year at about $ 19 - 25 million in volume???  Perhaps I don't score much on their radar.  This is real step backwards and please if you don't use MS Internet Explorer - all they can say is good luck! 

WARNING WARNING WARNING If your Association is talking about Instanet vs. Winforms - don't talk to the people at the Associations if it works or not.  Contact agents who write more than an offer a month and ask them what works.  We're down in the trenches, we actually meet face to face with our clients, we write the offers, we write the listing agreements, we walk our clients through filling out the disclosures and help them with the e-signing.  We do it all day. 

Was there a disconnect between SFAR and CAR - Oh I'd say so.  And NOW We're suffering BIG TIME!

For now the simplest solution to write an offer is to print the form (1 minute), handwrite the offer (3 minutes), scan into your computer (1 minute), Docusign (3 minutes) and you're done.   Good luck!!!