An automated system and method for managing real estate transactions includes a processing unit and a memory that may store program instructions for execution by the processing unit. The program instructions implement a real estate transaction management system that may include a contract negotiation module that may be configured to iteratively maintain, within the memory, one or more electronic versions of a real estate contract. The contract negotiation module may also provide access to each version of the contract by each party to the contract and may generate a new version of the contract in response to at least one of the parties editing, electronically initialing and electronically signing one or more times on any page of a given version of the contract. The contract negotiation module may further notify at least some parties in response to each new version being submitted.