Notarize Blog

When Brian Lemke joined Elevated Title as Chief Business Officer nearly three years ago, he was determined to take the national title company through its next phase of growth. A pillar in the real estate industry for more than 15 years, Elevated Title was seeking new technology to drive a consumer experience built for the 21st century.

“We knew that homebuyers were becoming more tech-savvy, and the way we wanted people to close on their home simply wasn’t the way they wanted to anymore,” said Lemke. “We needed to use technology to bring the home buying and refinance process to them, on their terms.”

Kelley Cooper Spencer never wants to sign a piece of paper ever again. In fact, Thrive Mortgage COO Selene Kellam has told Spencer and her colleagues that she will only eClose her personal mortgage loans in the future. Becoming a fully digital mortgage company, thus, wasn’t just an ambition: it was foundational to the DNA of the Thrive Mortgage family.

“We wanted to lead the mortgage industry in how we helped homebuyers get into their homes,” said Spencer. “And if we could do it well – if we could move the mortgage industry – then we could help shift every other industry away from paper and manual processes.”

Of the nearly 30 million small businesses in the United States, about 85% have fewer than 20 employees. The ability to live your dream and provide opportunities for those around you is essential in cultivating the health and well-being of your community.

From small auto repair shops to cupcake businesses, success and failure hinge on the ability to receive the funds needed to run your business. It can also be the difference between a successful small business and one shuttered by a big-name brand.

As we think about funding the success of small businesses across the country, notaries have an important role to play in turning dreams into realities.

We're only three months into 2019, but this year has already been one of many firsts. Six states have passed remote online notarization legislation, and Minnesota completed its first online closing.

Today, not only are we excited to share that Tennessee Title Services has completed the first online closing in the Volunteer State, but that they’re committed to doing more than 50 over the next year.

On a day when wind chills in Minnesota reached 55 degrees below zero and UPS was closed for safety reasons, Notarize, Redfin, Westcor, and TitleOne completed what we believe is the state’s first online closing. A California home buyer used a Virginia notary to close on their home less than a month after Minnesota’s remote online notarization law went into effect.

Life is full of unforgettable moments, few of which carry more weight than planning an estate. We all want what’s best for our loved ones, and part of that is ensuring the people in our lives are taken care of when we’re gone.

Today, we’ve helped make estate planning easier.

Trust & Will, the easiest way to create, edit, and manage your estate documents, completed the first end-to-end digital Will powered by Notarize. The nation’s first, end-to-end digital Will was completed in Las Vegas, Nevada in minutes -- a process that would have normally taken over an hour.

Notarize celebrated its 1,000th online mortgage transaction at the start of 2019, just 18 months after completing the first online closing in the country. We’re thrilled about the momentum we’re seeing in the market, including key partnerships with some of the leader in the mortgage industry.

This includes our friends at Redfin, whose agents recently sourced and funded a loan in less than two hours, performing one of the fastest online closings in the industry.

Last year, a Chicago couple made history when they closed on their home online using a Virginia notary and a Texas title company. It was the start of a revolution.

Since then, homeowners from across the country have used the Notarize for Mortgage platform to complete their closings at their convenience and on their terms. Today, we're proud to add the first southwest Florida closing to the list.

At Notarize, we're constantly pushing the boundaries of what it means to be innovative. During our award-winning demo at Digital Mortgage Conference 2018, we committed to making Notarize for Mortgage a platform that could support every type of closing - paper, hybrid, or online.

Today, we make good on that promise.

Notarize is a company that prides itself on being first. We were the first company to build a platform that could legally execute remote online notarizations. Last summer, we were the first to execute a mortgage closing entirely online through the Notarize for Mortgage platform. We constantly strive to be first to market with solutions that reinvent industries by rethinking the way people do business.

And some firsts we’re lucky enough to do twice.