CFPB Suggests The Real Estate Industry is Ripe e-Closings

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Announces New Pilot Program for Consumer-Friendly Real Estate/Mortgage Electronic Closings

Not sure if you caught any of the buzz this week, but the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has announced a new pilot program that is seeking partners to provide a more consumer-friendly real estate/mortgage electronic closing experience. Guess we can’t make the claim, but for all intents and purposes, we have been in an e-Closing pilot for nearly 2 decades. As a licensed bi-coastal REALTOR, the only thing that seemed to matter was to ‘close the deal,’ with the least amount of friction-so I would get paid my much earned ‘battle fee’ and my clients could move on with their life in their new dream home.

Evolution of Electronic Closings: From Antiquated Sit-Down Closings to Virtual Closings

Back East in the late 80’s, we took our initial stab at improving the antiquated ‘sit-down’ closing experience/nightmare. Running into an entrenched status quo, we needed to change course, our first pivot. Moving on to the West Coast in the 90’s, and with the Internet coming into its own, we could envision a clear path to electronic closings by connecting all parties, documents and vendors over the internet and performing virtual closings anytime and from anywhere.

Entrepreneurial Journey: Overcoming Challenges to Revolutionize the Closing Experience

As an entrepreneur, I had my share of the typical roller coaster ride of a start-up. Most ideas just don’t pan out, but this proposition just made too much sense to give up on.  We kept asking ourselves why would anyone NOT prefer to do it our way?  Why would they want to drive to some out-of-the way location at a most inconvenient time or be tethered to paper, fax machines, scanners or expensive overnight courier services? Just didn’t make sense.

What was a simple idea, has turned into a life’s journey. I won’t bore you with the extensive eco system challenges and resentments we have faced but, as the CFPB believes, “There may be opportunities to leverage technology to solve some of the issues that cause frustrations for both consumers and professionals in the mortgage closing process.”

NotaryCam: Transforming the Real Estate Closing Process with E-Closings

Finally! And we couldn’t agree more! Our second pivot came in 2012, NotaryCam. With thousands of satisfied consumer transactions and a 18-month Industry wide pilot including all stakeholders, the consumer now receives the ultimate convenience and speed of a complete e-Closing with the benefit of our professional e-certified notaries and the NotaryCam virtual solution.We are excited to see where we go next now that the CFPB has shown such an keen interest.  Keep posted for further updates.