Cloud-based real estate document management company Cartavi today announced integration with e-signature company DocuSign, which will allow subscribers of the two services to access both via a single sign-in process after an initial setup process.
Cartavi, founded in 2009 by Glenn Shimkus and Paul Koziarz, formally launched last year during the Real Estate Connect conference in San Francisco.
Shimkus said Cartavi has worked to simplify document management by making the various stages of the transaction process "very visual," with images of parties involved in the transaction. Document storage areas are labeled "rooms," and users can create "folders" for transactions and "envelopes" that serve as folders for documents that require e-signatures.
"You can go to a transaction room, you can view the document, you can see the activity of who has done what with it," Shimkus said.
Messages can be sent via email or smartphone notifications to parties involved in the transaction to prompt them to e-sign documents, and documents can be tagged to denote where an e-signature is required. E-signature activity can be monitored in real time.
"The key is you know what’s happening as it’s happening," Shimkus said. Cartavi users can access the company’s tools via its mobile apps for Android and Apple devices.
Cartavi is available for free on a limited basis, with paid plans starting at $10 per month after an annual commitment, and DocuSign offers 30-day free trial and a $14.99 service that allows an unlimited number of monthly documents and signers.
Shimkus noted that his wife, Shantel Shimkus, is a real estate agent who served as an inspiration and "sounding board" for Cartavi’s development.
Cartavi was designed, he said, as a "business application that has a very consumer-facing look and feel," in order to be accessible to even those real estate professionals who tend to shy away from new technologies.
And people who are participating in a transaction that utilizes Cartavi can do so in low-tech ways if they choose to, he said. "What I don’t want to do is say, ‘You have to work in the (Cartavi) transaction room.’ If you want to fax, or email — great. It’s not about changing the way you work," he said.
While the service was initially designed with individual real estate professionals in mind, Shimkus said there has been "substantial demand … from brokerages," and the company plans to release a new, enterprise-level version in April for brokerages.
