"The single, most important development in paperless loan technology" to date is how David Whitaker, a law partner in Washington, DC-based Goodwin Proctor LLP, describes the concept to GlobeSt.com.

"Electronic appraisals will be able to be read by everyone and it will make a huge difference for county recorders," Whitaker says. "Smart data will make them be able to automate all of these functions instead of handling them manually."

Whitaker outlined the concept to 1,000 colleagues at last week's MBA technology conference in Atlanta. "One of the biggest concerns among mortgage bankers is the use of conflicting (software) formats when conducting transactions," the lawyer tells GlobeSt.com. "The new document will also have smart data associated with it."

Whitaker says the document will have more than text on it. "You will be able to establish fields and extract important info for data processing services," he says.

The mortgage banking industry plans to move the bulk of residential real estate transactions onto the electronics track within the next 10 years, Whitaker tells GlobeSt.com. "This is really gearing up again," he says. "It was very popular about two years ago and then, following May 2001, it began to decline as mortgage bankers became busy with refinancing (of properties)."

Today, however, the volume of transactions is "way up and people are getting focused again," Whitaker says.