From an article today in the NY Times:
Next on the technological horizon is electronic transaction management, a service that allows brokers and buyers to track and complete a sale electronically, from the moment a contract is signed until the deal’s closing. A broker essentially creates a Web site where all the parties involved in a sale — from the appraiser and surveyor to the termite inspector and lawyers for every party — can file their reports. So instead of having to send legal documents back and forth, buyers and sellers can scan their information and post it on the Web site.
The posted documents include the purchase agreement, disclosure forms, appraisals and inspection reports. Companies that provide the transaction service use a variety of security measures to make sure the information remains confidential.
Buyers and sellers would still have to schedule a closing to sign all the documents, but that could happen just a few days after an offer was accepted, not weeks later.
Mr. Lesswing said only a few hundred out of more than 20,000 real estate agencies across the country now use an electronic transaction system. “It’s really a consumer convenience, but there’s still huge reluctance on the part of consumers to putting their personal information online,” he said.
“But the reluctance is very generational,” he added. “The younger generation of people who were raised on computers would use it in an instant, and a lot of them are just about getting old enough to become home buyers.”
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