Over the past few decades, the title industry has undergone several distinct phases of technological advancement. Now, the industry is moving into what is likely to be the most transformative era yet: the age of artificial intelligence (AI).
At Qualia’s 2024 Future of Real Estate Summit (FORES24), Qualia CEO Nate Baker sat down with two industry veterans, Patrick Stone, Chairman and Founder at Williston Financial Group, and Bryan Buus, Founder of Resware, to discuss the evolution of closing software. “It’s useful to go back and think about how these processes happened,” Baker said. “It gives us insight into how things might change as AI becomes a bigger part of our businesses.”
Breakthrough 1: The Internet facilitates internal operational effectiveness
Stone remembers the first digital equipment in the early 1980s, including his encounter with an analog computer system that measured three feet wide by three feet high. While cumbersome, the early computers helped improve intraoffice efficiency by digitizing paper processes.
However, true transformation didn’t occur until the arrival of the Internet, which enabled greater connectivity between offices. With the exchange of data and information between different departments, businesses saw significant efficiency gains.
For example, Stone’s team used technology called Simon to centralize the accounting function. Instead of putting information into a word processing system, making changes, and then printing out entirely new documents, his team put information into the Simon database that could be accessed by anyone on the team. “This helped us become much more productive and made us a lot of money,” he said. Ultimately, Simon’s automation, integration, and centralization capabilities showed Stone how his company could use technology to operate more efficiently.
Breakthrough 2: Standardized processes power productivity and outsourcing opportunities
Buus, who has a deep background in software engineering, entered the title & escrow industry without knowing anything about title or escrow. A friend who owned a law firm outside of Chicago contacted Buus because he needed closing software that would enable him to take greater control of his operations. “He felt like he didn’t have control over his own destiny within his company because of the limitations and time it took to make adjustments [to the software],” Buus said.
Buus agreed to help his friend and delved deep into the people and processes involved in real estate closings. One of Buus’ early learnings was that title & escrow processes lacked standardization. The industry used task lists, but there was no systematic workflow, meaning one individual would own the product from start to finish. Alternatively, the concept of a “workflow” allowed the business to break up the process into repeatable steps that could be managed by several people who could seamlessly hand off tasks, unlocking unprecedented efficiencies.
In addition to enabling intra-team efficiencies, shared workflows enabled title & escrow businesses to outsource certain aspects of their operations, such as lien searches and title curative services, opening up even more efficiencies.
Breakthrough 3: APIs help entire ecosystems connect—but there’s still work to be done
While standardized workflows were the first step to outsourced operations, APIs and integrations kickstarted an entirely new level of efficiency. Buus’ team found that many customers were looking to place orders with one another. So, Resware developed “Resware to Resware” integrations that would enable Customer A to seamlessly connect and place orders with Customer B. “APIs were a new concept, but we essentially developed APIs to talk between our different installations,” Buus said.
Later, APIs enabled third-party vendors and title underwriters to integrate with title & escrow companies, creating a connected ecosystem that allowed businesses to work with each other in new and efficient ways.
Despite these advancements, Stone noted that there’s still a distance to go in connecting the three major stakeholders involved in real estate transactions: lenders, real estate agents, and title & escrow companies. Right now, each transaction party has limited visibility and understanding of what other participants do, and each sector must answer to its own regulator.
In addition to regulatory hurdles, Stone noted that each transaction participant’s desire to control their own environment has impeded progress. He believes a uniform interface would transform the real estate transaction and ultimately create a better experience for the end consumer.
What’s next: embracing AI for an optimal future
Buus noted that each major shift wasn’t “just about the title company earning more money or being more efficient” but also about creating an optimal experience for the entire real estate ecosystem—especially the homebuyer and seller.
As the industry enters the next wave of technological transformation and AI becomes a bigger part of operations, keeping the end consumer front and center will ensure the technology moves the industry toward an ideal future. By learning from past breakthroughs in closing software, title companies can better understand AI’s immense opportunities to streamline processes, connect ecosystems, and deliver a seamless real estate experience for all stakeholders.
To hear more from Stone and Buus on the evolution of closing software, watch their full session from FORES24.
