Have suggestions for products that you’d like to see reviewed by our real estate technology expert? Email Craig Rowe.
My wife and I are scheduled to close on a house in a couple of weeks.
While I trust our agent implicitly to have a handle on the process, I admit to not really knowing which end is up.
She and her team use SkySlope, which has been great. It’s digital signature and email notifications have been easy and efficient.
However, as a buyer inundated with documents, signatures, vendors and verifications, I would like a chance to experience Preclose, which uses a series of categorized workflows arranged by milestones to help agents and their buyers tap their way to a more organized closing.
Launched last year as only an app, Preclose announced this week an integration with dotloop and a full-featured web app, which looks as good on the big screen as it does on mobile devices.
The elegant, intuitive interface displays content in a series of dynamic lists and headings.
Once logged in, administrators will see a main navigation menu consisting of users, email automation, and the to-do builder.
These tools are where you begin setting up your processes.
Some content comes pre-populated, but every office will want to combine Preclose features with its own workflows.
Every document, note, contact, and related chore is accessible from a number of screens, but would be most often found in the all-encompassing dashboard.
Each close plan uses an icon-driven list of major categories to contain the respective step in each.
Close plans include headings such as:
- Mortgage
- Insurance
- Closing
- Wood destroying organisms
- Inspection
- Insurance
- Buyer repair requests
- Home warranty, and others
Each step contains information on team members, dates, notes, documents and every detail needed to tackle the sale.
If you choose to enter a new close plan from dotloop, you would use a small link to import the listing.
Quality programming is evident because of the logical setup of state-specific document needs: when you enter an address, a pop-up list shows exactly the type of forms needed for that location.
Sharp.
Preclose also saves summaries of all previous deals and records every form of outreach for long-term record keeping and audit-ready recovery.
The document library is especially keen: Instead of a list-based compendium of random documents, Preclose uses dedicated spaces for standard required documents associated with each closing. There are empty spaces titled, “home warranty invoice,” “deed” and “engagement letter.”
Buyers are allowed access, too. They can choose from a list of recommended vendors or allow their agent to choose. This step is made very clear to allow for Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA) compliance.
Should there ever be an issue, each Preclose summary can help you prove your side.
Dotloop is a serious piece of real estate software, but with Preclose, agents and brokers can leverage a system that is focused only on what happens after two parties agree.
It’s why we have automotive businesses that specialize in transmissions or tires: Both automotive features are critical to a car’s operation, but each requires maintenance from people with different skill sets.
Have a technology product you would like to discuss? Email Craig Rowe
