real estate dementia

don’t get me wrong.  i’m all for the national association of realtors green initiatives.  education, designations, resources on their website, pr and advertising campaigns.  let’s face it – they’ve got it goin’ on when it comes to heightening environmental consciousness.

but when you’re closing transactions that require 6 pounds of paper to fulfill every party’s legal and business requirements in order to make the file “complete,” doesn’t it seem like we’re missing something?  the focus to this point in nar’s green programs has been primarily on green building, sustainable living, energy-saving appliances and reducing the carbon footprint of buyer, seller and realtor (don’t drive buyers all over town without qualifying properties).  it would seem to me that we should be highlighting the tremendous waste and inefficiency of our transactions first, reducing the number of trees we grind into pulp from three to less than one for the paperwork required for each closing.

how far does this go?

i used to teach classes to realtors in california on how to work with first time home buyers.  one of the early sections of the course dealt with the angst first time purchasers felt with the process and the paperwork.  to illustrate how daunting it seemed to the uninitiated, i taped, end-to-end, each of the required documents (only those required to write the purchase contract with the realtor, not the required documents from title, lender, etc.), and unrolled the result down the center of the classroom.  it unfurled about 25 feet.

it was a great learning tool to illustrate the number of documents required to initiate the purchase.  it didn’t take into account the fact that these forms were produced in triplicate (if not more!), and didn’t address how many of these documents would be faxed and copied for distribution to other parties, increasing the amount of paper needed to ensure a successful (closed) transaction.  looking back, i think if i would’ve added the lender’s docs and title company’s forms to that roll, i would’ve had a paper trail that would’ve encircled the building!  now that would’ve scared some first time buyers, and it likely would’ve caused some of those newly licensed realtors to reconsider their new vocation.

in a recent transaction, i had to print each document out in hard copy, fax it into the transaction management system provided by my office (does anyone else think this is wrong?), then forward it on to the listing agent.  she in turn emailed a copy to her client, who then had to print it out, sign it, scan it and return it to her agent.  the listing agent would then forward back to me, and both of us would print the document out and place it in a file folder.  if you lost count, that’s four documents reproduced from one.  multiply that by several necessary forms, many with multiple pages, and you can see how a transaction file can go from a thin folder to the size of the denver phone book in short order.

now, to be fair, shame on us for being enablers.  but when it’s acceptable practice, and the offices, agents, title companies and lenders are not equipped to perform in the digital age, the transaction will flow like water – taking the path of least resistance.  in this case, pulping three trees into paper.

a novel concept

why not implement some new ideas that might get us moving more quickly into a more environmentally friendly transaction?  borrowing a page from the compliance market, let’s implement a similar program to the carbon offset approach, in which companies (and now individuals in the voluntary market) can mitigate their own greenhouse gas emissions by purchasing offsets.  it’s kind of like, “i know i’m going to be bad, so let me pay for being bad.”  not that we’ll change our “bad” behavior, but we’ll have our penance.  and salvage our conscience.

an even easier plan would be to provide a disincentive for paper use to all parties involved in a transaction.  for every pound of paper produced, the closing company will assess each of the offending parties for their overindulgence in paper.  realtor – three pounds of paperwork will cost you $300.  title company – your hit is $600.  problem solved.

now we’ll have to get the state’s department of weights and measurements involved.  i smell a new tax.  crazy.

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brokerage, brokerage management, environmental, green, real estate, realtor, sales, sustainability, transaction