Over the last 20 years, finding a home and applying for a mortgage have become highly digitized. However, the actual home buying transaction experience all the way through closing has been essentially untouched even though consumers cite it as one of the most stressful and confusing parts of the homebuying journey.
The team at Qualia recognized that the siloed nature of the transaction was a big part of what was leading to these issues. They identified title & escrow as the central party in the transaction that could provide a connective glue. They believed that with rapid advancements to title & escrow infrastructure they could help truly transform the homebuying and refinance journey into a simple, secure and enjoyable experience.
Once title & escrow operations get powered by a modern technology infrastructure, all other parties in the real estate ecosystem such as mortgage lenders and real estate brokerages could connect to accelerate their own innovation as well.
“We saw the core problem with real estate and mortgage as the actual transaction infrastructure,” said Nate Baker, CEO and co-founder of Qualia. “No one had tried to truly fix that from the center. We believed that by empowering title and escrow operations, the central nodes of the transaction, we could connect workflows for lenders and real estate agents as well,” Baker said.
To tackle the closing challenge from an infrastructural level, Qualia first built a platform that is the core system of record for its title and escrow customers. Instead of delivering a singular point solution to solve one element of a real estate transaction, Qualia’s philosophy is to create a comprehensive platform to simplify the complex, highly regionalized workflows involved in orchestrating real estate and mortgage transactions across multiple parties. This way, other industry participants and point solutions can plug in.
That started with Qualia Core, a cloud-based workflow, accounting and reporting product that leading title and escrow companies around the country now use for automating their title production, as well as managing closings all the way through signing.
While it may be just one product in Qualia’s comprehensive platform, it is mission critical software for its customers. They are the only participant in a position to fully orchestrate the transaction since they are the only parties that work with each participant, and they use Core to do so.
Core includes everything title and escrow teams need in their workflow to manage orders, work with title insurers, issue title and ensure a successful closing through signing. Teams operating on Qualia use the 1000-plus template library of continuously updated title and closing documents for every state as a way to streamline their document generation and signing process. The platform also includes out-of-the-box accounting, powerful reporting capabilities, reconciliations, fraud protection and smart balancing to ensure a smooth, accurate and on time closing process.
Qualia Connect is another part of the Qualia product suite. Connect is the client and partner communications system of engagement that currently enables thousands of mortgage lenders, real estate agents and consumers to plug directly into the settlement ecosystem to get an efficient, consistent and transparent closing experience. Lenders, for instance, can leverage an edition of Connect directly through their own LOS to manage title and escrow in a consistent way across multiple vendors without needing to change their own existing workflows.
Many transaction point solutions are also able to plug into the settlement ecosystem through Marketplace, Qualia’s vendor management product. Marketplace includes discovery and automated ordering of closing services, including title search, notaries (remote and in-person), release tracking and more. It complements the existing native integrations already built into Core, which include a wide range of title insurance underwriter, eRecording, property data, shipping and other vendors.
Qualia will be hosting its annual “Future of Real Estate Summit”, FORES22, in Austin, TX from April 4-6. FORES22 will be focused on the theme of Connectivity and will bring together the entire mortgage and real estate ecosystem for actionable conversations and educational tracks about the future of how real estate is transacted.
