DocuSign Speeds Up Real Estate, Mortgage, Home Building Industries

DocuSign Speeds Up Real Estate, Mortgage, Home Building Industries; New, In-Person Signing Feature Adds to Growing Appeal, Convenience of DocuSign’s Leading Online Signing Service

July 27, 2005–DocuSign, the leading online signing service, today demonstrated its new, In-Person Signing feature at Real Estate Connect San Francisco, the premier event for real estate, technology and innovation. This new service makes it even easier to complete all facets of real estate transactions electronically — from start to finish — saving time and lowering costs.

Real estate agents and brokers, mortgage brokers and financial institutions, and new home builders are turning to DocuSign. Rather than rely on printers, mail, faxes, overnight mail or personal delivery to obtain signatures, a growing number in the industry are using the power of the web to connect instantly with their clients.

“Before DocuSign, it would take seven to ten days to receive completed applications. Now we can get them in a day or even in a few minutes,” said Howard D. Myers, president of Financial Center West (http://www.fcwest.com), a Santa Ana, Calif.-based mortgage broker. “Our clients like the easy format of DocuSign’s click, sign and send. Some of our clients have even asked us for DocuSign contact information so they may use the service in their own business.”

In-Person Signing makes it possible for agents and brokers to maintain the personal touch with clients, even though documents are completed electronically through the DocuSign service. Instead of paper and pen, final documents are presented for signing on a computer screen or laptop with all parties present.

Signers simply drag their electronic signature, created within DocuSign, to the appropriate location while the agent moderates the signing process as each document is completed. In-Person Signing, like DocuSign’s other signature service options, is completely legal and provides a full audit trail for each document and signature.

Leading new home builder Quadrant Homes (http://www.quadranthomes.com) is rolling out the In-Person Signing feature of DocuSign for closing new home purchases. This will eliminate the need to print out purchase agreement documents and fax them from building sites to the home office in Bellevue, Wash. The move to online signing means that home purchases will close faster, agents will get paid quicker and administrative costs and errors will be reduced.

“Given the pace of new home construction in the Northwest, we need to be as automated and efficient as possible,” said William Boucher, vice president, Communications for Quadrant. “Almost everything we do is on the computer except when it comes time to sign documents, and then we go back 10 years. Online signing will reduce our dependency on inefficient paper-based processes. The industry is moving in this direction, and we believe it is important to stay ahead of the curve.”

ZipFormEsign Service Takes Off

Since its introduction last year, the ZipFormEsign service, based on DocuSign, has seen rapid adoption among real estate agents as a natural extension to ZipFormOnline and ZipFormDesktop.

Real estate agents say that Esign is easy to use because it requires no special software, no up-front costs, no installation and no specialized training. And, because a final sign-off will not be accepted unless all signature locations are complete, Esign completely eliminates the costly problem of incomplete or inconsistent documents that have to be returned for signatures more than once.

“I use ZipForm and DocuSign extensively to quickly and accurately get offers and other contracts signed,” said Cynthia Paine-Drennan, a top-performing agent with Prudential Texas Properties Park Cities (http://www.prurealty.com/cynthia). “It saves me so much time, especially when I am working with out-of-town investors. Now I can work with more customers at the same time and provide better service. Customers like that we’re using new technology to everyone’s advantage.”

Innovator Award Finalist

At the Real Estate Connect event, DocuSign will be on center stage as one of the finalists for the 2005 Inman Innovator Awards that acknowledge companies that bring technology and innovation to improve real estate transactions for agents and their clients. The award winners will be announced at the event this evening.

About ZipForm

ZipForm’s family of tech-savvy products has become the recognized industry standard for electronic real estate forms and is currently used by more real estate professionals than any other real estate software program. RE FormsNet, the creator of ZipForm, is a REALTOR VIP(R) partner and the Official Forms Software of the National Association of REALTORS(R). ZipForm is available to more than 860,000 REALTOR(R) members in the U.S. For more information on ZipForm’s solutions for today’s real estate industry, contact John Mathers, jmathers@zipform.com, or visit ZipForm’s web site at www.zipform.com.

About DocuSign

Founded in January 2003, DocuSign (http://www.docusign.com) is now the world’s leading and most trusted online signing service. DocuSign’s customers represent industry leading companies in real estate, mortgage, leasing, manufacturing, technology and communications. Named by Gartner, Inc. as a Cool Vendor to watch in 2005, DocuSign is a privately held company based in Seattle, Washington.