Save the Trees and Air With Green Real Estate

How to Make the Real Estate Buying and Selling Process More Green

S o, everything’s going green these days and there’s a push to be more conscious about our use of resources.  The process of buying or selling a home is another situation that has traditionally used a lot of resources, from gas to paper, not to mention your time.  Denver and Colorado as a whole has been very engaged in looking at ways to reduce energy and resource consumption.

Regardless of your stance on the science behind global warming, we believe it’s a good idea to look at ways to be more responsible, especially given all the tools technology has made available in our industry.

How We Work to Be Green

• We use the best technology tools to help Denver home buyers search for homes and know what’s on the market meeting their criteria.  By allowing map-based searching , a whole lot of choices for searches, and the ability to create a profile to have new homes or condos emailed, buyers are better informed about what’s on the market.  Neighborhood information, more pictures, and the increased use of virtual tours give further information not available to online real estate buyers as little as two years ago.  By empowering clients with more information to pre-screen homes and communities, we’ve been able to save countless miles and gallons of gas, not to mention valuable time, driving around to homes and areas not meeting our clients’ discriminating wants and needs.

• Electronic signatures :  Real estate has a lot of contracts and paper involved that needlessly consumes a lot of trees, not to mention the challenge to organize and keep up with it all!  We’ve dealt with the hassle trying to connect with clients to coordinate finding a fax machine or connecting personally to get urgently needed signatures during the day.  To save time and paper, we’ve been one of the first real estate teams in Denver to offer electronic signatures using Docusign , so clients can complete all paperwork online.

• Online Transaction Management : Since we’re able to offer clients and online, paperless experience, we also use an online transaction management system (TMS) to place all contract and material online in a protected portal, only accessible by parties to the home and condo sale or purchase.  This way, everything is organized and available 24/7 , saving the need to print out multiple copies of documents and contracts until needed.  Yes, saving more trees!

• Electronic Closings : We strive to make our piece of the real estate experience as green as possible but traditionally, the closing is where that ends.  We’ve seen closing paperwork take up more than a ream of paper, or more than 500 sheets. You may as well bring your own tree in these cases!  We’re now working with closing companies that are also pushing for eClosings, greatly reducing the paperwork, with all documents available on CD afterward.

• Did we mentioned recycling?  Of course, all paper we do end up using is recycled !

As responsible stewards to our community and environment, we’re glad to have 10 trees planted in your name for every closing.  Make sure you ask us about our Arbor Day program for your free 12-month membership to the Arbor Day Foundation .

Contact us at Info@MileHighUrbanLiving.com or (303) 847-4926 to get started on your green real estate experience !

Tagged as: arbor day, docusign, environment, Green, technology