Notarize Blog

The entire real estate industry has seen a massive shift in excitement as it moves towards a world of remote online notarizations and fully online real estate closings. Thousands of homes have already been bought and sold online with the help of progressive underwriters and counties that are accepting electronic-recording, or eRecordings.

Until recently, you could only complete an end-to-end digital closing if your property was in an eRecording county. But as of January 1, 2020, a total of 10 states now have laws that allow recording entities, at their option, to record a true and complete paper printout of an electronic document.

In 2019, more than 127,000 eNotes were generated with MERS. That's an 8x increase from 2018. And with top lenders like Guaranteed Rate completing tens of thousands of online closings to put the borrower experience, and their business efficiencies first, now is the time for you to double down on your digital mortgage strategy.

We completed the first online closing in the country with Stewart back in 2017, and since then, have completed thousands of closings – both fully online and hybrid – for buyers and sellers from across the country and while traveling abroad. Scott Gillen and the team have been incredible partners along the way, tirelessly working to make the consumer experience in home buying best-in-class with industry-leading technology.

Today, we're excited to share our next chapter together. Today we're announcing a partnership with Stewart Title that will give its direct offices and independent agents the ability to offer fully online and hybrid closings powered by Notarize. Together, the experience and expertise Stewart and Notarize have will bring rapid deployment and adoption across the country.

We’ve spent the last year working with banks, credit unions, and other financial institutions on what a world-class experience looks like for their customers. Since then, we’ve won the nation’s largest credit unions, retirement services companies, and small business lenders to offer a service that delivers on that promise.

Today, we're excited to share that evolution, and announce our newest solution: Notarize for Credit Unions.

More than five million Americans joined a credit union in 2018 alone, and more than 100 million members nationwide take advantage of services from auto loans to home refinancing. Credit the surge in growth to lower interest rate loans and high-interest savings.

More than $15 billion worth of recreational vehicles are sold each year. From trailers to motorhomes, the market for recreational transportation is only increasing. According to Zion Market Research, the RV market is expected to reach $64 billion by 2024.

With millions of people looking to buy RVs, one of the largest barriers to entry is financing that vehicle or piece of equipment. Customers need to notarize a power of attorney so that financial services providers can negotiate loan rates on their behalf with a lender.

Up until recently, that process was done entirely in paper, occurring at either dealerships or asking those looking to finance RVs to visit their local bank or credit union.

Remote online notarizations (RON) allow people to get their documents notarized through a notary in an online video meeting. The number states adopting notary laws is growing faster than we could have ever anticipated. As of December 2019, 22 states have passed bills to allow notaries in their state to perform RON transactions.

Before we start 2020, here is a guide to how you can prepare for implementing online closings and remote online notarization in your real estate business next year.

It's hard to believe we've done 15 episodes of This Week at Notarize. Since we started this weekly series in August, I got married, we announced major partnerships with Ellie Mae, Dropbox and Guaranteed Rate, and crushed our first ever conference, Rewired. More importantly, are all the people at Notarize you got a chance to meet this season.

In the season finale of our video series, This Week at Notarize, we talk about the greatest hits from this season with none other than Max DiRado, our video intern.

Welcome back to the show!

We hear constantly that technology is simply a tool for fraud, but the truth of the matter is, fraudsters will try to cheat in any environment, paper or digital. It turns out that technology is one of our best tools in combating fraud.

If you missed our sold-out conference, Rewired, last week – we have you covered. In this blog post, you'll see recaps of sessions, photos, and all the social goodness that happens when you get over 300 people together to talk about the future of real estate. 

Here's a quick quote from an attendee before we dive in:

"I've attended ALTA, NS3, land title, etc. This had a much different and better feel to it, much more tech, innovation, and excitement around change, RON, and digital closing experience."