Sam Davyson is co-founder of DeedSpring. He studied physics at Cambridge, then spent ten years in the Salesforce ecosystem before deciding there had to be a better way to build business software.
With Michael Skelly he founded Stacker in 2017, the platform DeedSpring runs on, which is backed by Y Combinator and Andreessen Horowitz. DeedSpring grew out of the real estate teams who were already using Stacker to run their transactions.
Two dates on the executed contract, the Effective Date and the Closing Date, start nearly every clock; the rest start when a document is received. Where each form puts them, how TREC, C.A.R. and Florida count the days, and the one rule that keeps the calendar honest: a date moves only on a signed amendment.
A transaction file goes through eight stages, from the agent's hand-off of the executed contract to the broker's archive of the closed file. Here is who does what at each stage, what to do when a stage fails, and how DeedSpring reads the contract and watches the deadlines for you.
The 37 items a transaction coordinator checks on a purchase file, in six phases, each with the TREC 20-19 or C.A.R. RPA paragraph that sets its clock. Download the CSV, delete what your contract lacks, and run it on the next file.
Pull eight fields off the executed contract, write down the page each came from, have the agent check the dates against the PDF, then open the file. Where each field sits on the TREC and C.A.R. forms, how SkySlope, dotloop and Open To Close take them in, and how DeedSpring reads them for you.
The twenty-five things a buyer has to pay, receive or decide between the executed contract and the keys, in the order the deadlines fall, with the TREC and C.A.R. paragraph that sets each clock. For buyer's agents and transaction coordinators.
The agent submits, a reviewer accepts or rejects each document with a comment, the agent fixes what came back, and the broker signs off before the commission goes out. Here is who can do each step in SkySlope and dotloop, what happens on a rejection, when the agent gets paid, and how long the file is kept.
Every AI-drafted email or text on a closing waits for a named person unless a written rule lets a routine reminder go on its own, and anything about money, terms or a moved deadline always waits. Here is the rule, how ListedKit, Open To Close, Trackxi and DeedSpring handle it, and what to log.
In the mid-2000s Top Producer put an agent's day on a Palm handheld: a Today screen, action plans, a closing checklist and tasks for an assistant. Here is what that manual shows, what a TC still fights twenty years later, and the three things the record can do now that it couldn't then.
Borrowers who had their closing documents early and read them felt in control, caught errors before closing and finished the meeting faster. The e-signature itself changed little. What the pilot measured, what it could not prove, and what it means for how you run a closing.