The Minnesota Association of REALTORS® has published their revised forms for 2006! What an improvement! They're still basically the same content, but three important changes have been made that rev my engine.
First, the forms are now on letter size paper. Letter size forms are a long awaited change. I've never understood why legal size had to be used when the majority of the world uses letter size paper. My guess is legal size was used to make the process intimidating to the consumer. Legal size looks more legal, as in attorney type legal? A subliminal message that these are important documents?
With the introduction of letter size documents, home faxes can receive without reducing the legal size document to letter size (which exacerbates the font size problem of point two below). Home printers no longer have to switch paper sizes to print the purchase agreements. Home scanners can scan the whole page in one sweep. What a concept! REALTORS® and REALTOR® offices are going to have lots of obsolete legal size file cabinets!
The second change which excites me is the larger size font. Now, one must be aware that the font change is minuscule, but the change is just enough so that I can now read the forms without a magnifying glass. I know my clients before thought I was reading those purchase agreement documents upside down whenever we reviewed them for signing. The honest truth is that I memorized the forms long before my sight weakened so I could no longer read the fine print in which they were printed! 
Now, the print is just big enough that I can once again read it.
The third change is also a change in font size. Members of the Minnesota Association of REALTORS® can log in to a members only website and complete the purchase agreements online. In prior years, the information typed into the online form was even smaller than the font size of the form itself (which was tiny). If the purchase agreement was faxed even one time, the "blanks" became illegible. For security reasons, the forms could not be e-mailed when they were filled out. It was a catch 22. Fill in the blanks by hand with illegible handwriting or type in the blanks with equally illegible teeny tiny font size. The new forms have legible font size for filling in the blanks!
The complaint from those resistant to change is that there will be soooooo many pages now. Yes, the quantity of pages has increased but the number of blanks to complete is still the same.
My take on these changes? Someone with common sense finally had a vote on the forms committee! Hooray for change!
(c) Bonnie Erickson 2006
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