Author:
Nexval Infotech
The title industry is hugely overworked. Nearly half (46.7%) of title executives are juggling two very different responsibilities, and over 1 in 3 reports that they do not have enough time to complete tasks. As a result, there is little time to devote to decision-making, and strategic processes tend to falter. The key to title process efficiency lies in the ability to make smarter, faster decisions by using mortgage title automation and data more effectively.
Read More: 15 Technology Components You Need for Title Automation
What are the Challenges Holding Back the Title Industry?
The title process involves recording and ensuring the end-to-end history of a property to protect the buyer, seller, and mortgage provider. As expected, the title process is extremely data and labor-intensive. Several stakeholders must participate in the process of creating and maintaining a title, complete with regular inspections and reviews. Title insurance must also be compliant with mortgage industry laws.
Unfortunately, most companies still manage title data manually, which increases the possibility of errors. The US has a longstanding undersupply of new properties, which makes title processes much more complicated due to frequent resales. The lack of title process automation adds to these complications and results in higher loan origination costs.
To address this, title companies need to make smarter, faster decisions by relying on a comprehensive and centralized title data repository. Right now, the industry is struggling with low-tech, high-touch processes, where executives have to use manual checklists and paper-based data records to make title-related decisions.
Read More: Top 10 Challenges in the Title Industry and How Automation Can be the Solution
How to Accelerate Decision-Making in the Title Industry?
Title companies can take the following four measures to improve decision-making and unlock new efficiencies:
1. Develop standardized title data formats
While data standards are typically the norm across the mortgage value chain, that is not the case for the title industry. We are increasingly moving towards digital property transactions, and non-standardized title data remains a key hurdle. The Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization (MISMO) has already come up with innovations like SMARTDocs and eNotes to unlock a truly digital future where clean and comprehensive data can be readily available to make decisions.
It is time for the title industry to develop and adopt data standards that will be interoperable across systems, workflows, and different digital environments. It will also reduce the need to manually enter title information, which causes errors and impedes decision-making.
2. Transition to systems on the cloud
A big reason why decision-making becomes difficult in title services is that not every decision-maker has access to the right data at the right time. Some title companies hesitate to migrate to the cloud for control and compliance reasons. Others have too much legacy data installed in on-site systems, which they are afraid to lift and shift. However, a cloud-based system helps create consolidated data repositories through technologies like data fabrics, lakes, and warehouses, which can feed into applications anytime, anywhere, and on any device.
3. Monitor and report on vendor performance
It is no secret that the title industry relies heavily on vendor services. 84% of companies are known to outsource municipal lien searches, 72% outsource title searches, and 62% outsource tax research. With so many vendors in your ecosystem, you need to keep an eye on all the moving parts to speed up and improve the quality of your decision-making.
A robust vendor management dashboard is essential for this purpose. It will monitor ongoing title services and their status even if they happen outside your immediate enterprise perimeter. Of course, it is also important to choose your title services partner carefully so that they are compatible with digital monitoring and remote performance management. Ideally, they should use title process automation and other digital tools that generate regular data to create dynamic and auto-updated reports for your decision-making.
4. Embrace title process automation to free up human executives
Employees in the title industry are held back from making the smartest possible decisions because they are bogged down by routine tasks. A survey of industry professionals revealed that title clearing and closing form the core duties for 71.1% of executives. 42.9% spend their time on post-closing duties and 41.7% on order entry. These are all activities that could be fully or partially digitized by title process automation.
Indeed, less than half of executives today cite cognitive activities like client retention and business development as their key jobs! By embracing title process automation, you can free your workforce for what really matters: studying the data, building relationships, looking for new opportunities, and making decisions to maximize them.
Read More: 6 Benefits of an Automated Title Workflow
Strengthening Your Digital Foundations to Facilitate Smarter Title Decisions
In the future, the title industry will be transformed by emerging technologies like AI and blockchain, which reimagine how data is stored and used. But to gain from these technologies, title companies need a solid digital foundation that is not held back by legacy systems. That is why it is so crucial to harmonize data standards, adopt the cloud, deploy vendor-tracking dashboards, and embrace title process automation.
At Nexval, our team of 1000+ SMEs offers tailored mortgage title automation and title service outsourcing solutions to meet your business needs. Right now, swelling costs and inefficient processes are major problems for the industry, impeding decisions that can generate real value. By streamlining your title services systems, we pave the way for new business opportunities.
Talk to our Tech Gurus to know more.