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The Title Report Print Edition
April 22, 2013
In this edition of The Title Report, we sat down with George Houghton, group president of agency operations for Stewart, to discuss the company’s new Trusted Provider Program. What exactly was the national underwriter trying to accomplish with this new program? What changes if any can its agency base expect? And how might this initiative reflect on the broader issues now facing the title industry and its customers? Inside the edition we have an exclusive look at the 2013 Title Insurance Financial Report feature contributed from Demotech, which takes a deep dive into overall industry profitability. And we have a few more fraud prevention tips and strategies from some industry experts as well as the rest of your daily news. |
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Existing-home sales up year over year, but down from February
Posted Date: Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Existing-home sales eased in March from inventory constraints, which
continued to pressure home prices, according to the National Association
of Realtors, but remain 10.3 percent higher than the 4.46 million-unit
pace in March 2012.
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 Title agent among five charged in multimillion-dollar mortgage fraud scheme
Posted Date: Tuesday, April 23, 2013
A 34-count indictment was unsealed charging five people, including one
title agent, with various crimes stemming from their participation in a
mortgage fraud scheme between May 2004 and February 2009 that involved
fraudulent documents, inflated purchase prices on loan documents for
more than 100 Philadelphia properties and resulted in more than $20
million in fraudulent loan proceeds.
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Continental Title acquires local title agency for 13th office
Posted Date: Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Continental Title Holding Co. Inc., an independent title insurance
agency in St. Louis, with offices throughout the states of Kansas and
Missouri, announced the acquisition of Assured Title Co. of Warrenton
LLC. The combined entities anticipate annual revenue for 2013 to be $26
million.
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E-recording update: Total number of counties tops 900
Posted Date: Monday, April 22, 2013
The number of recording jurisdictions that are electronically recording
(e-recording) documents reached the 900 mark in April, according to Kay
Wrucke, recorder, Martin County, Minn., and president of the Property
Records Industry Association. Read on for more about this achievement,
PRIA’s 2013 goal and a couple new counties added to the networks of
Simplifile and Corporation Service Co.
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Number of improving housing markets holding steady in April
Posted Date: Monday, April 22, 2013
Following seven consecutive months of gains, the list of improving U.S.
housing markets remained virtually unchanged in April, with 273 metros
on the National Association of Home Builders/First American Improving
Markets Index. Read on for more about the new entries on the list.
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Lawyer convicted in 220-property, $50M fraud scam
Posted Date: Monday, April 22, 2013
Following approximately three weeks of trial, a lawyer from Louisiana
who had worked in Las Vegas as a real estate agent has been convicted by
a jury of conspiracy and multiple fraud counts for his involvement in
the mortgage fraud scheme involving more than 220 properties and more
than $50 million in losses.
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Title industry claims, statutory reserve figures for 2012
Posted Date: Monday, April 22, 2013
The American Land Title Association released its official title
insurance industry statistics for 2012. We originally reported on the
premium data earlier in the year (and included it in our 2013 Financial Report) but also included in this announcement were the totals for claims and statutory reserves as well.
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Luxury homebuilder says market is ready, pitches new concept
Posted Date: Monday, April 22, 2013
The founder of Emerge Homes Inc., Michael Hill, has put the remnants of
his homebuilding business up for sale after a five-year hiatus, but is
pitching his vision for a new homebuilder model because he thinks it is
what consumers want, and what the oncoming market recovery will need.
Take a look and see what you think.
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Stewart steps up for agent base with Trusted Provider Program
Posted Date: Friday, April 19, 2013
Themes that have consistently stayed in the headlines the past year
are agent vetting and verification and regaining customer confidence. In
an attempt to address the issues, one of the larger national
underwriters launched a new program to communicate the competency of its
agency base to customers. Stewart Title Guaranty Co. announced the
Stewart Trusted Provider Program to provide lenders, Realtors, builders,
investors and consumers peace of mind in the real estate services
rendered by approved Stewart
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Western Region Report: Phoenix rising after late-2012 slump
Posted Date: Thursday, April 18, 2013
Total dollars insured in the six-county Bay Area region of Northern
California has been trending sharply upward over the past 12 months,
according to DataQuick in this month’s Western Region Report. Check out
the chart of activity as well as the top three title businesses in each
county by market share gains.
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Universal Land Title acquires 30th office location
Posted Date: Thursday, April 18, 2013
Universal Land Title LLC acquired the assets of Lincoln Title Services
LLC, a Lake Mary, Fla., title agency founded three years ago by Michael
Ussery, a former Universal employee. Over those years, Ussery has led
the rapid growth of Lincoln into one of the Orlando area’s more
successful title agencies.
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Builder confidence keeps sliding during spring season
Posted Date: Thursday, April 18, 2013
Facing increasing costs for building materials and rising concerns about
the supply of developed lots and labor, builders registered less
confidence in the market for newly built, single-family homes in April,
with a two-point drop to 42 on the National Association of Home
Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index.
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United Lender Services to expand its commercial title services
Posted Date: Thursday, April 18, 2013
United Lender Services Corp., a national title insurance, settlement
services, and appraisal management company, is expanding its commercial
title insurance services. This expansion will provide a national
platform for developers, lenders and borrowers for commercial real
estate transactions, the company said.
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Refinance activity on the rise in April
Posted Date: Thursday, April 18, 2013
Mortgage applications increased 4.8 percent from one week earlier,
according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s Weekly
Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending April 12.
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Former Interthinx VP heads to ServiceLink
Posted Date: Thursday, April 18, 2013
ServiceLink, an end-to-end origination, servicing and default solutions
provider for mortgage lenders and servicers, announced that a former
vice president of business development and marketing for Interthinx has
joined the company as senior vice president of corporate development.
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WFG Lender Services acquires Valutrust Solutions
Posted Date: Wednesday, April 17, 2013
WFG Lender Services has acquired Valutrust Solutions LLC, a national
mortgage services and technology development business based in Overland
Park, Kan. WFGLS is a national, full service provider of title insurance
and real estate settlement services for lender real estate
transactions. Read on for how this deal will change the operations of
WFGLS.
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MortgageDocs hires new CEO
Posted Date: Wednesday, April 17, 2013
MortgageDocs, a national notary signing services company, has hired a new Chief Executive Officer. The appointment of an established executive in the mortgage servicing industry,
signals a renewed focus on growth and innovation for the national mobile
notary company.
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Webinar to deliver in-depth RESPA training
Posted Date: Tuesday, April 16, 2013
The RESPA statute is among the most controversial consumer protection
laws impacting mortgage and settlement services, and companies year
after year defend themselves in court over violations. But industry
professionals and business owners can prevent lawsuits and government
enforcement actions by understanding what can and cannot be done under
this unwieldy federal law and staying abreast of new guidance and
judicial decisions.
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FHFA extends HARP to 2015
Posted Date: Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Have you become accustomed to the high volume of refinance transactions
the last few years? For myriad reasons, that volume will most likely not
continue, however, the Federal Housing Finance Agency has no plans to
end the Home Affordable Refinance Program any time soon, which has been a
boost to the pipelines since it was reworked to include more underwater
borrowers.
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Ernst offers sub-jurisdiction fee solution via geocoding
Posted Date: Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Ernst, a provider of technology and closing cost data for the real
estate and home finance industry, has released new functionality for its
patented fee engine technology that allows the firm to overlay its data
on a geocoding application provided by CoreLogic to provide precise
local tax jurisdiction information to its customers.
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Adeptive introduces address validation integration
Posted Date: Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Adeptive announced an integration for address validation using
SmartyStreets. When clients of ResWare either enter a new order or edit
an existing order, a property address validation can be performed via
the smart data managers of SmartyStreets.
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Knight Barry, tech company partner to develop secure email system for title agents
Posted Date: Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Knight Barry Title Group, one of the largest title agencies in the
Midwest, has partnered with Cliq2 Technology to develop a secure email
system for title insurance agents known as Cliq2Send.com. The delivery
system allows title agencies to quickly and effectively address the
third pillar of the ALTA’s Title Insurance and Settlement Company Best
Practices.
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NextAce’s Title Editor 2.0 speeds title exam process
Posted Date: Tuesday, April 16, 2013
NextAce Corp. announced the immediate availability of Title EDITOR 2.0,
which gives the title examiner the new-found ability to review from the
actual prelim, commitment or title product from the very start of the
process, eliminating guesswork and errors.
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Demotech, Fitch provide exclusive commentary for 2013 Title Insurance Financial Report
Posted Date: Monday, April 15, 2013
We reported the 2013 earnings reports from each of the top underwriters,
but now we have tapped the experts to tell you what those numbers mean.
This annual special report, brought to you by The Title Report,
includes reports from the top title insurance companies but also drills
down on the financial stability of the title insurance underwriting
world, takes a look at the current ratings, explores the market share
shifts and details the title premium data.
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Wells Fargo launches new local bank format
Posted Date: Monday, April 15, 2013
Wells Fargo & Co. announced a new banking store concept — the
neighborhood bank format — that it created to deliver the kind of
on-site banking experience that Wells Fargo customers have come to
expect, but in a smaller format that allows the company to offer store
locations with personalized service, in settings not suitable for its
larger stores.
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Third family member pleads guilty in Colorado mortgage fraud case
Posted Date: Friday, April 12, 2013
The husband of a mortgage broker/settlement agent/license title
insurance agent pled guilty to making a false statement to a bank in a
$12 million mortgage fraud case involving his wife and another
co-conspirator — their son — reported the FBI field office in Colorado.
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Visionet Systems forms new banking suite solution
Posted Date: Friday, April 12, 2013
Visionet Systems, a provider of outsourcing solutions and mortgage,
title and servicing software, has combined many of its successful
product solutions to form VisiBanking Suite. This suite leverages rules
engines, OCR/ICR, auto-indexing and numerous validation tools, evolving
workflow, best practices, analytics and audit for a powerful tool set.
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Simplifile adds counties in North Carolina, Idaho, Nebraska
Posted Date: Friday, April 12, 2013
Simplifile announces new counties that have added e-recording every
couple of weeks. We’ve combined the announcements from April so far into
this post, which includes counties in North Carolina, Idaho and
Nebraska.
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Fraud prevention tip: Beware the random call from a 'software vendor'
Posted Date: Thursday, April 11, 2013
The real secret to a fraud attack is trickery. Even as malware viruses and
bots have become more insidious and able to use new technology for
nefarious purposes, the attackers still need to rely on the naive,
careless or unprepared victim to fall for their trap. We’ve discussed
much of this in previous articles on protecting your agency from cyber
attacks, but in a recent exchange with Greg McDonald, president of
Cloudstar Consulting, he gave another example of how low-tech some of
these schemes can be. McD
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First National Title reports $4.5M revenue in Q1
Posted Date: Thursday, April 11, 2013
First National Title Insurance Co., a regional title insurance
underwriter new to the scene in 2012, announced record revenues and
earnings for the first quarter of 2013 as well as a few other
companywide news items and goals for 2013.
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Government purchase apps plummet; conventional purchase loans at four-year high
Posted Date: Thursday, April 11, 2013
Mortgage applications increased 4.5 percent from one week earlier,
according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s Weekly
Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending April 5. The most
intriguing data this week comes from the split in the purchase
application data.
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Old Republic sets Q1 2013 earnings call
Posted Date: Thursday, April 11, 2013
Old Republic International Corp. announced the date and time of its 2013
first quarter earnings report and conference call. Read on for all of
the pertinent call in information.
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RamQuest incorporates signing service into Closing Market
Posted Date: Thursday, April 11, 2013
RamQuest Inc. announced an integration with Nations Direct, a nationwide
signing service that will enable RamQuest’s customers to electronically
order signing services for closings directly from their title
production solution.
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Title Source obtains title licenses for entire state of California
Posted Date: Thursday, April 11, 2013
Title Source, a large provider of title insurance, property valuations
and settlement services, announced it has expanded its presence in
California and is now licensed to write title insurance policies in all
58 counties in the state.
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Thomas Title & Escrow hires EVP, SVP and relationship manager
Posted Date: Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Thomas Title & Escrow brought aboard three new hires in Texas and
Arizona, the company announced in a recent e-news blast from the
president and chief executive officer, Frank Busch III. Read on for
information about all three.
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Adeptive shows its growth with new hires, office space
Posted Date: Tuesday, April 09, 2013
Adeptive announced a litany of personnel changes and a new office space
as part of its continued growth and expansion. In the last few months,
the company increased its space from 1,000 sq. ft. to more than 4,000
sq. ft. Read on for more about several new staff additions.
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Are you ready to implement the LO compensation rule?
Posted Date: Tuesday, April 09, 2013
Parts of the CFPB’s new loan originator compensation rule take effect as
early as June of this year. Mortgage professionals are encouraged to
get the training they need now in order to ensure compliance by its
effective date. Dodd Frank Update is offering a 90-minute
training webinar on the rule and how to comply with its various parts.
Read on for more on this educational opportunity.
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11 steps to guard against cyber fraud
Posted Date: Thursday, April 04, 2013
In January, Entrust Solutions sent out an agent alert regarding a
phishing scheme whereby crooks were impersonating title insurance
underwriters to get a hold of banking account information. The company
sent out another update this month, complete with some fraud security
advice.
In the scheme in question, Entrust says the perpetrators sent out
massive amounts of emails targeting agents and attorneys, telling them
to “Confirm Your Wiring Instructions” with them. The emails looked to be
as
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Stewart receives positive rating outlook upgrade from Fitch
Posted Date: Thursday, April 04, 2013
Fitch Ratings announced the affirmation of several Stewart Information
Services Corp. ratings, but also upgraded the company’s rating outlook
to positive. Read on for the company’s analysis of Stewart as well as
factors that could lead to an upgrade or possible downgrade.
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Stewart launches Trusted Provider Program for title agencies, attorneys
Posted Date: Thursday, April 04, 2013
There has been a lot of stories in the last few months about agent
vetting, verification and regaining customer confidence, and one of the
larger national underwriters has launched a new program in an attempt to
help solve some of these issues and prove the competency of their
agency base. Read on for more about the Stewart Trusted Provider
Program.
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Medallion Analytics, SoftPro partner to increase productivity
Posted Date: Thursday, April 04, 2013
Medallion Analytics, provider of productivity and compliance tools for
the title industry, and SoftPro, the nation’s leading provider of real
estate closing and title insurance software, announced that Medallion’s
HUD Prep Tool was integrated with SoftPro’s 360 Business Exchange
Platform.
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Investors Title revenue makes local headlines
Posted Date: Thursday, April 04, 2013
Investors Title Co. is a publicly-held North Carolina company whose
stock is traded on the NASDAQ Global Market. It is one of the more well
known, reputable regional title underwriters in the country. And the
company made the top of a North Carolina business journal list for top
revenue-generating companies in the area.
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Nationwide Title Clearing reports e-recording trending up sharply
Posted Date: Tuesday, April 02, 2013
Nationwide Title Clearing Inc., a service provider to the mortgage and
financial industry, reported at a national conference on some of the
numbers it has seen over the years that illustrate the rapid adoption of
e-recording technology in records offices across the country.
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First American names new chief financial officer
Posted Date: Tuesday, April 02, 2013
First American Financial Corp. announced the naming of a new chief
financial officer to replace Max Valdes, who is retiring after 25 years
with the company. Read on for more information on the new CFO.
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GRS Group expands commercial title services into Dallas
Posted Date: Tuesday, April 02, 2013
GRS Group, a global provider of commercial real estate assessment
services and title services, announced an expansion of its footprint
into Dallas. Specifically, GRS Title Services LLC is now a licensed
commercial title insurance agency in the State of Texas. Read on for
more about the move and the industry veteran brought on to run the new
office.
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Title, escrow companies merge in Pacific Northwest
Posted Date: Tuesday, April 02, 2013
Two of the largest independent regional title and escrow companies in
the Pacific Northwest are joining forces. Futura Title & Escrow, the
parent company of Alliance Title & Escrow Corp., announced today
that it has closed the purchase of AmeriTitle Inc., whose corporate
offices are in Bend, Ore.
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Agents National adds to underwriting staff
Posted Date: Tuesday, April 02, 2013
Agents National Title Insurance Co. announced an addition to its
underwriting staff who will handle underwriting duties for the southern
region. Read on for more about this latest veteran member of the Agents
National team.
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