In a highly competitive market, your title service providers can have a tangible impact on your business outcomes. Below are ten considerations for selecting a title provider who will help you navigate today’s challenging market.

1: Stability

Whether the market is up or down, having a stable and reliable title provider is important. Someone with decades of experience, minimal claims and strong financial backing all contribute to the stability of a settlement service provider. Jim Gladden, senior vice president, origination strategy, ServiceLink, says, “There’s an element of risk lenders can avoid by working with a title partner that has a history of producing instant title with minimal claims. How long have they been doing it? What does their track record look like?”

2: Service

When it comes to big investments like homebuying, having a title service provider who prioritizes you and your team is essential. Your partner should make sure any purchase, refinance or home equity transaction goes smoothly as each file matters.

According to Kristy Folino, senior vice president, custom solutions, ServiceLink, “At the time we start working with a lender, we document their expectations, customize their account and provide a dedicated team with a single point of contact. That team really gets to know each client and becomes an extension of their operation. When you dedicate individuals to working with the same lenders and loan officers, they understand the unique expectations each of them has. We empower our staff to make

decisions and find creative solutions, which allows us to provide quick responses, have a more efficient process and provide exceptional service.”

3: Prioritization of the borrower experience

Having a partner who prioritizes the borrower experience is essential in today’s real estate lending industry. This industry is increasingly competitive and attracting and retaining borrowers is critical. Investigate how your title provider thinks about your borrowers and whether their service ethos and technology prioritize the borrower throughout the transaction. The 2024 ServiceLink State of Homebuying Report features many insights about today’s borrowers. According to Dave Steinmetz, president of origination services, ServiceLink, “Our study suggests that a growing number of buyers are embracing technology, and many are open to new pathways to achieve homeownership. This indicates there is an opportunity for lenders to provide more targeted resources and guidance to buyers throughout their homebuying journey.”

4: Tech-enabled efficiency

In leaner times, you need to maximize margins on each transaction. Consider where your title service provider has automated their process and how that contributes to your bottom line. This becomes simplified with the use of technology to streamline the process. With the help of instant title technology, decisioning becomes quicker and easier and it enables shorter rate lock periods by quickly clearing the way to the closing table. In fact, many lenders are surprised at how many of their loans qualify for fast-tracking through the instant title process.

Integrating instant title into your processes could allow you to improve your workflows. By utilizing instant title complexity decisions, you can prioritize clear-to-close files and get them to the closing table faster.

5: Scalability

Volumes can change in an instant in the mortgage industry. Due to this uncertainty, it’s critical to partner with settlement service providers who can flex up or down with you as the market necessitates. The size of a provider’s signing agent panel impacts their scalability – as does their ability to allocate vendors to your operations at critical times like month’s end.

6: Geographic footprint

Having a partner with a wide range of scope is critical. This enables you to simplify operations by using one provider for all 50 states. Doing this also ensures your team and borrowers have a consistent experience, wherever they’re located.

Gladden says, “National coverage can be important when a lender’s portfolio is geographically diverse. As part of Fidelity National Financial, ServiceLink is fortunate to have that national scope and to be able to serve lenders wherever they are located.”

7: Security

Strict adherence to local, state and federal guidelines is critical to ensuring compliant transactions, and security around data must be airtight to protect lenders and their customers from potential breaches or other security incidents.

“Each title provider uses a platform that is aggregating both public and nonpublic consumer information. It’s important to know how that information is protected,” says Gladden.

8: Data quality

In addition to the aspect of timeliness, it’s also important to look at the sources of title service providers’ data. Assurances from your title providers about data quality is

paramount, particularly when it comes to instant title. “The product is only as good as the data source, so the quality and depth of the data is the biggest factor to look out for. Instant title providers may all be racing toward the same goal, but the methodologies we’re using to get there — whether technologies, processes or the decisions we’re making — differ significantly,” says Sandeepa Sasimohan, vice president of title automation, ServiceLink. “ServiceLink is setting a new standard by focusing on title-grade data as our primary source, meaning the data is more accurate and more aligned toward the true condition of the title.”

ServiceLink’s advantage lies in having access to historical data aggregated by Fidelity National Financial – including the data on millions of previously insured records and parcels of land.

9: Ability to deliver title as data

Another key thing to look for in a partner is someone who has access to technology to help automate the title process. With ServiceLink’s automated title review, we are able to give you title information as data as opposed to PDFs.

This provides many benefits, including reduced room for human error and increased efficiency and transparency throughout the entire process. “As an example, some of our lender partners were experiencing greater than a 70% error rate when their employees were manually keying vested owners’ names into FHA Connection. Each error could cause a delay of three to five days for the associated file. Our lender partners who receive our title information as data now have automated the flow of data into the portal and are seeing error rates of less than 2% — a significant improvement and a testament to the potential for not only vast improvements in data quality and integrity, but also extraordinary time savings. One of our partners was able to reallocate an offshore team that had been rekeying information from title commitments into their system.”

10: Breadth of product offering

When deciding on who to partner with, thinking of who can add value in every aspect is something you should take into consideration. Partnering with organizations that offer a comprehensive suite of services – including uninsured and insured title products, flood and valuations – can lead to increased efficiencies.

These considerations ladder up to one critical theme: partnership. Your title service provider should be a strategic ally who works alongside you to navigate market conditions. Learn more about how ServiceLink can serve you in today’s market here.

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