The National Settlement Services Summit has come and gone once again, but the business education doesn’t have to end there, as evidenced in the July 1 edition of The Title Report and throughout the last few weeks here on TheTitleReport.com. Editors from all of the October Research LLC publications were on hand at the conference, sitting in on the panels and chatting behind the scenes, and the features packed into our July 1 edition are just the start of the post-NS3, business-building content headed your way.
The most apparent takeaway from the conference, for me, was the dichotomy in the title industry right now. I realize it’s beyond cliché to drop Charles Dickens’ “it was the best of times; it was the worst of times,” but that’s the best way to sum up the title industry in 2013.
Best of times: The downturn in the market helped remove the “fly-by-night” competition from the market; title premiums are up; and today’s technology can vastly improve production processes, facilitate better client relationships and reduce expenses.
Worst of times: Lender oversight is affecting client relationships; regulations from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau have a still unknown effect on the industry and small businesses; implementation of new forms and new rules places more of a burden on title agents to keep up; and will small agents be able to adapt to the new expectations?
These two concepts, the business opportunities and the regulatory challenges, have been running neck and neck for a while now, and it seems the message from many on stage at the National Settlement Services Summit is don’t be a spectator — you need to jump in and run with both. Panelists and presenters talked about not only improving your approach to data security and best practices, but also marketing those concepts to your customer base.
What are your thoughts? In your business, does it feel like the best of times or the worst? What keeps you up at night — excitement about new opportunities or dread about the coming changes? What are you doing about both? Be sure to let us know what’s going on at your agency at [email protected] — we’d love to write about your experience, opinions or ideas.