News By Edition

New American Land Title Association (ALTA) President Jack Rattikin III is not only a third-generation title company owner, he also is a third-generation ALTA president.

One of ALTA’s priorities for 2022-2023 is navigating the regulatory environment, including the debate regarding the risks of title insurance alternatives, such as certain attorney opinion letters (AOLs). Rattikin finds that interesting, he told The Title Report, as his grandfather helped introduce title insurance to Texas in the 1940s as an alternative to AOLs, which consumers and lenders then found lacking.

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TitleTap and its suite of products were acquired by Knoxville, Tenn.-based ProfitSolv, a provider of software solutions for legal, accounting and other professional services firms.

The TitleTap brand will remain intact, said co-founder and CEO Dean Collura and co-founder and Chief Operating Officer Eliot Dill. Collura will continue as CEO and Dill will become general manager.

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Real estate payment platform ZOCCAM Technologies will be awarded an additional patent, expanding its patent portfolio to seven. All its patents cover payments and payment data.

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Stewart Lender Services announced the launch of Stewart Enterchange, a platform aimed at improving the consumer experience throughout the title and closing process.

Features of Enterchange include intuitive user-interface on any device, easy upload and download of documentation, messaging with advanced security, multifactor authentication and eSigning capabilities.

Read on for more about the new solution.

Lending platform Refinance.com is launching a title services franchise named Pyramid Title LLC through franchiser TitleEase. The new franchise is in Texas and will serve customers statewide.

Being able to provide title services to existing mortgage clients will allow Refinance.com to provide the most efficient closing procedure possible, according to the CEO of TitleEase.

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eMortgage technology solution provider Evolve Mortgage Services is partnering with fintech company FirstClose to automate the home equity line of credit (HELOC) origination process. The collaboration combines FirstClose’s home equity application management system with Evolve’s document engine and eSign and eNotary capabilities.

The new solution will enable lenders to approve HELOCs within seven minutes, according to the companies.

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Mortgage subservicer LoanCare, part of Fidelity National Financial, now offers open-ended home equity lines of credit (HELOC) nationwide. LoanCare can accommodate segmented, fully amortized, and interest-only HELOCs and provide interim servicing as well.

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Accruit named a 12-year real estate veteran to its new role of director of sales. He will focus on growing Accruit’s business development team across traditional qualified intermediary and technology service offerings.

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There are long-term drivers of housing demand that will position the housing market to rebound once the dust settles from the current challenging economic conditions, according to First American Deputy Chief Economist Odeta Kushi. One of those drivers is education.

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Amrock’s commercial team recently closed a seven-site, $1.07 billion-dollar real estate transaction. The deal involved casinos located in several different states.

Agencies don’t often land deals of such a size, an Amrock commercial vice president said. She attributed the successful transaction to the company’s track record and long-standing professional relationships.

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Numerous digital platforms and solutions have hit the market in the past year. All hold the promise of helping companies improve the settlement process for consumers.

Read on for more about title technology.

First National Title Insurance Co. partnered with TitleCapture to provide its nationwide network of title agencies access to TitleCapture’s suite of tools, including a new technology program.

The custom program is designed to provide a first-to-market tech offering that gives title agents access to a quoting platform and digital web experience.

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Covius Holdings announced the licensure of Covius Title Co. in California. With the addition of California, Covius is now licensed to provide settlement services in 39 states as well as the District of Columbia.

The new license allows Covius to write title in all 58 California counties, as well as meet demand from credit union and banks that have pivoted to home equity products.

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Redfin launched its real estate brokerage into Hilton Head, S.C., Wilmington, N.C., and Green Bay, Wis. The company also launched a listing search for an estimated 570 counties, now covering over 95 percent of the U.S. population.

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InspectHOA, a platform that concentrates on the homeowners’ association part of real estate transactions, partnered with paymints.io. The partnership aims to digitize more of the closing experience.

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The share of buyers purchasing a home for the first time has rebounded to pre-pandemic levels. First-time buyers now represent 45 percent of all buyers, up from 37 percent surveyed last year, according to Zillow’s 2022 Consumer Housing Trends Report.

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Stewart Information Services Corp.’s Board of Directors extended the terms of CEO Fred Eppinger’s employment agreement for another three years.

Stewart also announced the planned retirement of Chief Legal Officer (CLO) and Chief Compliance Officer (CCO) John Killea early next year. A 25-year legal veteran will succeed Killea as CLO.

Read on for more about the personnel news.

Kensington Vanguard National Land Services rolled out its condominium division, KVCondo. The division was formed after Kensington Vanguard was selected as one of the preferred national title insurance providers for CondoTek’s lender services platform, which specializes in condo-document acquisition and lending compliance.

KVCondo will be led by a veteran national underwriter and national operations manager.

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Voxtur Analytics Corp.’s attorney opinion letter (Voxtur AOL) is now available as a fully compliant alternative to title insurance on Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) direct and VA-backed home loans.

The VA has never required a lender making a VA loan to obtain title insurance. The VA released revisions to its lender handbook last week regarding title insurance to include attorney opinion letters.

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Fintech company Payload announced a partnership with Premier Data Services to launch an integration with SoftPro. The integration will deliver secure ePayments for real estate closing disbursements and payouts.

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First National Title Insurance Co. (FNTI) named a southeast region agency manager. She will focus on growing FNTI’s agency base in the southeast and help develop the underwriter/agent relationship.

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As mortgage rates continue to rise, affordability has decreased significantly for all homebuyers. But affordability for the potential first-time homebuyer, those currently renting, have faced the most pressure.

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Fintech company Stavvy and digital financial services company Guaranteed Rate announced a strategic partnership to drive digitization and enable relationships across the mortgage ecosystem, including title and settlement agents.

Together, the two companies say they are poised to accelerate the number of electronic closings and drive digital transformation in the industry.

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Knight Barry Title is aiding the real estate community of Sanibel and Captiva, Fla., which was hit hard by Hurricane Ian.

Knight Barry is offering the use of its Fort Myers location to any Sanibel title company needing assistance and making its conference rooms and other resources available to any displaced Realtor, mortgage lender or local real estate attorney.

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AM Best affirmed the financial strength rating of A (excellent) and the long-term issuer credit ratings (long-term ICR) of “a” (excellent) of both subsidiaries Investors Title Co., Investors Title Insurance Co. and National Investors Title Insurance Co.

AM Best also affirmed the long-term ICR of “bbb” (good) of Investors Title Co.

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New York-based Spano Abstract added an attorney to its counsel team. He has represented a wide variety of clients in areas including residential and commercial real estate transactions, institutional and private lending and mortgage closings.

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Near North Title Group named a 30-year industry veteran as executive vice president and commercial division manager. She has closed more than 1,000 transactions.

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Sales of luxury homes fell 28.1 percent year-over-year during the three months ending Aug. 31, according to Redfin. That’s the biggest decline since at least 2012, eclipsing the 23.2 percent plunge that occurred at the onset of the pandemic.

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Doma Holdings launched a home equity financing offering built for lenders, leveraging its Doma Intelligence platform to accelerate the title search for home equity loans and home equity lines of credit.

The new offerings reflect the shifting housing market, the vice president of Doma title operations told The Title Report.

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Real estate technology company Flueid secured $20 million in funding, including a $15 million Series B raise and a relationship extension with Silicon Valley Bank through an additional $5 million in debt financing.

The funding will be used to scale products to support all housing market demands, particularly home equity and loss mitigation strategies for today’s market conditions.

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Small-business owners reporting labor quality as their top business operating problem remained elevated at 22 percent in September, according to NFIB’s monthly jobs report. Labor cost reported as the single most important problem to business owners was unchanged at 10 percent.

Close to half of all owners reported job openings they could not fill in September, down three points from August.

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Agents National Title Insurance Co. named two new team members. They added a Pacific Northwest agency manager and a central states underwriting counsel.

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Vesta’s mortgage loan origination system integrated with First American Data & Analytics’ FraudGuard solution. The integration allows lenders to leverage the FraudGuard solution through Vesta’s API’s.

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The Fannie Mae Home Purchase Sentiment Index fell 1.2 points in September to 60.8. That’s the lowest level since October 2011, according to Fannie Mae Chief Economist Doug Duncan.

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