The move to paperless operations is inevitable. There are many disadvantages of using paper contracts and addenda, it often doesn’t seem worth the trouble. So why do so many pre-construction real estate sales teams still print, sign, scan, fax and mail paper contracts? The most common answer is that it can seem comfortable to maintain a process that has worked for so long, even an outdated and costly one. Regardless of industry, every business should strive for a paperless office. And there are many companies that offer digital solutions for paper-heavy processes, such as Avesdo for new construction real estate.
The average real estate team will spend between $500-2000 in printing per project. That’s a lot of money to budget towards a process that doesn’t benefit your team or your bottom line. Not to mention the adverse effect constant paper use has on the environment. However, developers should recognize that shrinking their carbon footprint isn’t the only benefit of switching to a digital contract system.
Manage your documents more effectively
Digitizing and centralizing your deal-related documents will make your team run more efficiently. Every new construction real estate transaction requires several document types including agreements of purchase and sale, insurance forms, change orders, various addenda and more. It’s important to house all of this documentation in one place and make it accessible to your entire team. This is especially important in new construction sales where the contract lifecycle can last for many months. Having to track down a single page document several months after it has been processed is a hassle and frankly irresponsible for your business. Reporting and auditing become much simpler with a central document repository, while also making the lives of your sales team and clients that much easier.
Another upside to an effective document management system is that it is easy to align your entire company and conduct business in real time. Once a contract has been signed and verified, your available inventory and the prices of your homes should reflect those changes. It’s another way of maintaining complete control of your internal systems and full visibility of sales efforts.
Reduction of overhead costs
There are high costs to storing, copying and sending paper documents and many real estate developers consider them necessary expenses for every project. That’s not actually the case, but since that’s the way many developers have operated previously it becomes difficult to accept that there are simpler, more affordable options. As stated earlier, printing contracts alone can cost developers $2000 per project. A new construction real estate deal can include upwards of 100 pages of documents, all of which need to be signed, sent and stored. That’s a lot of extra administrative work, meaning more employee wages, cost of storage and more associated costs to just manage your documents. These can all be eliminated, or at least seriously reduced, by digitizing and automating your contract management.
Automation can also save a lot of time in the deal process. Don’t lose precious days or weeks on a deal because a potential buyer has yet to come back into the sales centre to sign a contract. Digitizing your documents gives you the ability to automatically follow-up with your clients to sign contracts electronically. This shortens the deal timeline and encourages potential buyers to take action on your inventory.
“No more printing thousands of pages, and photocopying several copies of the same thing. Every party can communicate paperlessly, keep digital records of their documents, and save tons of time and money.“
Chris Ba
VP of Marketing & Sales, Belford Properties
Enhanced security and certainty
A real estate developer can execute contracts for hundreds of homes within the span of a couple months. That’s a lot of important paperwork tied to deals worth millions of dollars. Maintaining secure copies of those contracts is critical for developers. Digitizing your paper contracts in a secure, cloud-based system can give you and your team peace of mind. It’s a much safer option than a filing cabinet. Potentially even more important is the certainty that you’ll have knowing your contracts are safe and accessible from anywhere in the world. Several users can access documents simultaneously meaning anyone who needs access can get access. This is especially important in a time when many sales centres are closed and buyers aren’t leaving their homes. All paperwork can be executed and deals can move forward completely remotely. Developers can be certain that nothing is being missed, and that buyers are getting the best experience possible.
Speaking of certainty, another major benefit of a document and contract management platform like Avesdo is the system of checks that ensure no mistakes are made during the sales process. For example, missing a signature on a 45 page contract and your administrator not realizing until several weeks later. These things happen, but an automated system gives sales teams the confidence that the contract is being executed properly the first time.
Don’t be afraid of change
It’s easy to keep going back to the same processes because they’re comfortable and have worked in the past. But operating your new construction real estate sales with paper documents and manual processes is risky and wasteful. Don’t disregard the benefits of a paperless deal management platform just because the way you’ve been doing things has been good enough. Avesdo’s software has helped many developers go paperless, saving them time and money on every deal. If you want to learn more about how our contract management works, you might like this recent post.
If you’d like to see Avesdo’s Deal Management platform in action, talk to our team today.
