Iowa is the latest state to allow buyers to electronically close on a home, continuing a shift across the country to make mortgage transactions more efficient.
To close out April, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds signed a law that enables digital closings for mortgage transactions, digitizing a time consuming and paper-intensive process.
Fully digital closings are slowing becoming more commonplace in the housing industry, however, most states still have reservations around remote notarization. Remote notarization allows notary publics to use web cameras to conduct the notarization process instead of the signer being physically present in the same room. A notary public is a state public official that helps deter fraud.
Thanks to the law change, Iowa is the 10th state in 2019 to pass a remote online notarization bill. Eighteen states allow notaries to conduct remote notarizations, according to Notarize, an electronic notarization provider. Alabama, Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio and Tennessee, Iowa, Illinois, Montana, Virginia and Washington allow for the remote process.
Slowly, more real estate technology — or proptech — firms are starting to provide services to help enable electronic closings. For example, United Wholesale Mortgage is now offering its virtual eClosings to borrowers in 16 states and making the option available to purchase borrowers, according to HousingWire.
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