Good afternoon —
I talked to a title agent recently who emphasized that their in-person presence is what homebuyers appreciated at the closing table and why their referral partners valued their services. They weren't necessarily anti-tech, but I don't think they had connected the dots on the ways they can provide personal service (if not in-person service) through technology.
One of our recent articles speaks directly to this topic. Phil King, vice president and principal product manager of EXOS Valuations at ServiceLink wrote an op-ed piece for us last week discussing ServiceLink's latest consumer study, which showed:
*68% of respondents reported that their perception of the home-buying process was improved by technology, citing convenience/ease of use and time savings as the top benefits of leveraging tech.
But there was a problem: "For many homebuyers, their confidence diminishes the closer they get to the closing table. This could be attributed to the fact that the streamlined, digital capabilities they enjoyed at the initial point of sale do not extend to the closing process."
ServiceLink data showed that 35% of the respondents wanted less paperwork, 33% wanted more transparency around fees, 33% wanted to not have to provide the same documentation multiple times and 30% wanted more transparency into the steps and timeline.
King's advice includes integrating a full or hybrid e-closing experience and leveraging AI and machine learning to speed up title decisioning.
We'll be tackling how tech is changing the title space at our HW Annual event, which is now just two weeks away on Sept. 27-28! Our title and closing sessions will feature Bill Burding of ALTA, Tim Anderson of Evolve Mortgage Services, Andrea Lightfoot from SimpleNexus, Matt Kaufman of Qualia, and more.
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