–  Executive Outlook 2024
Title Industry Priorities: Navigating Growth and Profitability –

As we enter a new year, title companies are eager for a fresh start and new market opportunities. Many of the title leaders we’ve spoken with told us that the hard lessons learned last year are not to be forgotten. Rather, these lessons are shaping go-forward strategies to build growth and sustainable profitability through finding new clients and operating more efficiently via variable cost models.

These strategies, combined with positive economic indicators including the Fed signaling rate reductions and improved builder confidence, suggest that the worst of this cycle is behind us, and moderately better times are ahead. Given this outlook, we’re sharing top priorities in 2024 and how we can work together to build success:

1. Find more business

Taking a real-time and targeted approach to generate qualified leads.

The market is laser-focused on finding new sources of revenue, whether for home equity, purchase or foreclosure transactions, the last of which are ticking up. Title companies rely on lenders and real estate agents as referrals, and we’re seeing them get creative in supporting these partners, generate transactions, and building deeper relationships.

One of the best ways they are doing this is by leveraging title data platforms, like our newly enhanced TitleFlex™ solution to generate fresher, more actionable leads for their real estate and builder partners.

For example, title agents are working with their real estate clients to use “farming” tactics to identify prospects, even those who may not be in the market yet, based on their individual characteristics that indicate a propensity to buy or sell. This includes renters who are likely to buy, investors looking for fix and flip opportunities, older empty nesters who are prime candidates for downsizing, or homeowners with significant equity in aging homes that need updating. The granularity of the data is remarkable, allowing real estate agents and lenders – and title companies on their behalf – to generate highly targeted lists in order to nurture and grow business. These “propensity” characteristics, along with other life events that can trigger real estate activity, have proven to be a great source for identifying new business and guide marketing efforts to more qualified leads, which saves time and money.

Efficiency, quality, and productivity are high client priorities this year, and our newly released pre-defined searches in TitleFlex based on popular criteria provide staff a helping hand and reduce prospecting time. These pre-defined, targeted searches not only provide quick results with one-click access, but they also provide a baseline upon which users can add their own additional customized filters. For instance, a real estate agent may start with a general empty-nest list and then narrow it down to a particular neighborhood or condominium development with which they’ve had recent success.

2. Strengthen Relationships

Maximizing data technology with hands-on training and collaboration.

More companies are relying on technology solutions to do more with less staffing resources. However, as with most technology, it’s only as good as the expertise of the user. Recognizing this, DataTrace includes training as a standard feature of TitleFlex and other products. We’re hearing from more companies that want to invest in technology in 2024, but with an urgency to ensure their staff is properly trained to maximize its usage.

Whether its title companies pulling these searches and sharing with real estate agents or providing the agents with affiliate access to produce their own lists, it’s a mutually beneficial endeavor that yields measurable results. In 2024, we expect to see more usage of our white labeling option in which a title company can brand TitleFlex under their name and grant direct access to five, 10, 50 or more agents.

To further address clients’ need for efficiencies, real-time notifications update users when a record has been added to their specialty search. This avoids them having to go back in, run the search and compare with the previous list. These features enhance productivity and enable staff to work smarter in less time.

3. Do More with Less

Finding ways to leverage multiple data sources without sacrificing accuracy or time.

As the title industry increasingly adopts more digitized solutions, title automation continues to be a priority for 2024 and beyond. Title automation, such as our TitleIQ™ solution, is an efficient way to decrease operational costs and increase productivity. But not every company is in the position to completely move to full automation at once. For some, a gradual, scaled approach to automation is more realistic, particularly given the moderate real estate market outlook. This hybrid approach of combining automated solutions with traditional title search processes, may be more palatable for easier digital transition, but it does present problems. Data coming from various sources is delivered in different formats, making it difficult and time consuming to produce actionable and reliable results.

To address this challenge, DataTrace has introduced the ability to bring other data assets into the automated search workflow, regardless of the original source. This might include data from an abstractor, an external online search, a property tax report, or handwritten records from more than a century ago. TitleIQ can collect and normalize these multiple results from various sources and deliver a single, standardized title report in minutes.

The new year will see more companies adopting OCR (optical character recognition), and, as a result, we’re seeing more interest in our Enhanced Review feature. This allows us to provide expert-based QC for OCR results that come through an automated search. OCR technology still requires human QC, and title companies want to know that their OCR-informed searches will yield accurate results. This on-demand QC can be added to the TitleIQ Enterprise workflow, further improving productivity among examiners.

Starting the new year, client interest and demo requests for search automation is stronger than it’s ever been so we know this is a key priority for 2024. Tapping automation – with the ability to continue to use more traditional data sources – allows title companies to move toward single-seat efficiency, improve quality and boost overall performance to keep their best staff productive in a way that’s truly valuable.

2024 is set to be a year of new opportunities and along with that enters new challenges for the industry nationwide. We’re working with clients to help execute their forward-thinking strategies now to build resilience, win market share and improve financials in advance of market recovery. Let’s build your success together, schedule a chat with our title experts.