News By Edition

Ohana Title Insurance Agency of Sandy, Utah, will open its doors in January. The firm was founded by long-time escrow and title officer Terrie Lund.

Lund has previously worked for agencies including U.S. Title, First American Title, Northwest Title Insurance Agency and Hickman Land Title Co.

Read on for an interview with Lund about the new firm.

Florida-based The Closing Agent has acquired Quality Title & Escrow of Winter Park, Fla., the companies recently announced.

Quality Title’s founder and president will assist her team with transitioning into the Winter Park office of The Closing Agent while assuming the position of vice president of sales.

Read on to find out more information about the acquisition.

Underwriter Alliant National’s Crime Watch program reportedly prevented more than $1.8 million in potential fraud last year. That includes multiple reports from Coffelt Land Title, Inc., which operates in Missouri and Arkansas.

Alliant recognized numerous agencies for their efforts in preventing fraudulent transactions over the course of 2022.

Read on for more details about the Crime Watch program.

D.R. Horton, Inc. has acquired Arkansas-based Riggins Custom Homes, the company announced. Plans call to combine Riggins operations with D.R. Horton’s current work in northwest Arkansas.

D.R. Horton provides title services, mortgage financing and insurance agency services for its homebuyers through its subsidiaries.

Read on to find out more.

Mountain America Credit Union, the 12^th largest such institution in the U.S., has picked software provided by Blend for its Instant Home Equity solution.

The product integrates automated income and identity verification, instant title, real-time decisioning, property appraisal and remote online notarization. Leaders also hope to increase utilization of home equity lines of credit.

Read on for more information.

New reporting from ATTOM shows home ownership costs consuming nearly a third of average national wages, a 15-year high. Data also indicates that single-family homes and condos are now less affordable compared with historical averages in nearly all counties nationwide.

Read on for more information.

Nearly a quarter of homebuyers across the three months ending in November looked to move to a different metro, according to new reporting from Redfin.

Sacramento, Calif., was the most popular migration destination in November with the Bay Area serving as the most common origin for homebuyers relocating to California’s capital.

Read on to find out more information.

A website chatbot has been implemented for clients of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Chicago. Company leaders say the “digital estate assistant” named Elle will be available for 24/7 immediate customer service.

Read on for more information.

Kentucky-based Millennial Title recently closed a $70 million commercial transaction, the largest ever at the agency.

The company also closed a record number of commercial deals over the latter half of 2022, with founder and President Chip Ridge pointing to continued commercial market stability as residential volatility continues.

Read on for more from an interview with Ridge.

BCHH, a Pennsylvania-based title company with specialties including multi-state/multi-property bulk acquisitions, has been acquired by Stewart Information Services Corp.

Stewart leadership said the move will help bolster functionality in a market segment it feels is evolving due to macroeconomic factors and consumer demand, as well as build on existing capabilities.

Read on for more information.

TitleOne is opening its first office in Montana and its 27^th location across the Northwest, including Utah, Washington and Idaho.

The company expanded outside Idaho for the first time in 2020 with its acquisition of Washington-based Columbia Title Co. Leadership says expansion into the Northwest remains a key part of its strategy.

Read on to find out more information.

Nearly one-third of home purchases were all cash in October 2022, up from 29.9 percent year-over-year and the highest share recorded since 2014, according to Redfin.

Read on for more information.

While U.S. home flipping rates fell moderately in the third quarter, they remain up year-over-year and just below decade highs set during the first quarter of 2022.

Read on to find out more.

AccuTitle is building on its existing array of closing software with the launch of myTitleVault. The company says the new dashboard will allow for better workflow between Realtors, mortgage originators and closing companies.

Read on to find out more.

New York Attorney General Leticia James has handed a $2.5 million penalty and requirement to end no-poach agreements to Stewart Title Guaranty Corp., according to a Dec. 22 announcement.

James states that Stewart was found to have agreed with competitors not to hire each other’s employees. James’ office is also requiring Stewart to cooperate with ongoing investigations.

Read on to find out more.

UGuide, a new digital underwriting encyclopedia created by the Fidelity National Financial Family of Companies, covers areas ranging from access to zoning as well as hundreds of related subtopics.

Company leaders also highlight UGuide’s interactive PDFs and graphical interfaces designed for enhanced ease of use. UGuide will be continually updated to keep in line with regulation changes.

Read on for more.

Melissa Ashley, president and CEO of Corporate One Federal Credit Union, has been appointed as the newest member of The Clearing House’s (TCH) RTP Business Committee. The group is responsible for TCH’s RTP network, the U.S.’s first 24/7 real-time payments system.

Read on for more information.

Service Organizational Control (SOC) 2 compliance certification was recently earned by Idaho-based Sekady Capital, a provider of secure payments and project management software for the construction industry.

Read on to find out more.

Mortgage-purchase applications and Redfin’s Homebuyer Demand Index are both up by double digits since bottoming out earlier this fall, but demand is still much lower than it was a year ago.

Read on for more.

eClosings and their accompanying digital components like remote online notarization, in-person electronic notarizations, eNotes and the like are being touted as facilitating more secure closings than paper transactions.

Such safety capabilities are critical to the title and settlement services industry, as more states legislate new regulations requiring consumer data privacy and security.

Read on for more.

A new CryptoListing website, allowing users to list, purchase or rent homes using 120 cryptocurrencies, has been launched by Ubitquity, the company announced.

Company leadership said prices on CryptoListing are guaranteed without the need to use a stablecoin, and CryptoListing is expected to have over a thousand listings by the end of 2022.

Read on for more.

A new monthly webinar series titled “FNF on Screen” from the Fidelity National Financial Family of Companies will start in January. The inaugural talk will focus on the American Land Title Association’s newly updated best practices.

Creators say talks will continue throughout the year on the second Tuesday of each month.

Read on for more information.

A new partnership between Flueid and Notarize will allow Flueid lenders and title customers to check eClosing and eRecording availability within Flueid Decision. Notarize will provide remote online notarization service.

Read on for more.  

New reporting from Zillow shows the cost of a new mortgage on a typical home declined in November, with monthly payments going down by roughly $100. It was the first monthly cost drop since July and just the second in the past 19 months.

Read on for more information.

Automated workflow provider Pythonic Corp. announced successful completion of an SOC 2 Type 1 audit examination. Organizations are audited based on the trust service principles and criteria outlined in the AICPA Reporting on Controls at a Service Organization.

Read on for more information.

New market share analysis from the American Land Title Association (ALTA) shows third-quarter title insurance premiums dropping more than 20 percent year-over-year.

While industry net income also declined significantly compared with third quarter 2021, newest results still show the fourth-highest earning third quarter in the past 13 years.

Read on for more information.

Clear Title Agency of Arizona recently announced its escrow closure on a multifamily building with a sale price exceeding $100 million.

According to the company, the transaction is valued in the top 1 percent among more than 1,200 multifamily property closures in the Phoenix-metro market over the past year.

Read on to find out more information.

Inflation remains a primary concern for small-business owners, according to NFIB’s monthly Small Business Economic Trends report. Roughly one third of respondents listed inflation as their biggest business hurdle.

New reporting also shows the number of small-business owners expecting better business conditions over the next six months improving three points from October to a net negative 43 percent.

Read on to find out more.

A vice president of business development for Minnesota has been named by Stewart Title. The company said he will work to spearhead new market growth and acquisition of top talent.

Read on for more.

Redfin reports pandemic boomtowns including Sacramento, Calif., Austin, Texas, and Phoenix saw the biggest jump in delistings as prohibitively high housing costs dampened buyer demand.

Read on for more.

Latest data from Pacaso shows Utah’s southernmost county as this year’s nationwide leader in share of luxury second-home mortgage rate locks.

Read on for more information.

The third-quarter earnings report from Doma Holdings Inc. shows revenue of $108 million, a 13 percent drop from from the second quarter.

Third quarter purchase closed orders fell by 11 percent while refinance closed orders declined by 25 percent versus the second quarter. Total closed orders were down 19 percent.

Read on to find out more information.

WFG National Title Insurance Co. and Qualia reached a multi-year agreement to extend their Resware platform partnership. WFG previously built integrations and processes on top of the title and escrow production software.

Resware was added to the Qualia technology suite in late 2020 following the acquisition of Resware’s then-parent company Adeptive Software.

Read on to learn more.

Accurate Group, a Cleveland-based firm offering tech-driven real estate appraisal, title data and e-closing solutions, is partnering with Mortgage Cadence to expand current services.

Company leaders say the deal paves way for lenders to put Accurate Group technology to use through Mortgage Cadence’s Collaboration Center, with an aim to cut down on time lenders spend moving between different systems.

Read on for more information.

Property tax reporting from DataTrace will be integrated into SoftPro’s 360 business exchange portal, the companies announced. The integration will give users automated access to numerous national data channels.

Read on for more information.

New reporting from Redfin shows investor home purchases fell by 30 percent in the third quarter year-over-year. Aside from months following the onset of COVID-19 in 2020, that marks the largest decline recorded since the Great Recession.

Read on for more.

Blue Sage Solutions is adding digital borrower verification products to its digital lending platform, thanks to a new partnership with PointServ Technologies.

Read on for more information.