Our brokerage decided some time ago to go paperless. It's been an interesting journey of many months, well years actually.
The first step was to find an electronic contract using digital signatures. Our MLS offered one as part of our fees, so naturally we gave that a try.
It turned out to be one that was configured for use all over the U.S. Needless to say it was confusing and very difficult to use. Customer service was available, but their responses were less than desirable.
We quit using the FREE service.
Next we signed up with a local Colorado company, CTM Software. Contrary to our previous experience their contract forms turned out to be intuiative and easy to use. As a bigger bonus the company listens and responds to our requests.
We are very pleased with this move. Not only has it saved us paper, using electronic signatures saves time. Best of all we have one central locatiion where we store all the documents associated with the transaction. Unlike the FAXed documents of the past, our contracts are now clear and very legible.
In a word, they look very PROFESSIONAL. In our business you can never be too professional!
So it sounds like our problem is all solved? Well not exactly. We still have to deal with other real estate brokers who are not using electronic signatures.
This past week I've been working with a very nice agent who wasn't ready for an offer on her listing. Our Colorado Contracts changed on January 1, 2011 so all the "paper" we had saved up from the past were now out of date. Well not "we" as in our company because electronic contracts were available at our fingertips.
But the brokers who don't use the service were the ones who needed to remember to order in advance contracts otherwise be caught off-guard. So this is problem #1.
Problem #2 is when you use paper you have to fax (nobody delivers anymore) to the other broker the counter and addendums. We all know what faxes look like, particularly when you are working with clients who are out of town. By the 3rd fax the paper resembles a ransom note. One can only surmise what it says.
Oh my.
Problem #3 paper has to be stored online so one must scan and place in a local folder for future use. Considering we have many, many pages that get signed individually, then signed in counterparts we end up with multiple pages of contracts in various stages of being signed!
If a proper naming convention isn't used one may save an incompletely signed contract over the final document. Or worse look foolish and unprofessional by sending of the wrong contract to another party.
Doing business the old fashioned paper way is just so 1990's.
My solution to merging the old with the new is to take the fax'ed documents save them to my hard drive then upload them to the proper file on my CTMsoftware online.
Now I have a central source to review, send out and save all the important documents related to the transaction.
The Benefits to Agents:
- Saved to The Cloud, I can access them from any computer, even my iPhone!
- My Transaction Manager can access them also
- The Lender and Title Company can READ the documents
- If a doc needs to be modified, the modification is done in seconds
- Private - without paper you can't lose anything
- My basement is freed up from having to save boxes and boxes of closed files for six years!
The Benefits to the Consumer
- Accessible anytime
- Easy to read
- Easy to sign (yes it resembles your 3rd grade cursive, but it's legal in Colorado!)
- Saves time - no more having to hang around the office while the agent writes an offer
- Amendments are easy to do and can be signed from any computer where you can access your email
- No antique fax machine needed
- No worries about private contract info being left on a fax machine for the entire company to read
Summary:
The Berkshire Group (that's my company) has been so pleased with the benefits of working in the cloud. We have taken the next step and are using the entire back office of CTMsoftware. The expanded features are very much like an Intranet where we have an online office complete with whiteboard!
Now when we take a listing we input it ONCE into the system and it goes directly to MLS. No middleperson. The best thing here is the agents (including me) will need to have all the info ready at that time. Meaning our office staff won't have to hunt down the agent to acquire the missing details. (insert picture of smiling staff here!)
Although I haven't had to do it yet, I can see how handy it will be to have easy access to the files years from now when the buyer now becomes a seller and wants to sell their home. Within a few minutes I can recover the file.
Now that beats having to brush aside those nasty cobwebs in my basement so I can rummage throught the dusty boxes searching for the closing file! Ugh and touching that dry, scratchy paper...
I vote for electronic contracts. It saves paper and is truly a benefit to the consumer.
(About the Photo: No, My Grandson does not write my contracts. But he did teach me how to remove the keys on the keyboard! Smart kid!)
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