Going paperless…seems kind of like nirvana doesn’t it?

Haven’t we been talking about paperless for years now?

Less Paper = More Trees

But I’m still complaining about my astronomical copier bill and my paper bill and my storage room bill for all my old files.  Not only do I want to save money, but I’d like to save some trees too.  At CloseTrak, we do recycle and we try to be “green” where we can.  I can handle that we don’t have flying cars yet, or even that we can’t transport people like they do on Star Trek – but we really should be able to do real estate closings without paper.

I went back to school in 2000 and earned a degree in Electronic Commerce.  The Internet was still a pup back then, it was a novel thing to buy a back from a website.  As one of my class projects, I wrote about electronic signatures – the federal legislation had already been passed at that time – so it was only a matter of time before we all just signed those electronic pads like we do for credit cards and whammo – the closing is done.  I guess in hindsight maybe that’s a good thing – can you imagine how much worse the subprime debacle would’ve been if people could have signed documents electronically?  That would have added a lot of velocity to an already out of control process.  Whew.

Well, it’s 2011 and to my knowledge, we won’t be doing any paperless closings this year.  One big hurdle is a county register in Tennessee cannot legally record a document that has been signed electronically.  At least in Mississippi, they are trying to pass legislation to allow electronic signatures (bill, SB 2149, introduced by Sen. Joey Fillingane, R-Sumrall).

Nonetheless, even though we can’t do a paperless closing yet, that has not stopped us at CloseTrak from trying to use less paper.

Many thanks to the CloseTrak staff on that front, because over the years we have tried every new whiz bang paperless solution that came along.  We have kissed a lot of frogs that turned out to be toads.  But, alas, we think we finally have a solution – Dropbox.  I have been using it personally for about a year and I love it.  No longer do I have to carry paper files home, or a jump drive, or remote into my work computer to access a document.  I pretty much have access to all of my documents on my iPhone.

Dropbox does not tout itself as a paperless solution, but rather a cloud storage solution that allows you to share digital files easily and keep your computers in sync.  Since we get most documents in a digital format, we forgo printing them and instead we just store them on Dropbox and they’re instantly available to the entire office.  It serves as our digital filing cabinet.  And a unique feature about Dropbox (vs. some other online storage solutions) is that you can still have access to your documents even without internet access.  It stores them on your local machine as well as in the cloud.  Awesome.

If you are trying to use less paper in your work, I recommend Dropbox – come on by anytime if you have any questions on how to use it, but the website has some great tutorials on it.  And if you want to sign up for your free account – you can follow this link and CloseTrak gets a couple extra megs of storage.

There is a new MLS coming to serve the Memphis real estate community.

Before I begin, let me preface this so you know where I am coming from – I think all businesses should have some competition (I can think of a few local monopolies that I wish had some competition). I think competition is generally good for the population that those businesses are competing to serve.

When I first heard about this new board and MLS, my initial reaction was to wonder if there was some discontent among the membership at the Memphis Area Association of Realtors (“MAAR”). Were the members not being served appropriately? What was going on?

Far from being a scientific poll, I queried some realtors (<10) about MAAR,

• was a mutiny afoot?
• did you know about this new MLS?
• are you happy with MAAR?
• what would you change?

By and large, everyone I spoke to was pleased with MAAR and their only wish was for lower dues.  If there was an area for improvement, some suggested more interaction with the north Shelby, Tipton county area and more web based training.

This new MLS will be interesting, I can’t wait to see how it plays out.

If you have an opinion, I’d love to hear it, please comment.

The enabling legislation giving legal weight to electronic signatures has been around for about a decade. It was about the time I went out on my own as a real estate closing attorney. I, and many others, thought it would revolutionize the real estate industry. Ha.

We have done a few electronic real estate closings but they weren’t 100% as many county register’s still require wet ink signatures to be recorded. Ironically though, they will allow you to electronically (or as Greg prefers, “electrically”) record those wet ink signed documents.

One area where I see immediate benefit is in listing agreements and contracts. The specter of buyer’s remorse will sometimes force agents to leave their home at 8:00 at night and drive across town to get a contract ratified. Instead, now you can just email it to them, they electronically sign – bam – bound contract. Or, have you ever had your broker hold up disbursing you commission because you didn’t get a certain disclosure form signed?

Here’s a quick video using Echosign. If you have any ideas or stories how electronic signatures can help you in your business, please leave them in the comments. Thanks.

This would’ve been nice to know yesterday as were working overtime last night to get some deals closed.  But for those of you who got sidetracked or delayed on a short sale or just hung up in underwriting or whatever – you’ve gotten a reprieve.  The House and Senate have passed it, now just need the President’s signature.  Here is a link to an article from the Wall Street Journal.

Ok, it’s official – HUD has issued an interpretive ruling stating that the fee paid to real estate agents who refer warranty business is a RESPA violation.  Here is the actual respa ruling.

So, will the warranty companies cease paying these or rely on the agents to not accept them?  For a RESPA violation – both the payor and payee are liable.  I’d suggest being on the safe side and that you not accept any referral fees from warranty companies – beginning immediately.

According to an article on Inman News (I didn’t link to it because it only stays up for a few hours before they make you pay to read it) federal regulators will issue an interpretive rule on Friday June 25 outlining it’s position that it is unlawful for real estate agents and their brokers to receive fees for referring business to home warranty companies.

From the article,

“…HUD said home warranty companies may only compensate real estate agents and brokers for services not related to marketing, such as conducting inspections of items to be covered by a warranty, and recording serial numbers of items to be covered.

Marketing performed by a real estate broker or agent on behalf of a home warranty company to sell a warranty to a particular homebuyer or seller is a “referral” to a settlement service provider, violating RESPA’s anti-kickback provisions, HUD said.”

I was always puzzled as to how the warranty companies were able to circumvent RESPA on the payment of their fees – I just assumed they had some kind of “genius” language in their marketing agreements.  The fees were probably necessary in the early days of home warranties, but now they seem so commonplace that I doubt the referral fees influence the decision of whether or not a warranty is negotiated in a real estate contract.

Nonetheless, it is sure to have some negative impact on the sale of home warranties, but on balance, I think the warranties will save a lot of referral fees.  I wonder what they will do will all that extra money – reduce the price?, expand coverage? do more marketing?

-Marc

Note that the headline says Closing deadline.  In order for you to qualify for the tax credit you were to have had a contract executed on or before April 30.  Of course, I’m sure there will be some backdating of contracts going on – and that was one of the arguments extending the closing deadline.

But the impetus for extending the deadline, according to one of the sponsors of the amendment, Sen. Harry Reid D-Nev, is the nation’s lenders have a backlog of 180,000 loans in process trying to close by the end of the month.

Here is the bill HR 4213 if you’d like to read the details.

I’m wondering if this is just throwing another bone to the big lenders our government seems so anxious to please.  When I talk to our local lenders in our little bailiwick – nobody seems to be complaining of working too much overtime, or being overly busy.

Update June 23 – I called one of NARs representatives in Washington and she said that the extension has not been finalized yet.