Working with Electronic Documents

Any real estate transaction involves lots of papers: contracts, disclosures, and marketing materials. In some parts of the country, a disclosure package can run a couple hundred pages. Multiply that by every interested buyer, and you're talking about lots of paper. Add the effort it takes to deliver these documentsby fax, by mail or courier service, or by driving some where to personally deliver themand you're talking about a major investment of agent effort.

The number of pages in contracts and disclosures will not godownin fact, they'll continue to rise as lawyers add more and more clauses meant to protect clients. But you can reduce the amount of paper you use in a transaction.

How? By using electronic documents when possible. Electronic documents are on screen versions of paper documents. They can reduce paper usage and increase communications convenience.

Every agent knows that only a small percentage of people who look at a property will make an offer. And for those who ask for a disclosure package, signifying some real interest in the property, less than half typically will actually make an offer in many markets. By making the disclosures available as an electronic document, you can easily distribute the disclosures to all interested parties without the hassle of making and distributing paper copies. Prospective buyers and their agents can go through the disclosures on their computers, printing them out only if they want to make an offer (since at that point they'll need to sign or initial the disclosures). As you can see, the use of PDF files helps both listing and buyers' agents.

Electronic versions of documents also help in record keeping. While you still need paper copies in your files in case of later dispute, you can save electronic copies on a CD that's readily accessible in case you later need to review the documents. Only when you need the archived paper copies do you have to go through the file cabinets in the basement or wherever they are stored.

And electronic documents are a great way to send flyers, MLS information, and so forth to your clients via e-mail or Web links, so they can quickly get the information and review it at their convenience. Electronic documents speed up communication and reduce the time and expense of paper delivery.

Crossing The Line Into Fakery

Do not use color balance or any image-editing technique to fake a photo. That's unethical and could constitute fraud. For example, covering up damage by "repainting" a wall digitally is fakery.

However, some changes fall into a gray zone. For example, cropping out a damaged shed or ugly neighbor's house might be OK for the seller's agent who's showing a few pictures to put the property in its best light. After all, any buyer would be expected to see the property in person and thus see everything. But if you're the agent for an out-of-area buyer, you should be sure the photos you provide show both good and bad aspects of the property, so the client has a fair sense of the overall condition.

And, along these lines, don't change the color of walls and so forth unless you're specifically showing your client how she might repaint the property to give her ideasthat way it's clear you're not showing the real color.

CD Resource: For real estate contract forms, links to Realforms, TrueForms, and Winforms/Zipforms.

Creating Electronic Documents

OK, so how do you get these electronic documents? The answer is a technology called Portable Document Format (PDF) that works on both Windows and Macintosh computers. The software to read these filescalled Adobe Readeris free and easily downloaded, so it's easy for other agents and clients to deal with these files. (Most Web browsers come with a version of Reader already installed so anyone can open PDF files directly from Web pages.)

To create these documents, you'll need one of two things:

• Software that converts documentsboth scanned in and created on your computerto the PDF format. Examples include Adobe's Acrobat Professional, which lets you create PDF files from other applications and convert scanned-in pages; Docudesk's Desk PDF, which lets you create PDF files from other applications; and ScanSoft's PaperPort, which lets you convert scanned-in pages. To create PDF documents from other programs (such as Microsoft Word or PowerPoint), you typically see a "printer" named something like "PDF" in your printer list. You "print" a document to this "printer" to create a PDF file. If you install a program like Adobe's Acrobat Professional on your computer, you may also see an option in programs like Word to create PDF files directly; in that case, you can use that tool or the virtual-printer method previously described. (Note that Mac OS X has built in the ability to createbut not annotate or editPDF files by means of a Save As PDF button in applications' Print dialogs.)

  Adobe Acrobat Professional lets you create PDF files from scanned-in documents, as well as from the programs you use on your computer.

  

  Converting a document on your computer to PDF typically involves "printing" the document to a virtual "printer" with a name like Adobe PDF or PDX-Xchange, which creates a file.

  

• An account with a service that converts documents you fax to the service into PDF documents that are then e-mailed back to you. Providers include Data on Call, Innoport, and MongoNet. These services often charge per page in addition to a monthly fee, so they're best used as a backup conversion method.

  The MongoFax service lets you fax documents to MongoNet's computers, which convert them to PDF files and e-mail them to whomever you want. This special cover page lets the service know where to send the converted fax.

  

CD Resource: For PDF creation software, links to Adobe, Docudesk, and ScanSoft. For fax-to-PDF services,links to Data on Call, Innoport, and MongoNet.

Checklist What You Need for Electronic Documents

Agents should have the following tools to work with electronic documents:

• To read and print PDF files,the free Adobe Reader. (Most browsers come with a version of Reader that lets you open PDF files from links on Web pages, but the full Reader application works with files on your computer as well.) Your clients will definitely need Acrobat Reader, so be sure to include the link (www.adobe.com/reader) the first time you send them a PDF file, with a note recommending they download the free software.

• To create, annotate, and edit PDF files, Adobe's Acrobat Professional or both ScanSoft's PaperPort and Docudesk's DeskPDF programs.

• If your local Realtors Association supports it, forms software or Web-based forms for filling out contracts, such as Realforms and Winforms/Zipforms. Also, TrueForms offers PDF-based forms for several states. Not only are the contracts legible, but you can save them as PDF files to show your clients for review before you meet to discuss and sign them.

Annotating and Editing Electronic Documents

You'll likely also want a program that lets you annotate or do minor editing of your PDF documents, which both Acrobat Professional and DeskPDF allow. For example, you might want to explain certain terms in a contract or disclosure using the electronic equivalent of a sticky note.

Or you might want to make slight adjustments to PDF marketing materialssuch as fixing typos or removing lockbox codes from an MLS-generated flyer (this typically happens because the other agent entered agent-only information such as lockbox codes in the public marketing section of the listing). I use this ability to add the phrase "buyer's agent" after my name in flyers that I generate from my office's MLS listings and post on my Web site, so there's no confusion as to whether I am the listing agent for those properties.

Annotating electronic documents with comments can help clients understand disclosures and contracts more easily. You can also use such annotations to mark where they need to sign or initial pages.

However, you can't make significant changes to PDF files, such as moving text or images around. And text editing is limited to individual lines, not entire blocks of text. If you need to make major changes to a PDF file,you must make changes to the original document using whatever software created it. Think of PDFs as paper documents with set content for which you can only add comments or make small changes visible to your clients.

PDF editing tools also let you make minor changes to text, such as adding the phrase "buyer's agent" here.

While editing is limited, you can insert and delete pages from a PDF file, letting you, for example, merge several documents into one file or delete unnecessary pages.

Distributing Electronic Documents

While it's usually easy to distribute electronic documents via e-mail and Web links, there are some technology issues to keep in mind.

Using a file transfer program, I'm uploading several PDF files to a folder on my Web site so a client can download them at her convenience.

Keeping File Sizes Manageable

The file size of electronic documentswhether PDF files, Word files, PowerPoint files, or anything else that your client or business partners can work withcan easily get big. Large files are slow to send via e-mail, especially if your recipient has dial-up access. And many e-mail servers will not permit messages over a certain sizeusually around 6 MBbe transmitted.

As you and others make comments, and add and delete pages, the file size grows. So be sure to use the Reduce File Size option in programs like Adobe Acrobat Professional to minimize the PDF file's size. (Think of each change as a layer that gets added to the file. The Reduce File Size option essentially creates a new PDF file,streamlining the data by merging those layers into one.)

Still, the Reduce File Size option can do only so much. If the files are still too big, try breaking your PDF file into several smaller files by exporting sets of pages to a new document and deleting them from the original. You would then send each smaller file in a separate e-mail, so you don't trigger the e-mail server's message size limit. But that makes more complexity for you and the recipient. Therefore, it might be better to leave a large file intact and make it available on your Web site as a link the recipient can download from a high-speed connectionavoiding the e-mail limits altogether.

Managing Files on the Web Server

To provide links you must have your own Web site and the ability to place files onto the server hosting it. (See Chapter 1, "The Right Office Tools" for more details.) I recommend you create a folder on the Web server to contain these files. You could create one folder called files for all clients or create a folder for each client, depending on how you prefer to manage your files. Be sure to not use spaces in the folder or filenames; names with spaces confuse some Web browsers. Also, avoid capitalizing folder names, since some browsers won't recognize the folder name ifthe user enters it in lowercase, which most people will do when entering Web addresses. (Of course, if you send the client the link in an e-mail or have it on a Web page, you don't need to worry about how they type it insince the client won't need to type in the addressand can thus capitalize it as you prefer.)

If you have lots of files and other links for a specific client,you might want to create a private Web page for that client, as explained in Chapter 9, "Communicating Better with Clients."But if you're only posting a file occasionally, you don't need to go to that effort. Just send the client an e-mail that includes the link to the file. That link is your Web site's address followed by a /, followed by the folder name (such as docs), again followed by a /, and finally the filename, for example, www.grumanhomes.com/docss/123Main_discl.pdf.(Note that capitalization is important, so be sure the link is capitalized the same way as the folder and filenames.)

And example of what the client might see when he opens a Web site's PDF link in his browser.

When the client clicks that link from an e-mail (or pastes it into a Web browser), his Web browser will open the file 123Main_discl.pdf from the docs folder on the Web site. (Of course, you have to place that file in the specified folder on your Web server for the link to actually open the file.) The browser will see the filename extension .pdf and know to load the Adobe Reader plug-in to display the page. (The Reader plug-in is usually installed along with the browser, but if it wasn't, your client can download it at no cost from www.adobe.com/reader.) At that point, your client can read, save, and/or print the file.