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Why is an e-signature so beneficial for real estate agencies? These benefits are worth knowing!

2022-09-13 | 4 min News

Contracts and documents are the basis of the functioning of real estate agencies. In order for them to become valid, they must be signed. And this is where several difficulties arise. Waiting for signatures, arranging meetings and laboriously searching for papers takes up a lot of time and often leads to unnecessary losses. How to effectively avoid these things? A modern electronic signature will help!

As a real estate agency, you probably work with different types of contracts. Whether it’s property reservations, purchase agreements, rental agreements, or consents to be included in a listing, all of these documents require signatures. On one side from you, on the other from your client. If you still rely on a paper format, you are unnecessarily complicating your life. How?

Disadvantages of paper documents in real estate agencies

Classic paper documents bring several disadvantages that you probably feel firsthand as well.

Higher operating costs

Printing documents costs something. You need to have your own printer, and even if you run a larger real estate agency, you probably need several of them right away. The same applies to copiers. Every day you likely print dozens or hundreds of documents, so toners run out quickly and the equipment also wears out.

When you add up all the costs associated with printing, you quickly realize that it costs you several hundreds, maybe even thousands of euros per year. Imagine if you didn’t have these expenses at all. You could use the saved money much more effectively.

Time-consuming

Not only the printing or scanning of documents itself takes a lot of time. You also have to account for organizing printed contracts and their laborious searching. In your offices you must have several binders in which you store individual documents. When you need to find a contract from 3 years ago, you may spend several minutes looking for it.

That doesn’t look bad at first glance, but when you add up all the time you spend during the day filing and searching for documents, in the end it can be more than 1 hour.

Lengthy closing of agreements

Maybe you know it too. You need to conclude a property reservation with a client, but they are busy with work. You call them several times, reschedule the meeting time, and coordinate it with your schedule. Such processes not only take up unnecessarily much time, but are annoying both for you and for clients.

People today are used to being able to handle most things via the internet, from the comfort of home. If they have to travel an hour across half the city for one signature to come to your office, it is unpleasant for them. Physical meetings for signatures unnecessarily prolong all processes and create the risk that the agreement will ultimately not take place.

Real estate agency and electronic signature

Electronic signing will save you as a real estate agency a lot of time, finances, and problems. Thanks to it, you can operate much more efficiently, close more deals, and your clients will be more satisfied. The question, however, is – how to sign a document electronically so that you gain all the benefits?

Qualified electronic signature

When an electronic signature of a document is mentioned, many people imagine a qualified electronic signature, which requires an ID card with a chip and a reader. It is a good solution, however, for real estate agencies it is unusable in many areas.

Through a qualified electronic signature, you can sign documents intended for state authorities – courts, the financial administration, or some offices. However, you cannot use it for online signing of documents for banks or the clients themselves. Its use in communication with the cadastral office is also limited.

OKdokument digital signature

If you are looking for a way to easily sign any electronic document online, without the need for an ID card or a reader, the answer is the OKdokument service. Thanks to our unique solution, online signing is fast, easy, and secure.

How to electronically sign a document via OKdokument?

How to activate an electronic signature and how to insert a signature into a PDF? When using the OKdokument service, it is really simple. Just register for free, upload documents in PDF format, sign them, and send them to your customers, business partners, or institutions. You will gain the following advantages.

1. High security

The OKdokument electronic signature is in accordance with the European Union rules for authentication and GDPR. Signature data is protected by encryption and the e-signature prevents changes to the text. There is therefore no risk that someone will falsify the data.

2. Simple signature request

When you have documents signed on your side, you can easily request a signature from the other party. For example, your client. So that they can also sign the document quickly and easily online, they do not need to create an account or download anything. It is enough for them to enter their e-mail. You can also add two-step verification via SMS to the signature request. This way you will be sure that the document is opened only by the right person.

3. Speed and efficiency

Thanks to the OKdokument service, you will have all your documents in online form, sorted into clear folders. You will find them within a few seconds. Obtaining signatures will no longer take you hours, but a few minutes. You don’t have to print anything or organize meetings with clients. Your real estate agency will thus suddenly operate much more efficiently, you will provide excellent comfort to your customers, and instead of labor-intensive activities you can rather devote yourself to developing your business.