Security

This week's posts will highlight some of the issues innate to the current real estate industry, and will explain the benefits of a more secure, efficient, and cost-savings solution with DotLoop. The issues will be addressed through the lens of online collaboration and will focus on three main areas of improvement within the real estate industry: security, efficiency, and overhead costs.

Today's post: Security

Cell phones, e-mail, electronic lock boxes, video conferences. The last twenty years have seen a tsunami of technological achievements that have helped bolster the real estate industry into the 21st century. Eighty-four percent of all home-buyers begin the transaction process online, viewing listing after listing on websites. More than 90% of real estate professionals use a cell phone to conduct their daily business. E-mail has swept the industry and now, even text messages are becoming commonplace.

For the most part, the real estate industry has been able to keep pace with the quickening rate of business, but there are still considerable gaps between the technology available and the processes implemented. By far the biggest hurdles have been the negotiation and transaction processes.

Many within the real estate industry are still struggling with decades-old storage and filing techniques. What should be a simple, automated process has been bogged down by manila folders with loose documents and vast wastelands of storage cabinets. Reams of paper are copied, faxed, and wasted each and every day. Some within the industry have taken to documenting their finished contracts using imaging companies, but even this wastes time and resources that could be better allocated growing the business or focusing on client needs.

Security breaches within this antiquated system have lead to wasteful lawsuits and wasted time. The market collapse of 2008 saw the revelation that some home-buyers did not even understand the forms that they were signing, leading to brokerages being sued by their own customers. This lack of collaboration between brokerages and clients has not only lead to a more unstable business model, but also helped create the current struggling market.

Security

Initialed changes to smudged contracts, illegible handwriting, over-faxed contracts, and lost documents not only waste time, but can create legal risks for companies and clients alike. One lost form can cost a company many hours of extra work at best and many dollars in legal costs at worst. Papers can easily get shuffled or lost and government regulations can leave organizations susceptible to potential legal ramifications or fines if proper tracking is not in place. With no concrete way to document and track changes to a contract or form, companies may lose important information or clients may dispute terms that at one time were agreed upon, but no longer available to see.

Such regulatory compliances and legal risks have motivated many industries to find better ways to organize their documents and information. Unfortunately, the real estate industry has not been quick to adapt to these new processes.

The DotLoop Solution

Using The DotLoop System, every adjustment can be tracked and time-stamped, creating one seamless document. Each field has its own history attached to it, allowing users to see what changes were made, who made them, and at what date and time, leaving a fail-safe audit trail for both you and your client. This level trackability has never been so ubiquitous or so easy to understand. Our entire system is backed up multiple times a day in multiple locations, with built-in redundancy, so you can rest easily knowing that your documents are safe and secure. DotLoop’s e-sign technology has been proven to be more secure than traditional signatures, and is even mandated by some sectors of the Federal Government.

DotLoop—A Fully-Integrated Online Solution

The DotLoop System was designed specifically to overcome the challenges of the traditional real estate negotiation process. DotLoop marries the technology with the traditional, creating a collaborative online environment that uses the Internet as a tool agents can use to connect with their clients, saving them time and money. DotLoop allows the agent and client the ability to interact on their own terms, dissolving distance and sending fax machines further into obsolescence.

More than just a forms software, DotLoop is a fully-integrated, wholly web-based negotiation platform allows users to create, adjust, approve, and sign documents and contracts in one seamless, online environment. DotLoop offers a comprehensive solution to the challenges of security, efficiency, and overhead costs in today’s real estate industry, creating a 21st century solution for 21st century challenges.

Get in the Loop

To learn more about how The DotLoop System can enhance your business, please contact us at sales@dotloop.com or go to dotloop.com.