Cybercrime has hit record highs, and real estate’s feeling the pressure.
In 2025, the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) logged more than one million complaints for the first time in its 26-year history, with total U.S. losses reaching $20.87 billion, up 26% year over year. Real estate fraud complaints climbed 32% on an annual basis to 12,368, and losses jumped nearly 60% to $275.1 million.
A mix of factors drove the cybercrime spike in the real estate space, which includes the title & escrow industry: rapid growth in digital infrastructure, more organized criminal networks, and wider access to AI tools that make attacks easier to target, scale, and execute.
Against that backdrop, Qualia surveyed 802 title & escrow professionals across the United States in early 2026 to measure where the industry stands against the most pressing fraud threat it faces: wire fraud.
We did an in-depth analysis of the data, which centered on title & escrow companies’ wire fraud experiences over the previous 12 months, and compared them against the findings from our 2024 survey. The results, published in Wire Fraud Trends in Title & Escrow, 2026: An Ever-Evolving Threat, paint a picture that’s both sobering and encouraging. Here are seven key takeaways from the report.
1. Wire fraud worry skyrocketed
Wire fraud ranked as the top perceived threat title & escrow businesses faced in both 2024 and 20251. Industry professionals identified it as a bigger danger than everything from employee errors and economic headwinds, to intensified regulatory compliance.
What’s more, the emotional toll tied to wire fraud grew sharply. The share of professionals who said wire fraud concerns keep them up at night jumped 64% year over year in 2025, rising from about a quarter of respondents to more than four in ten. One survey respondent summed up the prevailing sentiment: “When it comes to wire fraud, it feels like we can never not be afraid.”
2. Attacks are pervasive and persistent, and phishing leads the way
Nearly 80% of title & escrow firms experienced a fraud attempt in 2025, and about two-thirds said the number of attempts they faced held steady or increased compared to the prior year. Industry professionals ranked seller proceeds, mortgage lender payoffs, and buyer cash to close as the transaction points most vulnerable to fraud.
Meanwhile, 86% of survey respondents said phishing emails and business email compromise are where most attacks originate. In fact, 72% of firms reported experiencing phishing directly. The data makes it clear that email is a weak point criminals are eager to exploit.
3. Successful attacks can be financially devastating
Financial loss to one’s business topped the list of fraud impacts that concern title & escrow companies the most, beating out financial loss to clients, legal liability, reputational damage, and other risks. It’s clear to see why: when fraudsters succeed, the consequences are severe. More than 11% of victimized title & escrow firms reported losses exceeding $1 million, and 36.5% lost between $100,000 and $1 million.
“These numbers reflect just how much is riding on every transaction for title & escrow businesses today,” said Alex Hamlin, Head of Information Security at Qualia. “Fraud attempts are relentless, and even a single successful attack can be devastating. Stronger defenses start with understanding the true scale of the risk.”
4. Full fund recovery got harder
The Qualia survey suggests title & escrow companies are getting better at recovering some percentage of stolen funds. Still, full recovery got harder. Only about 14% of victimized firms recovered 100% of lost funds in 2025, down from 18.5% the year before.
Cryptocurrency conversion and more sophisticated account takeover schemes are partly to blame. Both can move money fast and make it virtually untraceable. That’s why acting fast matters if you suspect fraud. It’s crucial to immediately contact the bank, followed by IC3 and even local law enforcement.
Recovery efforts are complex, though, and can be difficult to manage. That’s why about 30% of victimized title & escrow businesses used a dedicated service—like Qualia’s Fraud Recovery Service—to help. Qualia’s Fraud Recovery Service coordinates recovery across banks and law enforcement, so companies are not navigating a multi-agency process alone when speed matters most.
5. More attacks are getting stopped as industry-specific tools take hold
Even though full recovery got harder, prevention improved. About 90% of firms stopped every fraud attempt in 2025, up from 80% in 2024. That improvement may reflect, in part, a meaningful shift in how the industry is arming itself.
In 2025, 36% more respondents said they used an industry-specific wire fraud mitigation tool than in 2024. There were notable increases in adoption of solutions that are natively built into teams’ systems of record. Those tools include Qualia Connect, which keeps sensitive transaction communications within a secure, brandable platform rather than open email inboxes. They also include Qualia Shield, which runs automated wire risk verifications every time wire instructions are added or changed.
36%—Year-over-increase in the percentage of Qualia survey respondents indicating they use an industry-specific wire fraud mitigation tool.
6. Firms need better fraud prevention auditing
About 92% of 2025 survey respondents said they’re confident that wire fraud verification procedures are being followed internally. Yet only 24% use integrated technology to audit that compliance. Most rely on manual spreadsheets, occasional checks, or no audit process at all.
That gap between confidence and visibility creates real vulnerability. Leaders need proof that verification steps are followed consistently. Technology built natively into a firm’s system of record can help document and surface that proof.
7. Professionals want prevention built in, not bolted on
A large majority of title & escrow professionals see the value of that natively built-in technology for broad fraud prevention purposes. About 95% of 2025 survey respondents said it’s important that fraud prevention tools integrate directly into their title production software.
Standalone tools that sit outside a firm’s core workflow can become their own liability. They require platform toggling, duplicate data entry, and added complexity, raising the odds of errors and missed steps. The right built-in technology can close those gaps, in part by automating key components of fraud prevention, such as automatically running verification assessments every time wire instructions are added or changed.
95% of title & escrow professionals say it’s somewhat important to very important that their wire fraud prevention technology integrates with their title production software.
Across all seven takeaways from Qualia’s 2026 wire fraud report, the same throughline holds: fraud presents a constant and ever more sophisticated threat, and the title & escrow industry must keep evolving to combat it. Using the right technology is a cornerstone of that evolution.
“The transactions our industry protects are a family’s financial future,” said Nate Baker, CEO and Co-Founder of Qualia. “Qualia is deeply committed to providing the most powerful technology possible to safeguard those transactions for our customers, for consumers, and for the integrity of our industry. That mission drives everything we build.”
To learn more about how Qualia can help you protect your business and clients from wire fraud, contact one of our team members today.
- Data for Qualia’s latest wire fraud survey covers 2025 into early 2026 and is referred to as “2025” in the wire fraud report and this blog. ↩︎
