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Moving with the market, title company stays busy during slump
Sun-Sentinel
By Kathy Bushouse
December 18, 2006 - The tight real estate market has meant tough times for title insurance companies throughout South Florida.
For Equity Land Title LLC of Boca Raton, keeping busy during slow times meant thinking ahead, figuring out niches to create within the industry, or finding ways to set itself apart from the competition in a crowded field. Equity Land Title did both.
The 17-year-old company offers customers a service in which they can track their property closings and complete deals online, and in the past few years worked with developers to close complicated condominium conversion projects throughout the state.
“You kind of have to evolve with where the market is going,” said Terri Duran, chief operating officer for Equity Land Title. The challenge, Duran said, is keeping ahead of the market. “Where’s it going? What’s the next trend?”
The company itself has evolved since its beginnings in 1989. Gerry Greenspoon and Michael Marder, partners in the Fort Lauderdale law firm Greenspoon Marder, P.A., started Equity Land Title as a complement to their firm's work.
Once based in Fort Lauderdale, the company recently shifted its operations to Boca Raton with branches in West Palm Beach, Orlando, St. Petersburg and Fort Lauderdale. It collectively handles about 1,500 closings a year, Duran said.
Though independent from Greenspoon Marder, Equity Land Title can draw from the law firm’s expertise, while also doing its own advertising and marketing the attorneys can’t do to grow business, Greenspoon said.
“We always did a lot of title business through the law firm, but we also had competition from independent title agencies,” Greenspoon said. “We thought that we could leverage our law firm…and gain a competitive advantage.”
Equity Land Title’s use of technology and its specializing in working with developers on condo conversions also has helped, Duran said.
The company's work with condo developers helped Equity Land Title get through the recent slow times for home sales, Duran said. “We figure we’ve built this niche, let’s just focus on that,” she said.
Not that Equity Land Title is giving up on home closings. Duran said it has experienced a bump in business because of mortgage refinancing, and, anticipating an increase in home sales next year, will hire some more marketing people to reach out to real estate agents.
And the online closing system is a popular tool for many real estate agents and cuts down on the number of questions the title company fields from customers, she said.
“Ninety-nine percent of what they need is already on the computer,” she said. “It’s a real luxury.”
That kind of service is what Miami developer Noah Breakstone likes about Equity Land Title.
The online service allows customers to track closings and “eliminates the need for a tremendous amount of dialogue,” Breakstone said. None of the other title companies he works with offers that resource, Breakstone said.
He also credited the company with a professionalism that helps close sales on time and save money, Breakstone said.
“The bottom line, it’s about time,” Breakstone said. “It’s so easy for a person to be able to say, ‘All the documents aren’t here, we’ll close it tomorrow, we’ll close it the next day,’ or whatever,” he said. “Those days end up costing us thousands of dollars.”
“Having a title company that’s efficient and a problem solver…I think it’s the critical difference,” he said.
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