As a founder of DocuSign, I keep my eyes open for comments about how people use DocuSign, watching blogs and comments made by customers. Over the past year the blogosphere chatter has grown pretty dramatically.

It appears that the world is becoming aware of the dramatic improvement that secure electronic transactions have over the old fashioned paper based transactions. One area I want to highlight is real estate. Real estate is a very large market, made up of hundreds of thousands of agents and brokers. In our current economy, things are very tough for this industry — some Realtors have dropped out all together, yet others are turning to technology and improve and streamline their operation.
The following links show how the real estate market has standardized on the DocuSign service for real estate transactions. In many ways, the DocuSign service is perfect for real estate transactions because it allows signers to sign and initial documents in exact locations, documents can be sequenced from buyer to seller, and the whole process is securely encrypted and suitable for these high value transactions.
In addition, the fact that DocuSign was chosen by ZipForm, the forms provider for the NAR, and Fidelity for integration of Transaction Point really helps. Having the DocuSign process be deeply integrated into these key industry platforms makes it easy “send for signature” rather than the old “print-fax-wait” process.
The following are some neat examples of different people using blogs, audio and video to comment on how they leverage the technology. I’ve talked to a few of these folks, but most are the “cyberagents” discussed in this first clip.
1. Cyberagents –- Agents discuss the key technologies they use to improve their business. Amazingly neat video (also above) that tees up the idea of Cyberagents in Danville Calif. We could not have done a better job! Check out their blog here.
2. Round table discussion –- Agents discuss tools that make a difference, and help close the deal. (Includes a very funny comment about how one agent hopes DocuSign is not listening because they’d pay much more for the service!). The overview is here. The section of the audio clip I like best starts at about the 12:30 mark in the full audio track.
3. A how-to discussion from RE Blogger Kevin Boer who we have spoken with a few times
    a. What is interesting here is the screen capture in the blog
    b. As well a full PowerPoint presentation about the topic
4.  Buying a Mountain View home using electronic signatures while at the Grand Canyon
5. Going green with DocuSign in Seattle
6. Electronic signatures, are you working in today’s world?
7. IRES integration of DocuSign into their MLS Platform for Colorado
There are LOTS more blogs out there! It appears that more and more realtors are moving towards using DocuSign. We are adding more than 400 new real estate customers per month right now, so the word is spreading!
I am guessing, but the reasons I see for the dramatic adoption rates of eSignature tools in real estate are based on the following:

  • High price of fuel. At $4.00 a gallon, it can be expensive to drive around to get signatures
  • Green. Printing and faxes are paper hogs. For Real Estate agents who wish to be environmentally conscious, using DocuSign is a very visible way to demonstrate this.
  • Customer convenience. Repeating throughout these blogs is the notion that the customer really appreciates this service.
  • Quality of work. Another thread that can be seen is the mention that the DocuSign process is much better than the fax of a fax of a fax so often seen in a Real Estate transaction.
  • AND the fact that DocuSign is the standard that is getting talked about everywhere! Of course that helps!

Anyhow, it is very encouraging to see so many agents taking advantage of our technology to drive their business, and to read how DocuSign is becoming an important competitive tool that agents use to win business, and provide excellent customer service.  If you are an agent, please drop me a line and let me know how you use DocuSign, and what your wish-list might be…

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