Progress and opportunities for future title industry transactions will be discussed by Williston Financial Group (WFG) Chairman and founder Patrick Stone at the 19th annual National Settlement Services Summit (NS3) in St. Louis, Mo., June 6-8.
Stone is slated to take the speaker stage on June 8 and plans to weigh in on broader economic trends in addition to providing transaction insight.
“I’m going to point out how much, but at the same time, how little the industry’s changed over my 48 years being part of it,” Stone told The Title Report. “With technology and other things, there’s just been so many investments and changes in structure. Volume is probably now six times what it was back when I started.
“There’s a lot of change and, yet, there’s no change. It still takes 45 days to close a real estate transaction. That’s what it was back in 1975. That may vary a bit by area but, generally, nothing has changed with how long it takes. When talking about percentage of asset value, nothing has really changed there, either.”
Across his near half-century of industry experience, Stone has held C-suite positions with three public companies and sat on two Fortune 500 boards. That leadership experience includes serving as CEO of Fidelity National Information Solutions Inc., a majority-owned subsidiary of Fidelity National Financial. He was the recipient of October Research’s 2020 Leadership Award.
With elevated interest rates and other macroeconomic factors continuing to affect the title industry and housing market, Stone projected the likelihood for a U.S. recession at less than 50 percent but said chances for that outcome abroad and globally are higher.
“I’m pretty optimistic about the real estate industry over the next five years,” he said. “It’s going to take a year for us to get back to having the volume and growth that we normally have. We are suffering from the psychological impact of where we are, with the uncertainty right now. From 2024 to 2028, things will be very good because you have tremendous demand and tremendous need. If you get affordability back on the table you’ll see the market take off.”
Stone said his firm has observed an uptick in construction investment.
“The builders are reengaging now,” he said. “We just need to get through the next year. It’s been a tough time for many of us, but we’re seeing a lot of good signs, the kind that show there’s better times ahead.”
As far as what he hopes attendees gain from his NS3 speech, Stone stressed the importance of using realism in business operations rather than theory or wishful thinking.
“Technology has created less intermediaries in almost every aspect of the U.S. economy, but the one area where it’s actually created more is real estate,” he said. “We really need to focus on what actually works and what actually makes a difference. We need to improve the time and efficiency of our relationships with our clients. Don’t buy into the idea that something is going to suddenly come along and change the entire industry. It’s not going to happen.”
For more information on the 2023 NS3, including the agenda and a list of speakers for all three days, click here. You can register for NS3 here.