Opening Titles & Closing Remarks

Last Wednesday at 9:00 a.m. sharp at John Bethell Title Company a nice couple walked into our Downtown office for their refinance closing. The same closing that was on our calendar for 9:00 a.m. - at our East office-- for next Monday. Yikes! Then began the questions. The phone calls. A few more q...

Meet Claire Voyant, who just joined John Bethell Title Company, Inc. Claire, is now assisting our closing team in predicting the property tax amounts for our real estate closing tax payment escrows.   Every year at this time lenders begin requiring that we insure them that the spring tax payment ...

After conducting thousands of closings I know that the title insurance commitment is the least understood and most ignored of all the residential real estate closing documents. Few buyers understand what a title commitment is for. They just know that they need it or that their lender requires it....

I'm addicted. Some of you are there with me. Getting up early. Staying up late. Writing. Posting. Thinking about writing. Thinking about posting. Praying for comments! And I've done it again. I've started another blog; this time with my friend Chris Dickens. It's called Branding Chaos. Branding, ...

We just distributed our 2008 year-end Monroe County Statistical Package to our clients. Monroe County, although not immune to the effects of national mortgage and home price ills, fared well in 2008 all things considered. The total number of recorded deeds representing a sale transaction fell to ...

If you're not from Indiana, you can't appreciate how involved we all get at this time of year. Watching it on TV. Reading about it in the paper. Passionately rehashing the strategy and decisions every day at the water cooler, in coffee shops and in bars all over the Hoosier State. Of course I'm t...

My post yesterday "I'm just asking . . ." elicited many thoughtful comments.  So many comments in fact, that I thought another post is the only way to do justice to the issues raised by my readers. This new and largest yet mortgage refinance boom will help homeowners with a significant equity an...

Most everyone knows by now that there's a flood of refinancing going on. Refinancing is front page news in the mainstream media. The low rates are artificially induced by the government's intervention into the mortgage securities market. Many homeowners are going to benefit. A lot of the money sa...

Hey folks! Money is on sale! Get it while it lasts! Money in the form of mortgage loans for credit worthy homeowners and home buyers with equity in the deal, that is. Rates are great. Really great! People are rushing to refinance. Your chosen title company (and everyone else in the mortgage loan ...

For the next few days, I'll be posting about 2009 changes to the Real Estate Closing and Title Insurance business. Have you seen your friendly neighborhood title guy lately? Possibly not. Many of us are buried under a sudden avalanche of refinance title insurance orders. New Title Orders Explode ...