Our First Nest Realty uses DocuSign to accelerate the signing process for real estate documents. DocuSign has expedited the average turnaround of real estate documents from days to minutes. Houston-based Our First Nest Realty also leverages DocuSign as a green technology differentiator and as part of the company’s commitment to environmentally-friendly business processes.

Paul Silverman, Owner, Our First Nest Realty

Our First Nest Realty owner Paul Silverman first discovered DocuSign when working with a buyer for a hot property with multiple bidders. The need for an alternative to ink signatures became paramount when the buyer had to sign papers while out of state. Silverman registered for a free trial of the DocuSign eSignature service and within minutes was able to electronically send the documents for e-signature. His client received a DocuSign email notification, quickly adopted a signature and signed the documents online. Silverman presented the offer and it was accepted immediately. Later, Silverman’s client used DocuSign’s service from her Apple iPhone to electronically sign additional paperwork.

DocuSign came to the rescue. It helped streamline the process, provided my client an added service and reduced my company’s carbon footprint in just one service. Being able to sign from a mobile phone was a huge advantage. Clients always tell me how easy it is to DocuSign—it’s convenient, safe and legal. This is clearly the best tool I have ever used. – Paul Silverman, owner, Our First Nest Realty, and strong advocate of green technology

DocuSign has reduced or eliminated the need for Our First Nest Realty to print, fax or waste paper, ink and energy. He is pleased that he is helping clients with a hassle-free transaction and also upholding his pledge to the environment. Silverman holds a number of green designations and certificates including the National Association of REALTORS® Green designation and is a National Association of Homebuilders Certified Green Professional (CPG).

The DocuSign Advantage

After reviewing other e-signature solutions providers, Our First Nest Realty has continued using DocuSign based on the following key criteria:

• Ease of Use—DocuSign makes it easy for Silverman to send documents for client e-signature, and just as simple for clients to sign electronically. This intuitive service closely replicates the traditional signing experience, creating a positive client experience. DocuSign’s Designed for Mobile functionality provides Silverman’s clientele with anywhere, anytime electronic signing capabilities from an Apple iPhone, RIM BlackBerry, Google Android, Windows Mobile or any other Internet-enabled mobile device.
• Compliance—With DocuSign, Our First Nest Realty is assured of security as documents are an encrypted PDF. Signers are authenticated and contracts can only be returned only if fully completed, ensuring 100 percent compliance.
• Real-Time Visibility—DocuSign reveals the signing status of every agreement in real-time: when it was opened, when it was signed, the time the transaction has taken, and which contracts remain to be signed. Our First Nest Realty knows immediately when a real estate document is completed so deals can be transacted faster in a highly competitive market.
• Workflow Management—DocuSign automates Our First Nest Realty’s workflow processes. DocuSigned documents are returned only when complete, thereby reducing turnaround time from days to minutes.
• Cost-Effective—DocuSign reduces administrative costs associated with the traditional signing process, eliminating the need to print, fax or drive to meet clients for in-person signings
• Going Green—Environmentally-friendly, DocuSign aligns with Silverman’s green initiatives and further differentiates Our First Nest Realty from competitors using older, resource-wasting business processes.

For more information about the business benefits DocuSign provides Our First Nest Realty, read the detailed eSignature case study.

REThink Real Estate implemented DocuSign’s eSignature solutions to accelerate its real estate document signing process. This leading San Francisco Bay Area-based real estate firm employs DocuSign’s electronic signature services as the primary vehicle to complete real estate transactions.  DocuSign expedites the average turnaround time of real estate documents from days to minutes. DocuSign helped REThink Real Estate successfully expand and leverage DocuSign’s green technology as a market differentiator and competitive advantage.

Tara-Nicholle Nelson, MA, Esq. REALTOR®, Owner, REThink Real Estate

Owner of REThink Real Estate, Tara-Nicholle Nelson, MA, Esq. is a successful real estate broker, attorney, author and accredited buyer’s representative. Nelson recently represented a buyer in a competitive real estate transaction where the seller’s agent wanted to collect as many offers as possible to present to her client. To stall Nelson and her buyers, the seller’s agent sent a 150-page disclosure agreement that typically takes hours to fax to clients and hours for clients to sign and fax back. Instead, Nelson scanned the disclosure agreement and sent it via DocuSign to her clients. Her clients received an email notification, adopted an e-signature and returned the completed disclosure within the hour. The selling agent was obligated to present the offer to her client and it was accepted.

DocuSign has changed my life. I can’t imagine doing business without it. My clients love the convenience. Sometimes a buyer can make more than 20 offers before one is accepted. That means signing hundreds of pages at least 20 times! With DocuSign, it’s click, click, click and you’re done. – Tara-Nicholle Nelson

Nelson credits DocuSign with giving her more freedom—from paper, faxing and wasting time. By leveraging the Internet, Nelson notes that she and her clients can write, sign and submit an offer without being in the same state. With DocuSign, clients are rarely aware that Nelson is out of town for a speaking engagement or training. DocuSign also provides a much more polished and professional offer to agents, making Nelson’s offers appear more persuasive than the handwritten, scanned and faxed documents typically presented to sellers.

The DocuSign Advantage

After reviewing other e-signature solutions providers, Nelson chose DocuSign based on the following key criteria:

• Ease of Use—DocuSign makes it easy for Nelson to send documents for client e-signature, and just as simple for the client to sign electronically. This intuitive service closely replicates the traditional signing experience, creating a positive client experience. Plus, DocuSign’s Designed for Mobile functionality provides Nelson’s clientele with anywhere, anytime electronic signing capabilities from an Apple iPhone, RIM BlackBerry, Google Android, Windows Mobile or any other mobile device.
• Compliance—With DocuSign, RETHink Real Estate is assured of security as documents are an encrypted PDF. Signers are authenticated and contracts can only be returned only if fully completed, ensuring 100 percent compliance. Aged, confidential documents are archived and purged automatically, thereby safeguarding personal client information.
• Real-Time Visibility—DocuSign reveals the signing status of every agreement in real-time: when it was opened, when it was signed, the time the transaction has taken, and which contracts remain to be signed. REThink Real Estate knows immediately when a real estate document is completed so deals can be transacted faster in a highly competitive market.
• Workflow Management—DocuSign automates Nelson’s workflow processes. DocuSigned documents are returned only when complete, thereby reducing the turnaround time from days to minutes.
• Cost-Effective— DocuSign reduces administrative costs associated with the traditional signing process, eliminating the need to print, fax or drive to meet clients for in-person signings.
• Going Green— Environmentally friendly DocuSign aligns with Nelson’s green initiatives and further differentiates REThink Real Estate from competitors using older, resource-wasting business processes.

For more information about the business benefits DocuSign provides ReThink Real Estate, read the detailed eSignature case study on the DocuSign Web site!

Are you prepared for 2010? We recently learned that one of our DocuSign Electronic Signature for Real Estate subscribers, Paul Silverman of Our First Nest Realty, will be implementing DocuSign for all of the contracts signed by his clients in 2010.

Using DocuSign will greatly reduce or eliminate the need for any printing, faxing or other methods that use paper, ink or consume energy.

In addition to minimizing the impact on the environment, DocuSign electronic signature enables you to provide great service to your clients. Clients no longer have to print documents and then find the time to fax or scan the documents. With addendums, multiple offers, and all of the associated paperwork necessary for a real estate transaction, the old method of faxing, printing and scanning is time consuming.

If you’ve tried to read a document that’s been faxed several times, you’ve noticed how document resolution degrades every time the document is re-faxed. DocuSign electronic signature service also eliminates multiple faxes of the same documents, ensuring that documents are clear and legible.

Paul recently had a client on her way out of town and she did not have access to a printer, fax or scanner. Using electronic signature from DocuSign, she was able to e-sign the contracts and submit them within minutes.

Anytime I can help streamline a process, provide an added service to a client and reduce my company’s carbon footprint, it is an easy decision to make – Paul Silverman

As Paul has discovered, electronic signature from DocuSign not only enables your business to be green and environmentally friendly but also allows you to provide even better service to your clients.

As the year comes to a close, don’t forget to take a look at the DocuSign ESIGN Advantage Promotion for REALTORS® for a special offer available now through the end of the year.

What do you need to know to go paperless?

1. Back Up All of Your Documents!

In the traditional paper process, you photocopy documents, put them in a labeled folder and filed them in a filing cabinet so you can retrieve the document as needed.

In the paperless process, you need to back up your documents. You may decide to copy all of your files on a regular basis to an external drive. You may choose to store your documents using a hosting service. DocuSign provides its customers with document storage when they upload documents for electronic signature. Additionally, both senders and signers can download copies of completed documents for their own records.

2. Going Paperless is a Process

Going paperless takes time – you might start with using DocuSign Electronic Signature Service for your sales process and implement for your vendor purchase orders a week later. You may choose to digitize your old records as well and scanning your old documents will take time.

3. Over Time, You’ll Save Space

Given the amount of paper you currently have filed in filing cabinets and whether you choose to digitize your older paper documents, you may find that you can get rid of some of your filing cabinets. DocuSign has customers like Jay Thompson:

Thanks to DocuSign, I can keep an entire filing cabinet’s worth of stuff on a thumb drive.

Fewer cabinets mean more office space. A thumb drive means you can easily keep and access the documents you need, without having to return to the office before reviewing some papers.

4. More Benefits Than Less Paper

While going paperless often means less paper, not no paper, you’ll be able to see other benefits as well. Not only will you see a cost savings because you’ll stop printing, mailing, shipping and storing paper, you’ll also start to see time savings.

With DocuSign’s Electronic Signature:

• No more driving across town to a client for a signature
• No more following up because a line wasn’t signed or initialed
• No more difficult to read faxes
• Automatic reminder capabilities enabling you to set DocuSign to remind your clients to sign, so you don’t have to
• Workflow capabilities that mean you get the signatures you need in the order you need them, so you can set it and know DocuSign is taking care of the process for you

What else do you need to know to go paperless, especially in real estate? Let me know in the comments or write a post on your blog and leave me a pingback – I’ll take a look and leave a comment!

Several businesses, such as BuyATimeshare.com, have decided to go paperless. This decision has resulted in more environmentally sustainable, cost effective business practices that also streamline business processes. BuyATimeshare.com’s paperless office has also resulted in:

• Increased customer satisfaction
• Faster sales cycles
• Effective customer service
• Greater scale, with thousands more properties reaching the resale market than ever

What other businesses have “gone green”? Other real estate professionals have recognized the benefits of adopting paperless processes, including electronic signature and online contract execution.With more than 18,000 real estate professionals who have used DocuSign for electronic signature services, we’ve heard many testimonials of significant time savings as well.

According to BuyATimeshare.com:

DocuSign, which eliminates paper-based contracts, has tripled the speed of transactions, bringing properties to the resale market faster than ever.

BuyATimeshare.com now uses fewer than 20,000 sheets of paper each month since implementing their paperless business process. That’s one-fifth of the environmental impact that results in a positive impact on productivity.

Why bother with a scanner and data entry? With an electronic signature and online contract execution service like DocuSign, paper documents for signature never have to enter your office again.

You no longer need to type up a contract or disclosure, fill out the signer information, mark ‘x’s next to spaces for the necessary signatures and initials, fax the documents and wait. You can keep waiting while your signer gets the fax from the fax machine, reads the documents, signs and return faxes it back to you. Alternatively, your signer might set it aside on his or her desk, intending to get to it later and finally signing after you followed up half a dozen times.

Wouldn’t you prefer to just upload a document, fill out information about your signer(s), and have the DocuSign system send them an email with a secure link? Once your recipients click the link and the system authenticates them, they simply need to click to acknowledge that they are using electronic signature and adopt their own unique electronic signatures. Then, they read the documents and click to ESIGN where you’ve placed yellow stick-e-tabs. This process can take minutes instead of days. You’re now free to pursue more business.

Electronic signature and online contract execution saves DocuSign’s real estate customers significant time and money. Other organizations that have realized time and operational cost savings with the use of electronic signature and online contract execution include Yamaha, Great Lakes, RE / MAX, and Bellco Credit Union.

What technologies are you using to improve your productivity?

Brown paper packages, tied up with strings, these are a few of our favorite things… – Julie Andrews, The Sound of Music

When Julie Andrews sang about her favorite things in “The Sound of Music,” electronic signature and online contract execution technology did not exist. Now that it does, we love reading stories about how our subscribers (and our subscribers’ customers) love it. Recently, one of our DocuSign for real estate customers wrote about sending documents back and forth as part of a paperless, green strategy.

With all of the paperwork involved in real estate transactions, real estate professionals have had to send, fax or drive documents back and forth. This meant significant use of paper, ink, gas and time.

With DocuSign electronic signature  service, our subscribers have realized that going paperless can help them save significant time and operational costs. Because senders and signers only need email access and a web browser to move ahead with the transaction, it doesn’t matter where people are. They don’t need to be next to a fax machine, waiting for the fax to come through. They don’t need to spend their valuable time driving from one place to another to get the necessary signatures and initials. By minimizing driving, they’re using less gas, which is good for their wallets and the environment. Electronic signature on digital documents also preserves the quality of the information, so you don’t have to struggle to read a grainy fax.

ESignatures leading to time savings, NOW that is one of my favorite things!*

*bonus points for singing this line to the tune of “My Favorite Things”. Of course, electronic signature leads to time AND money savings, but the tune doesn’t match.