KeySign: keeping a home offer moving from the showing to escrow
Buyers decide right after a showing. The deal then takes weeks to close, and it stalls every time the agent has to go back to a desk. KeySign lets the agent write, sign and send a compliant offer from their phone at the property, then carry the deal through to escrow.
My role
Senior product designer, working with my squad
Testing
Five agents, at several stages of the build
Outcome
Added to the Q3 2026 roadmap, inside Denali, the new agent app
Status
Not released to production while I was there
Live app: KeySign. Try writing and signing an offer.
The deal stalls after the showing
In a competitive market, buyers make offers on the spot, and other offers may be due that same day.
Agents can't act on that decision where it happens. Their offer and signing tools assume a laptop, and the state's forms live somewhere else. So the agent drives back to the office, rebuilds the offer and chases signatures. By then the buyers have cooled off, or the seller has taken another offer. And the offer is only the start. A deal takes weeks to close, and every step that needs a desk is another place it can stall.
Today · back at the desk
Drive back, rebuild the offer, look up the state's forms, chase initials, and hope the disclosures are complete.
With KeySign · at the property
One phone the agent already carries. The offer is written where the decision is made, with the paperwork handled.
The same offer, two ways.
What agents kept saying
Interviews, survey data, the archived interviews in FullStory and Google Analytics all pointed the same way. Deals stalled after the showing. Agents half joked that they wished they could sign the deal in the driveway.
Buyers committed at the property. To act on it, the agent had to leave and piece the offer together from a CRM, a form template tool, a disclosure library and an e-sign product. Deals were lost in the gap between "we want it" and "the offer is in."
Buyers commit right after the walk-through. The agent has a phone, the state's rules to follow, and a competing offer due by 5 PM.
Rebuilding the offer on a laptop means four separate tools. That is long enough for the buyers, and the deal, to cool.
No tool covered the whole thing at the property: offer, disclosures, identity, signature and escrow, with the right forms for the state.
One job to design for
"When buyers commit at a showing, help me get a competitive, compliant offer in before the moment passes."
The cause wasn't one bad tool. The work was split across several products, each state added its own forms and deadlines, and none of the tools treated compliance as part of moving fast. KeySign puts it all in one app.
Functional
Get a complete, compliant offer in within minutes, from a phone.
Emotional
Feel in control at the property, not worried about a missed form or deadline.
Business
Win more offers and open escrow sooner, with a clean compliance record.
Five design rules
What the design had to work within
Testing with agents uncovered state-regulated steps and deadlines we had missed. Those, and a phone used outside, shaped every screen.
Each state has its own forms, disclosures and deadlines. In California that includes the escalation addendum and the buyer broker form required since the 2024 settlement.
A signature at the curb has to be as binding as one at a desk. Identity is checked and every step is on the record.
The agent has one hand free and the buyers beside them. Each screen asks for one decision.
Buyer and funds data stay on the phone. The signed packet leaves only when it is sent.
KeySign had to fit inside Denali, the new agent app being built, not stand alone as another tool.
Three decisions that shaped it
Each one traded something away to keep the deal moving.
The agent stays in charge at the property
What I chose
An app in the agent's hand. Buyers sign on the agent's phone, with the agent beside them.
What else I considered
A back office dashboard, and a signing link sent to the buyers by text.
Why
The dashboard put the agent back at a desk. The text link moved the decision away from the agent who knew the rules.
What I gave up
Some flexibility for buyers. The dashboard and the text link became supporting features.
The state rules are part of the flow
What I chose
Forms, disclosures and deadlines built into the same screens that write the offer.
What else I considered
A bare signing app, with the paperwork checked afterwards.
Why
A fast offer that misses a state form or deadline does not close. Testing showed how many of those there are.
What I gave up
Speed on the screen. The flow has more steps than a signing app would.
Success is a closed deal
What I chose
Closed deals as the measure of success, carried through to escrow, not stopping at the signature.
What else I considered
Offer speed, which is easy to count.
Why
An offer depends on price, financing, the seller and the market. Speed alone would have rewarded the wrong thing.
What I gave up
A quick number. Closed deals take weeks to show and are hard to get.
Screen 1 · Start from what is already known
The app opens with the buyers, their financing and their verified funds already filled in from the CRM.
The competing offer deadline is on screen too. The agent starts with one tap, not a blank form.
Tuesday 2:42 PM · 1428 Magnolia Ct
They just said yes.
Curbside
Screen 2 · Build the offer
Everything is drafted except the one decision that needs judgment: how far to escalate.
A strength score updates as the agent changes the price, close date or contingencies. The escalation addendum (C.A.R. form ADM) and buyer broker compensation (form SPBB, required since the 2024 settlement) are handled on the same screen.
Offer price
The offer builder
Screen 3 · Show the buyers their offer
The agent turns the phone around. The buyers see the offer in plain language: what they are offering, what it costs, and how they can still back out.
It also shows the escalation ceiling, the highest price they could end up paying, so nobody signs up to a number they never saw. The buyers confirm on the phone, and that is saved to the record.
Step 3 · turn the phone around
Marco & Lena, here's your offer.
What it costs you
Buyer review
Screen 4 · Disclosures, built with the offer
KeySign prepares all twelve required forms alongside the offer. Eleven are ready. One needs the agent.
The lead paint disclosure needs both buyers' initials, because the house was built in 1948. The app also checks the federal FinCEN reporting rule and says plainly that it does not apply to this deal.
The disclosure package
Screen 5 · Check before anyone signs
Eight checks run before signing, the same ones a transaction coordinator would run.
Here they find one blocker, the missing initials, and one warning: the close date is longer than the seller asked for. The blocker becomes a required step. The warning is left to the agent.
Lead-paint initials missing on FLD page 6. Both buyers. Blocks the signature.
Close of escrow is 30 days. The seller asked for 21. Advisory: your call, not the app's.
Pre-flight
Screen 6 · Confirm who is signing
Every signature has to hold up later. KeySign confirms who is signing with three checks.
The credit bureau check is done earlier, at intake. At the property, each buyer uses a passkey on their own phone and confirms a text message code. Nothing is sent until all three pass.
Marco Delgado · factor 3 of 3, code sent to ··· 4471
Identity
Screen 7 · Sign on the phone
Signing gets the whole screen. Four marks, one at a time: each buyer's signature and the page 6 initials.
The signing area is big enough to use outdoors, with the phone resting on a car hood.
Marco, buyer signature
Signing
Screen 8 · Send the signed offer
The signed packet goes to the listing agent, the buyers and the brokerage file at the same time.
Each copy is logged with the time it was delivered. Escrow is not opened yet, because nothing has been accepted.
Signed packet
12 documents · 4 marks · SHA-256 sealed
Delivery
Screen 9 · Answer the seller's counter
When there are several offers, the seller usually counters instead of accepting.
KeySign shows the counter as changes from the original offer: a higher price, a shorter close, a free rent back, and all contingencies kept. The new price is still under the ceiling the buyers already agreed to, so they can decide on the spot.
6:12 PM · three hours later
Seller countered.
The seller's counter
Screen 10 · Open escrow
Most tools stop once the offer is sent. KeySign carries on into the escrow file.
It shows the accepted price, the escrow number, safe instructions for wiring the deposit, the contingency deadlines, and everyone involved in the deal.
Contingency clock
The escrow file
Screen 11 · A record of every step
Every step is saved with a time stamp, and the signed packet is sealed so it cannot be changed.
That record is what lets an agent stand behind a signature taken in a driveway.
Audit trail
The trust model
Screen 12 · Every deadline, tracked
Each state sets its own deadlines for the deposit, disclosures and contingencies.
The clock starts when the seller signs back. KeySign counts down each deadline for this state and warns the agent before anything runs late.
State deadlines
Screen 13 · Setup, and what stays on the phone
The first run sets the state and county, which decides the forms, and how signing works.
It also lists what stays on the phone and what leaves it. Buyer and funds data stay on the device. The signed packet leaves only when it is sent.
What stays on this device
Onboarding
Deals that close
The measure was a closed deal, not a fast offer, for the reasons in Decision 3.
There are no numbers here, for two reasons. KeySign was tested with agents but not released to production while I was there, and closed deal data stays private to the brokerages.
Five agents tested it at several stages of the build. Each state step and deadline they turned up became a required stop in the flow.
Buyers are making offers on the spot. Agents said this belongs at the showing in today's market.
Buyers read the whole offer in plain language and sign it before they leave the property. It is sent before they get home.
I took the research and my early ideas to the UX team and used their feedback to narrow the direction. I then demoed it to the VP of Product Design, who took it to leadership, and it went on the Q3 2026 roadmap inside Denali, the new agent app.
What I would do next time
Next time I would agree how to track closed deals with one brokerage before the pilot, so the result could be measured, not just described.
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