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JetClosing is a mobile-first title and escrow app.

Platforms: iOS, Android, browser Ideal for: Homebuyers and all agents

Top selling points: JetScore closing probability meter Intuitive understanding of deal flow Fast, transparent user experience Delineation of financial accountability Scalability Top concern:

For now, it’s availability. JetClosing is licensed to operate in seven states: Arizona, Colorado, Florida Pennsylvania, Nevada, Texas and Washington.

What you should know

JetClosing is a very good app that in no way adds “mental” friction to a real estate transaction, meaning it’s designed to overcome any industry cynicism about its place in the deal. I argue that it will inspire confidence in what is normally a home sale’s most error-prone phase.

The JetClosing team clearly never took its focus away from what it is that worries consumers when their home purchase enters the (traditional) void of escrow, where everything is dictated by contract terms and third-party vendors, many of whom they never meet.

They also don’t forget about the agent, whose login shows them a blemish-free snapshot into every deal underway, using quick-to-digest, deal-content cards. There’s a picture of the home, basic contract details and an escrow progress bar. Any tasks needing attention are made evident by an alert feature that pushes the user into the required function.

Activity starts by choosing to start a new “Listing Package,” “Title Commitment” or “Open Escrow.”

A vertical checklist helps the user scan completed tasks or address what’s needed next. Document uploads are listed clearly, as are the contact details of all stakeholders.

Agents will find the financial accountability features quite helpful when explaining to clients what they’re responsible for paying. Here, it’s as easy a single, dynamic bar graph that divides the totals between seller and buyer.

JetClosing offers agents a “JetScore,” a metric for actively gauging the probability of a sale closing by the scheduled date. It’s based on the competition percentage of each task related to the deal, which includes the buyer’s role in providing financial records and other types of loan documentation.

The JetScore also considers lingering title issues. The longer tasks go ignored and title issues unresolved, the lower the score, which ranges from A to D.

On top of its granular document-tracking and automated task oversight sits a layer of in-house support staff monitoring an escrow’s progress.

I feel this could be one detriment to nationwide scaling. It’s certainly a dependable fail-safe, but manpower is a big expense for a company rooted in business efficiency. Such a commitment to overhead can be made more palatable with a centralized call center as opposed to teams in each state. That’s very likely the model in play, and its 2018 closing of $20 million in venture capital can certainly aid in smoothing over any rough spots during expansion.

JetClosing can also accommodate remote online notarization (RON) and work with digital earnest money deposits. It requires two-factor authentication when needed and integrates with DocuSign for electronic signatures.

I want to stress that it is understandable to be skeptic about managing such a document-heavy, task-driven business operation that entails communications with multiple outside parties on an app.

Maybe it feels to some that such a light, easy product can’t handle the financial and metaphorical weight of a closing, as if it takes some sort of complex enterprise platform and hours of time squinting at a monitor under dim light and the influence of bitter coffee.

That’s not the case. Home closings are a process, and software is designed exactly for these scenarios. It’s developed to distill complex business processes into only what matters to push the deal forward.

I believe this has been one of the major hurdles to the advancement of digital escrow — the acceptance that software can safely manage all of the fragmentation and subsequent quirks and vagaries of a closing.

Trust it, people. Technology is here for you and your buyers and sellers. It’s too bad it took a pandemic to prove it.

Have a technology product you would like to discuss? Email Craig Rowe

Craig C. Rowe started in commercial real estate at the dawn of the dot-com boom, helping an array of commercial real estate companies fortify their online presence and analyze internal software decisions. He now helps agents with technology decisions and marketing through reviewing software and tech for Inman.

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