Riding the Silver Wave: The Title Industry Prepares for Battle – Q1 2025 Facts & Findings
By Amarette H.A. Speights, Esq.

The land title industry is facing challenges on many fronts. The seasonal industry fluctuates with the market. The housing market is not going to crash anytime soon. Given a recent report by Fannie Mae and the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA), 2025 will be a transitional year.

However, according to the New York Times, searches for the phrase “when is the housing market going to crash” increased by 2,450% in April 2021 compared to March. We have not seen numbers like this since 2004. Market crashes are exceedingly rare, but that does not stop buyers and sellers from being anxious about problems like higher interest rates. Fannie Mae and the MBA are no longer predicting that interest rates will dip below 6% in 2025.

It is a good time to consider the two largest challenges and prepare for when the market will inevitably swing back. The two industry issues are a talent shortage and an aging crisis known as the Silver Wave.

The Talent Shortage

There is a tired saying that law school does not teach you how to practice law, but it teaches you how to think like a lawyer. Most schools are great at teaching foundational principles such as theory, case law, research, and writing, and they usually have an array of clinics and internships. I am not aware of a law school that has a full real estate course catalog and a real estate transactional clinic. There are a few Real Estate LLM programs, but no one should be required to get a master’s in law to meet the demands of this common practice area.

Paralegal training offers more practical guidance. However, most paralegal education programs will not include transactional real estate. They will likely have one or two real property courses with an emphasis on technical skills for litigation or general law practice.

A key employee or contractor in any real estate practice is the abstractor, or the title searcher. There are no schools for abstractors. Most of them are trained by mentors. The American Land Title Association (ALTA) has an online course, but knowledge of local courthouses, state laws, and record keeping is crucial to a successful practice.

You might wonder, if no one is training anyone in land title, how we are getting anyone qualified to work in the industry. Good question. Most people who currently work in the industry either fell into it by accident or because it was a family business. Careers in the land title industry are off most radars unless you were led or raised there.

ALTA created a talent committee in 2017 to try to solve this problem. Large companies like Stewart Title can create internship programs to start recruiting and training new graduates before they start work. Mid-sized companies, such as smaller underwriters and larger multi-state title agencies, can attract skilled but not fully trained employees and have a lengthy onboarding process.

Then that leaves the little guy. Your typical closing attorney or title agent needs to hire enough employees to cover their region or market. Our options are not great. We can wait to hire when someone retires (foreshadowing); poach an excellent employee from another business owner (rude); hire a disgruntled employee who leaves another business owner (unwise); or hire an unskilled worker and train them from scratch (a risky investment).

An Aging Crisis

There is a phenomenon called the silver tsunami, which is an economic metaphor used to describe the aging population entering retirement, particularly the baby boomer generation. I find that term a little offensive and inaccurate. The idea that this is a tsunami makes it seem like boomers are an immediate and massive threat to all of us. Like all people, boomers deserve respect and care as they age. My experience is that this age group is not retiring in the traditional time frame. Therefore, it is a wave, not a tsunami.

The title industry is a particularly aging industry. In 2014, the average age of a title insurance agent was around 60 years old. In August of 2022, the PropLogix “State of the Industry Report” found that 67% of respondents were over the age of 45. This survey included all industry employees. I suspect the numbers would skew even higher if we looked at executives. According to Zippia, only 25% of abstractors or title examiners are under the age of 40.

With several other concerns facing the title industry, why do talent shortages and aging professionals equate to a battle metaphor?

  • In the next 10 years, 10-40% of this industry’s workforce will retire, and we do not have a trained and talented replacement pool.
  • Should the housing market significantly improve with a slow drop in interest rates over the next three years, the current closing attorneys and title agencies will need to manage a much larger transaction load per month.
  • They will have to hire additional employees as the elders in our industry are leaving, making the talent pool even shallower.

 

Riding the Silver Wave

I did not come to rain doom and gloom. We can ride the silver wave instead of drowning under the silver tsunami. This is the time for a paralegal to start training for the future. I know many of us start with the bustle of litigation and then want to come over to the welcoming arms of transactional law. This is also an opportunity for new graduates to gain the skills required for a real estate lawyer to stop and look at their resume. Here are some suggestions:

  • The ALTA course “Title 101” may not be an all-encompassing training for an abstractor, but it is advanced education for a paralegal or new lawyer.
  • Most states have a land title association or a regional association. For example, I am a part of the Land Title Association of Mississippi (LTAMS) and the Southeast Land Title Association (SLTA). Your state should have similar training to what we offer:
    • LTAMS offers video CLE on Mississippi specific property and title topics. Soon, they will also include training on the closing process and escrow.
    • LTAMS also has a digital copy of “The Mississippi Title Examination Standards” for download. This represents a consensus among members of the state bar regarding real property transactions. It is intended to be used as a guideline for land title attorneys to assess the marketability of real property. Conveniently, these are the same standards an abstractor or real estate paralegal would need to follow.
    • SLTA offers CLE and conferences throughout the year in Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia.
  • Once you have a basic knowledge of the industry, offer to work with an abstractor as an apprentice for a relatively low wage. It is true that a paralegal, like a lawyer, can command a high hourly rate. However, it is also true that we sometimes must pay people to train us to do things we cannot. A nice middle ground would be to help an overworked abstractor with administrative tasks and learn the basics of title research while discounting your hourly rate.
  • With the above training, consider taking the National Association of Land Title Examiners and Abstractors certification exam and becoming a member.

A paralegal who takes any of the steps above to become trained in this industry will be ahead of the typical applicant. If you take all of these steps, in-house training will probably be minimal. Additionally, you will likely have the skills to start an abstracting business if you need additional work.

Land title attorneys and our associations are aware of the silver wave and the talent shortage. I am not sure how many have truly embraced what will happen when both become an obstacle simultaneously in a busy market. I think part of our responsibility as title professionals is to prepare for this future through training, recruitment, partnering with colleges and universities, creating independent courses, and offering continuing education to the public.

Meanwhile, I encourage any paralegal considering this industry to seek out training and start your land title education today.

Amarette H.A. Speights, Esq., graduated from the Mississippi College School of Law with a JD and from the University of Mississippi with a BA in political science and a minor in engineering. She is the founding attorney of Speights Law Firm, PLLC, a transactional practice with offices in Tupelo and Corinth, Mississippi. She is the President of the Land Title Association of Mississippi, a member of the American Land Title Association, and the Mississippi Director of the Southeast Land Title Association. She is on the Paralegal Advisory Board for Itawamba Community College.

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