ActiveRain/Docusign Contest: Stories From the Field

I agreed to buy our first house with my wife sight unseen.

One of the happiest days of my life was the day my wife and I became homeowners together. If you've bought a house for the first time with the person you love, you know the feeling. My story is a little different than the average person though. When Christa found the perfect place for us, I was not in Ann Arbor to share in her joy. Instead, I was back in Seattle spending my week with my son. It was going to require a leap of faith for me to sign a purchase and sale agreement without ever having seen our new house. She has better taste than I do though, so it was an easy choice.

5 years ago, it would have taken a few days to get the original documents signed and would have involved expensive overnight shipping or continual faxing to the point where I couldn't read what I was actually signing. Not to mention I didn't have easy access to a fax machine. In November of 2010, it was a breeze. Our great agent was using DocuSign and I was able to receive the documents, sign from my computer and we had a pending contract in hours.

When it comes to electronic signatures, there are two camps on ActiveRain. In one camp, we have the folks who now use electronic signatures and wouldn't go back to the old way if you paid them. In the other camp, we have the people who like doing things like they've always done them and just haven't taken the leap of faith.

An ActiveRain divided against itself can not stand! (with proper credit to 'Honest Abe' of course) So those of you that haven't tried using electronic signatures just yet need to immediately get over and get a completely free 30 day trial of Docusign (no credit card required).

So it makes sense then that our ActiveRain Contest for July includes our friends at DocuSign.

The Contest:

Have you used DocuSign or another electronic signature provider? If you have, we'd like you to write a blog post that tells the story of one of your closings that was made easier because of the use of electronic signatures. Did your client sign using the WiFi on the plane? Was one of your clients in New York while the other was in Los Angeles and they were both able to sign easily? Was it a divorce where the husband and wife wanted to stay as far away from each other as possible? Whatever the case, share the story of your use of electronic signatures to make your life (and more importantly your client's lives) easier.

Have you never used electronic signatures? If you've never, we want to hear your best horror story from the good 'ole days (which you seem to still be living in). Tell us about that transaction where you had to spend $500 to overnight the contract to Singapore for your client to sign. Tell us about your fax machine running out of ink right before the signature page spit out for that million dollar deal with multiple offers. If you've been in real estate for any amount of time, you have a story about faxing or mailing contracts that turned out bad, we just know it.

You may decide to write a post for either the first part or the second part. Each person will be allowed one submission.

The Rules:

Posts must be at least 200 words in length.

A link to your post must be placed in the comment section of this post by the deadline.

At the end of your post, please include a phrase similar in nature to this: "This post is a submission to the DocuSign/ActiveRain Electronic Signature Stories Contest. It's possible I will win a prize for writing this post. You could win a prize too by going to the Contest Announcement and sharing your own story"

That phrase will help keep you out of water with the FTC and will also allow other members of the community to participate.

Once you have written and submitted your post, please let DocuSign know about your post on Twitter by tweeting them a link to your post @docusign

Once your post is live, please become a fan of the DocuSign page on Facebook and leave a link to your post on their Facebook page (this one is optional.....Facebook's terms of service dictate that we can't force you to do this to qualify for the contest)

The Deadlines:

All posts submitted by July 22nd at Midnight Eastern Time will be eligible for 1000 bonus points above the 1000 points you will get for entering.

The final deadline for submissions will be July 31st at Midnight Eastern Time. Submissions will be considered submitted once your link has been placed in the comment section of this post.

The Prizes:

There will be two categories for judging on this contest. Winners will be selected by a panel of judges from DocuSign and ActiveRain. Winners will be selected from the 'Have Used' group as well as from the 'Have not used' group. There will be a first, second and third place winner from each group.

1st Place: $200 Visa Gift Card and 5000 ActiveRain points

2nd Place: $100 Visa Gift Card and 4000 ActiveRain points

3rd Place: $50 Visa Gift Card and 3000 ActiveRain points

All submission to the contest will be given 1000 ActiveRain points. If you submit your post prior to July 22nd at Midnight Eastern time you will be given an additional 1000 ActiveRain points

~Bob