Know Before You Grow: The Most Common Questions People Ask Before Starting a Title Company
1. Am I qualified to own my own title company?
a. Title can be complicated, and having connections in the industry is almost imperative when starting your own title company. Proliant’s leadership team, with more than three decades of experience, can help you in answering this question. They take you through a customized question-and-answer presentation, complete with hypothetical financial models, to determine your ability to successfully run a title company.
b. Some of our most successful title company franchises are previous title employees, real estate brokers or larger team leaders, mortgage brokers and real estate attorneys.
2. Should I consider a joint venture?
There are pros and cons to joint ventures. The pros center on a largely hands off approach, which can be viewed as more simplistic. The con is that you have less control on how the business is done and your profits may be limited.
3. There seem to be a lot of barriers to entry. How can I minimize them?
Starting a title company on your own can be very difficult. Compliance matters, hiring the right talent and getting appointed by an underwriter are just a few of the challenges. Proliant removes many of the barriers to entry. From our technology and our processes, to our relationships with underwriters, we provide back-end support so you can focus on growing your business.
4. How will I learn the process of processing title?
There is a lot to learn when it comes to operating a successful title agency. Proliant will train you on all the process necessary to run a successful title agency, and will remain by your side on every transaction you do. We help you handle the tough questions. The best part of a title company franchise is that we do much of the back-end work to be sure that you are compliant and operating at peak efficiency.
5. Will I be able to develop enough leads?
Relationships are key in the title business. The ability to develop those relationships and nurture them, as well as fostering a strong customer-focused culture, will help your business thrive. With the Proliant model, we do much of the back-end work so you and your team can focus on developing relationships and providing superior service.
6. What technology do I need?
Technology is always changing and improving. In title there are systems to process the transactions, security measures and even your hardware. At Proliant we integrate you into our software and provide you with a checklist of needed hardware before you open. With more than 30 years in the business, our team is always improving our technologies and enhancing our systems with the best in third-party industry leading software — and making it all available to our franchisees.
7. How do title companies manage the cyclical nature of real estate transactions?
Most areas have natural highs and lows of real estate closings. Summer is typically busier than winter. When there are lower interest rates, refinances can spike. In a traditional title agency, you must gauge the right number of employees to process title to match the demand. As a Proliant franchisee, a lot of your expenses are variable because of the back-end work we do. As the demand increases, your expenses increase in line with your revenue. Conversely, when demand decreases, your costs will also decrease. Our franchisees typically run with about one-third of the staffing demands of a typical title agency.
As you can see, entrepreneurs who’ve set their sights on owning their own title company are faced with a host of questions and concerns about compliance complexities, IT and security demands, building relationships and much more. Fortunately, when you become a Proliant franchisee, you don’t have to go it alone. We dramatically simplify starting, owning and operating a successful title agency — so you can provide the best customer experience possible.