Collaboration Key to Bringing Convenience, Transparency and Flexibility to Real Estate Transactions

Editor’s Note: This was originally published on RISMedia’s blog, Housecall. See what else is cookin’ now at blog.rismedia.com:

According to Georg Gerstenfeld, vice president and general manager of DocuSign’s Global Real Estate Solutions Group, everybody has their own DocuSign story. A leader in eSignature and workflow management, DocuSign’s Onboarding Success Manager Alex Faulkner and Justin Engelland—senior director of Industry & Segment Marketing, Real Estate—joined Gerstenfeld and moderator Cleve Gaddis, of Gaddis Partners, RE/MAX Center, during the latest installment of RISMedia’s ACE Webinar Series, “DocuSign’s Transaction Rooms: Product Showcase.”

Sponsored by DocuSign, the webinar provided attendees a closer look at the company’s Lead to Close strategy, designed to make real estate transactions completely digital from the moment a lead is generated to the moment the deed is recorded.

“As much as we think we’ve transformed the transaction with DocuSign, the fundamental transaction is still unchanged,” explained Gerstenfeld, who noted that it’s not about replacing the agent, but rather, providing automated systems/processes to work for them.

With 3 million real estate transactions performed annually through the DocuSign platform and more than 200 million users taking advantage of the product globally—signing in 188 different countries around the world—it’s clear to see that the digital transformation is alive and well.

In fact, a recent study conducted by DocuSign shows just how beneficial the transformation has been across a variety of key metrics when looking at companies that have undergone a digital transformation. In addition to slashing the average amount of time it takes to complete a transaction (from eight days to less than half a day), the cost per transaction is also shown to drop dramatically.

And as the real estate industry continues to transform, DocuSign is focused on maintaining a position of relevancy both within the company and among the real estate professionals it serves.

“We all hate change, but we hate being irrelevant even more,” said Gerstenfeld, “so it’s important for us to think about how we adopt what we do to stay relevant.”

To that end, DocuSign’s Transaction Rooms—a digital transaction management platform—allows brokers and agents to retain ownership, control and compliance of their data while streamlining the transaction process for their clients.

“What we want to do is bring everyone together in a collaborative environment where they can pass documents and data back and forth in a fashion that’s faster and easier for everyone,” said Gerstenfeld.

“We’re looking at simplifying the end-to-end real estate transaction workflow,” added Faulkner, who walked webinar attendees through the ins and outs of the lead-to-close transaction management system. “The ultimate goal is to be able to host everything around the transaction in one central location, where information can be brought in from outside and pushed to other systems.”

“There’s a lot of complexity and a lot of paperwork involved in the different steps of a real estate transaction,” said Engelland, who wrapped up the webinar by underscoring the importance of tailoring DocuSign’s Transaction Rooms to your own specific needs. “The key is making it easy for agents to use and adopt by configuring the platform to work the way your brokerage already manages transactions.”

Learn more from the webinar in the recording below: