By Carmella Sabaugh, Macomb County Michigan Clerk / Register of Deeds
Ever lose your keys? You use them almost every day; sometimes multiple times a day. But yet there are times you can’t find them when you need them.
Now think about some of the really important stuff you rarely use, but when you need it, you want it accessible in an instant – like the deed to your house and all the property records that go along with it.
Macomb County, Michigan, Xerox and Google have teamed up to do just that – allowing folks to search property records there anytime, anywhere from their computer with unprecedented speed and accuracy. We think it’s one of the best and maybe the first high-tech real estate records search engines in the world.
It’s important for Macomb County to help its community members realize the American dream and “Make Macomb Your Home.” This means making real estate transactions more efficient and improving customer service. Instead of trudging to the courthouse, looking through paper records or maybe even searching electronically through a narrow search function – now in Macomb County that info is at your fingertips searchable through a variety of different fields.
The Macomb County Register of Deeds worked with our partners to create the Super Index, which digitized every land record pertaining to real estate in the County – going all the way back to 1818. And we’re adding more records all the time.
Macomb County is one of the few counties that has its history of records electronically accessible for County personnel and the public to search and obtain – everything spanning from deeds and mortgages to property descriptions and selling history. The transition from paper to digital allowed the County to provide better and more dependable service to its more than 780,000 residents. In fact, the electronic filing and computerized scanning system has helped combat real estate risk and fraud by eliminating human errors and accidental trashing of information. Most importantly, the platform enabled the County to be more innovative.
Xerox’s records management expertise and Google’s renowned search capabilities resulted in a simplified way to do (real estate) business for both county personnel and residents here in Macomb.
To learn more about the Super Index, please click here to join a live one hour “Hangout On Air” broadcast with Xerox, Google and Macomb County Register of Deeds on April 24, 2013 at 3 p.m. ET / Noon PT. You may also visit the Super Index today and see how it works!
Carmella Sabaugh was born and raised in Detroit, and has been a resident of Warren (a suburb of Detroit) since the 1970’s. She was first elected Macomb County Clerk/Register of Deeds in 1992 and was re-elected in 1996.
