You have landed an interested buyer? Great! Now, only if it was possible to close the deal with a high-five or handshake. Musings aside, the reality is that the journey from potential buyer interest to a successful real estate transaction involves tonnes and tonnes of paperwork (including a simple real estate contract). If the volume of real estate paperwork required by the Californian state government is any indication, be ready to secure consent on over 180+ sheets of paper per deal! No wonder, closing a real estate transaction is stressful and generally complicated, causing many a deal to fall through. This is why 82% of real estate agencies support their agents with eSignatures, via solutions such as Signeasy.
Speed-up the real estate paperwork
Real estate paperwork used to take weeks to close. This timeframe is likely to have turned into months now, with the additional restrictions imposed due to COVID-19.
Getting multiple approvals from multiple stakeholders (buyer, seller, bank, government agencies etc) on each document can be tiresome and time-consuming. And in between all the follow ups for signatures, it's very possible that buyers change their mind and back out from their decision to buy the property.
In such a scenario, here is how the eSignature solution Signeasy swoops in to say the day:
- Enable signing from anywhere: Even if you buyer and seller are located in different cities or states, they can still remotely approve property documents with eSignatures in a matter of seconds. No more waiting by fax machines for signed real estate contracts! Especially since Signeasy has a powerful mobile app, real estate agents can ‘cut the cord’ and approve documents from within the palm of their hands.
- Repurpose contract templates: Instead of typing out an entire real estate contract for every new transaction, consider saving it as a template on your eSignature solution. In this way, every time you just need to open up the template, personalize it to the new deal and hit send.
- Streamline paperwork: Especially when you need multiple stakeholders to sign-off on a simple real estate contract, you can use Signeasy to set a signing workflow. Firstly, you can add multiple signers, signature fields, and form fields. And depending on the type of agreement, you can have the signers approve the document in a parallel (everyone signs at the same time) or serial (signers are sent the document in a sequential manner) manner. Â
- Automate reminders for multi-person approvals: If the document is not signed within a set period of time, Signeasy automatically sends reminders to signers. This saves your agents a lot of time in following up with the relevant signers.
- Automate signature tracking: Signeasy helps you keep track of delivery, receipt and acknowledgment of documents. This way, you don't need to keep opening the document to see if it has been signed.
- Avoid missing signatures: Arguably, there is nothing more annoying than documents that are filled in by everyone and submitted, only to be returned because someone forgot to sign or include an important detail. This leads to insufferable delays. Signeasy removes such problems from the workflow, by not allowing contracts to be submitted with a missing signature. It immediately detects missing signatures or other data and only allows for the signer to submit the document once all the relevant fields are filled.
All of this not only speeds up the transaction but also reduces paperwork fatigue for realtors, buyers and sellers. Take for instance, the case of S&C Homebuyers, a premium real estate redevelopment company who signed for Signeasy to speed up their paperwork. They are now able to complete the documentation, which used to take 12-24 hours, in just 2-4 minutes.
Touch-free documentation closes the deal
The industry already offers buyers virtual tours of real estate, so that they may narrow down on their buying options before settling on the one - Â without having to step out of their homes. Even instant online mortgage closing is on the rise. Apart from these, the pandemic has accelerated one other trend already in evidence - use of online contract signing tools for hygienically buying and selling real estate.
Using eSignature documents, you may get sign-offs on many property documents. Instead of interacting with high-contact surfaces such as printers, scanners and stationery, with Signeasy, property buyers and sellers to just do one of the following:
- Type their name on e-contracts
- Add a snapshot of their signature with just a click of the mouse or tap on their tablet.
- Trace their signature with finger on a sanitized tablet
- Scan their face or fingerprint
Ultimately, this is the way of the future (and now!) to seal real estate deals, without being exposed to communicable diseases. What’s more, eSignatures will allow your agents to focus more on selling and less on hygienic paperwork.
Navigate the paperwork jungle with eSignatures
No matter how stressful paperwork is, it is essential to prevent lawsuits and any challenges to right of ownership for your clients. And because it has so many moving parts (from setting up an escrow to the final contract), you want to be doubly careful about the accuracy and speed paperwork.
New York-based real estate brokerage firm Stribling Real Estate also found eSignatures to be the key to fluid, seamless and easy paperwork. They claimed that it helped them secure more business and become more efficient.
Looking for a similarly dependable e-signature solution, to get a simple real estate contract (s) signed, sealed and delivered in no time? Click here for a free Signeasy trial!
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