Marc Trachtenberg — chairman and CEO of Silk Title Company — has spent a career in mortgage and title insurance companies finding ways to break from the status quo, creating innovative, forward-thinking solutions along the way. He doesn’t plan to stop any time soon. He actively searches for new and groundbreaking ways to improve his companies and inject innovation and creativity into the industry. In this Executive Conversation, Marc digs into a wide variety of topics on how to approach change management as market volatility remains outside of our control. His perspective offers fresh thinking for leaders across real estate, mortgage and title who are ready to tackle old problems with new strategies.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity purposes.
Offering enhanced integrations and efficiency upgrades to lenders
HousingWire: Many have long seen title insurance providers as a separate industry from real estate and from mortgage. Silk Title is known for integrations and process efficiencies with lender partners. How do you see this industry?
Marc Trachtenberg: I always encourage partners and business leaders to be clear about what business they’re in. At Silk Title, we want to be the best partner for lenders we can. Sometimes that requires us to tell a lender we’re not the right fit. It can be incredibly hard, especially over the last few years, to turn down business. We did that because it is the only way to protect our reputation for the integrations and process efficiencies that have made us successful. This means we can actually partner in a way that doesn’t feel like we’re separate at all, but only if all partners involved see their business in the same way.
HW: What does that mean for real estate, mortgage, and title, all working together? What should these partners be thinking about?
MT: The number one thing is workflow. That word is sometimes either overused or too vague, so let me be more specific – what needs to happen in what order?
In our business, we work with partners to initiate projects, such as title orders, as early as possible. Many lenders can initiate an order based on the data and parameters collected during the consumer application. It also means applying technology where it can be most effective in that process. I hear a lot of companies talk about implementing technology, and sometimes it sounds almost ad hoc or random, how it is being used. I’m talking about using technology to further the title partnership, not just for technology’s sake.
How AI makes its mark on the title industry
HW: One of those technologies we hear a lot about is artificial intelligence (AI). So we have to ask, what does AI look like in the title space?
MT: Oh, we hear a lot about it, too. It seems like sometimes people throw AI into a conversation or pitch as a generic savior to cost or delivery issues. We do not see it that way. Speeding up a bad process simply accelerates dysfunctional issues. That is one reason we are so careful with our process and our partners — Machine learning types of AI.
They are very different from Generative AI (GenAI). We believe machine learning is good at pattern recognition and identifying areas that require automation. Our automation has mostly been RPA and machine learning. That alone has given us the ability to scale without adding headcount this year. When we think of GenAI, we will have the same goal in mind. Where is the biggest improvement in cost, speed, or growth? If one of those areas benefits from GenAI, great. We’ll use it if we can get there, but if we can improve our platform another way, we’ll use that. The goal is to be able to deliver. Most lenders don’t care how that delivery happens, as long as we are consistent and improving each time.
Exploring new opportunities for GenAI in the industry
HW: Are there any applications of technology you are seeing that excite you? Anything new that you are evaluating?
MT: So far, the only true applications of GenAI in our industry are mostly in the mortgage sales or mortgage customer service functions. Using chatbots or voice response to take information, set appointments, or deliver marketing messages. Those are fine, but they’re ultimately triage for the human expert in those areas. The area that I’m most interested in is consumer data. Data attributes used to improve the process, identify leads earlier, convert that business in new and better ways, and then track the customer progress and outcomes over time, is where this is all going.
People want solutions, not products. Data can be used to dramatically change how customers, like homeowners and homebuyers, interact in the process. We think the industry is moving from transactional to trending data to lifetime value of the client (ultimately). People like to say we’re there now, but that’s not true for anyone. Not even Rocket. This industry is just getting started.