Survey: Most Title Companies Interested in Offering Digital Closings

Eighty percent of title companies are interested in conducting digital closings or have already closed some type of hybrid, electronic or remote online closing, according to a recent ALTA survey.

The survey of more than 800 title professionals showed that 44 percent are interested in digital closings, while 19 percent have researched vendors and applicable laws and 17 percent have already conducted some variation of a digital closing. Only 20 percent indicated they are not interested in digital closings.

While 14 percent of those surveyed currently offer digital closings, 42 percent indicated they have no planned timeline to offer these types of closings. Thirty-one percent plan to start offering digital closings in the next year, while 13 percent said they expected to begin offering digital closings within the next three years.

Lender requests and changes to state laws were the top two factors that would most likely alter a company’s timeline to implement technology to conduct digital closings. In October, Ginnie Mae announced it was moving forward with a pilot to accept e-notes. This will be a significant step toward a complete digital mortgage process. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have already launched initiatives for digital closings and to accept e-mortgages.

Driving a company’s interest may be whether they’ve been asked to perform a digital closing. According to the survey, two thirds indicated they have not had any digital closing requests. Lenders (22 percent) were the ones most often making a request for a digital closing, followed by consumers (16 percent) and real estate agents (10 percent).

A recent survey by Solidifi of 1,000 consumers who bought or refinanced their home in the past two years found that 70 percent of consumers would like a more digital process at the closing table.

Transactions involving cash buyers (55 percent) were the types of deals where digital closings were most often used.

Of those who took the survey, 66 percent operated one office over the past year, 24 percent had two to four offices, 8 percent had between five and 50 offices and 2 percent had more than 50 offices. Nearly three fourths of those who participated said they have less than 10 employees, while another 20 percent have less than 50.

To help title companies understand the digital closing process, ALTA and the MBA have partnered to offer three Digital Closing & eMortgage Boot Camps. Click here for more information.