PRESS RELEASE: HOUSTON (May 14, 2012) PropertyInfo Corporation®, a Stewart company, announced today the successful adoption by Heritage Texas Properties of the Electronic Transaction Solution (HAR-ETS), powered by SureClose, to go paperless. Available only since January, Houston Association of REALTORS®’s HAR-ETS has already increased efficiencies for many of the organization’s 24,000 real estate professionals and their clients, and has enabled companies such as Heritage Texas Properties to remove paper from the closing process.
“Heritage Texas Properties is committed to providing our customers with the most efficient and economical solutions available, and HAR’s Electronic Transaction Solution powered by SureClose has enabled us to vastly increase our service levels quickly within the first few months,” said Bill Jones, senior vice president of Heritage Texas Properties. “The 24/7 access to our transaction files, and the convenience of accessing them through mobile devices, have resulted in improved efficiencies that enable us to better serve our customers.”
After coming across this press release, WAV Group decided to look a little deeper into HAR-ETS, and found that agent and brokers love the efficiency and the mobile-friendly features the tool has to offer. Many of HAR’s 24,000 real estate professionals have already adopted the technology to streamline the closing process paper-free. And because HAR purchased the tool and offers it to its members as a benefit, even smaller brokerages, which may have been interested in going paper-free but could not afford the tool previously, now have access to it and use it to enhance the efficiency of their transactions.
What makes the technology so valuable is not just that it reflects the current societal and environmental push for “green” technologies by eliminating the reliance on endless reams of paper whose fate it is to ultimately live out its life in over packed files destined for the shredder-but also the fact that via HAR-ETS, transaction documents can be viewed anytime, anyplace from your handheld device or tablet.
Additionally, the tool is easily customized to fit the needs of each individual brokerage. Information is managed by brokerage staff which frees agents up to do what they do best-sell houses. It is no wonder that shortly after adoption of HAR-ETS, Heritage Texas Properties is expanding its use of the tool to include interacting with title companies, inspectors, and homebuyers and sellers.
Greenwood King Properties, another HAR member Brokerage with three offices and 150 agents, and an early adopter of the technology, has already begun to use HAR-ETS for these ends. Lorraine Abercrombie of Greenwood King Properties tells WAV Group that the key element that makes HAR-ETS such a game-changer is how “it ties all of the parties involved in one transaction together so the agent always has access to telephone numbers and email addresses in one folder.” A folder that is always available on your smartphone.
“Agents absolutely love it!” she says. “It is environmentally friendly, yes, and it keeps us from having to store files for seven years at our facilities.” she says. All three of Greenwood King Properties offices plan on being totally paperless by 2013.
Abercrombie also hails the ease of adoption among agents. “When we show our agents the benefits of having all of your transaction documents just one click away,” Abercrombie says, “they love it because it means they can show a house on a Sunday and never have to say ‘wait until I return to the office on Monday and I will get you that document.’ Now they can just email it in 15 seconds.”
“Its amazing,” she concludes.
Disclosure: HAR is a client of WAV Group
