Investing in real estate means signing A LOT of documents. Have you seen how many trees it takes to just close on a house these days? I would hate to think what title agents have to budget for printer ink.
Besides all the health risks associated with carpal tunnel syndrome, it is just a pain to sign all those documents.
Doing business virtually can be even worse. If someone sends you a big file of documents, you have to print them out (at your printer ink expense), sign them, scan them back in, and then send them back.
There are programs to make this easier, such as Docusign and Hellosign, but they require you to set up the spots where people have to sign, which can take a while. They are nice if you have the same documents needing to be signed over and over. But they don’t really help with individual documents unless someone else with these programs sends them to you.
Today we would like to show you how to sign any document that shows up in your inbox – regardless of whether you open it up as an Adobe file on your PC or as a Preview file on your Mac.
Signing Adobe Files
To sign files using Adobe reader, the first thing you want to do is make sure you have the latest version. You can download it here. Once you have it, open up the document you want to sign in it.
If Adobe detects a signature field, it will prompt you to open the signature window.
If Adobe does not detect the signature field, you can always click on the ‘Sign’ button in the menu running across the top of the screen.
Adobe will then open up a menu with several options…
You’ll want to select the ‘Place Signature’ button, which will then give you several more options:
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Type my signature: Type your name and Adobe Reader will automatically generate something that looks like a signature from it. This probably won’t look like your real signature.
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Use a webcam: Sign your name in black ink on white paper and then hold it up to a webcam. Adobe will flip it around (it will look like a mirror image in the webcam) and create a digital image of your signature.
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Draw my signature: Draw your signature with a mouse. If you have a stylus or amazing hand-eye coordination, you may be able to draw something that looks like your real signature, but this probably won’t be good enough.
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Use an image: You can sign your signature to a piece of paper and use a scanner to scan it to your computer, then crop it and create an image file from it. If you do this, you can use the “Use an image” option to insert your signature from an image file.
We have found the ‘Use a webcam’ option to work the best.
Click ‘Accept’ and you’re ready to rock n’ roll. Go back to the ‘Sign’ menu and select ‘Place Signature.’ Your signature should appear on the document. Then you can move it around to position it on the signature line.
Once you create your signature in Adobe reader, you don’t need to create a new signature for every document. You will be able to just select ‘Place Signature’ and it will come up again.
Remember to save the file after you are done signing it. Adobe will create a file with the name of your document plus “-signed” after it. You can change the name to any file you want.
Apple Signatures
Mac Users have a program called ‘Preview’ to review PDF documents. Many of the steps for signing documents with your Mac are the same as Adobe reader on a PC.
After you open up your document in Preview, just click on this icon on the top right of the screen to show the ‘Markup Toolbar.’
On the markup toolbar, just go to the signature icon to create your signature:
Make sure to click on ‘Camera’ instead of ‘Trackpad.’ Then take your white piece of paper with your signature in black ink and hold it up to the webcam, similar to the PC way of doing it. Apple will create a signature for you that you can use on all future documents.
When you want to put the signature in a document, just open the document, open this toolbar, and click on the signature icon. Then select your signature, and it will appear in the document. All you need to do then is resize it and move it into place.
Remember once again to save the document. We only say that because people don’t normally need to save PDF documents because they did not know they could edit them.
After you set up these signatures, you can fill out a ton of paperwork very quickly, because doing deals faster is the surest path to success.
Anything to add?
Got any other tips? Share below.
Read before you sign – Many documents real estate investors sign are legally binding contracts. Even if you have a lawyer, it pays to understand the documents yourself.
Do more in less time – Do you have systems and processes in place to simplify and speed up your deals? Analyze them regularly. You can always improve them.
Prepare contracts ahead of time – Deals don’t happen in slow motion. If you have the contracts ready to go when you find a deal, chances are you will close it. If you don’t have them in place, someone else might steal it away from you.
JP Moses
is a real estate investor in Memphis, TN, with experience ranging from land lording to note buying, rehabbing, and wholesaling. However, wholesaling is the area that he enjoys most and where he bring the most experience and expertise to his students.