So, that's the business in a nutshell. Now, needless to say, I didn't grow up wanting to work in this field. I used to be an actor. I did regional theater, had some small reoccurring roles on soap operas, and was even in a slash and hack horror film which shall remain nameless. And I enjoyed acting, but it wasn't steady work by any means. I was bartending a lot between jobs, which wasn't so great. But one day this woman came into the bar and I asked what she did. And she says, "I'm a title closer," and I started asking her questions. She told me what the work was like and the kind of money that she made. And it sounded great to me because I was just about to get married and I wanted more security in my life.

This happened in like 1981, right before the 80's real estate boom. And she connected me with this guy that worked for a title insurance company that was looking for people. So I called him and said I'd taken a couple of courses in real estate law when I was in college, which was not true. He says, "Well, yeah, come on down. And we'll send you out on a few closings. We'll have you observe a few. And then if you pick it up, well, here's an opportunity." So then I went over to the NYU Library and read as many real estate books on title insurance and title law as I possibly could. And then I went to a lot of closings. I observed and learned. I got interested in it. I loved the drama of the transaction. When people go to a table to buy a house, there's a lot of emotion there.

Anybody who buys a piece of property is going to get title insurance for the amount of money that they're paying for that property. The way the process works is: say you're a realtor, and you have a client that wants to buy a house. Well, you call up your favorite title insurance company and first, you talk to the sales guy. He takes you to basketball games every once in a while. You say, "I want to put in an application for a client of mine to buy a house on such-and-such a lot in Garden City, Long Island for $350,000." This is called placing an order.

The sales person gives this order to an examiner at his company, and the examiner goes to the county records and looks at all of the things that are reported about this piece of property. There may be unpaid mortgages from prior owners--and that's very bad because the bank could foreclose and then your client is in trouble. There may be easements, which are like, if the phone company has the right to use the property to build a giant tower or something. There may be claims of other people like neighbors who have right of way to walk through the property. There could be like a law from the 1800's that says this piece of property can't be used for a brewery. Whatever. It can get very complicated, but anything that affects the property has to be recorded in the county clerk's office.

So the examiner gathers all this information, and the title insurance company puts it together into what's called a title report, which is like a complete picture of the property. Now what I do is I'm the one who gets up in the morning, I put on my suit, I go to the title company, and they hand me the report. And I basically help sculpt it into a policy of title insurance. I meet with the attorneys at the title company. They'll tell me what they think the problems are and what's been arranged to work the problems out. And I have to see that those things happen.

A lot of what I do is administrative. I have to make sure that all the documents are properly signed by the right people, and that all the descriptions of the property match those on the title report. And I have to be able to read certain legal documents even though I'm not a lawyer. It's very technical. But I love it. You know, I roll up my sleeves, I get there at the table, I deal with the documents, I deal with the problems. I'm a part of a transaction. I'm not the most important part, but I am a part. And I do my part well.

Every time I go to a closing, I get a little nervous. I mean, most of what I do is very technical and might be boring to some. But when you go to a closing, and you've got a young couple buying a house for the first time, there's a lot there. I remember when I bought my own house, I just loved that. Being around, you know, regular people buying and selling their homes--it's a pretty dramatic situation. And it's nice to be a part of it. You want to make sure that the people are getting a good title.

And odd and interesting things can happen. There's a lot to look out for. I once went to a closing where a guy wanted to take out a mortgage on his house, and he showed up with a woman, and said she was his wife. But it wasn't his wife, it was his girlfriend. And the property was owned jointly by this guy and his wife--so his girlfriend had no rights to mortgage it. Now, one of the things I do at these closings is I'm required to get identification from people that are signing documents to make sure that they are who they say they are. And when the paralegal who I was working with at the time asked for the ID, the woman looked at the man--they kind of looked at each other. I caught it out of the corner of my eye. He kind of talked to her out of the side of his mouth, and she left the conference room. I went about my business, and then I said, "Oh, by the way, we do need those identifications." And the guy said, "Well, my wife went to the ladies room." And then he went out, and when he came back he said, "Well, she's sick. She left." So I called the title company and I said, "I smell a rat here." And finally the attorney representing the lender said, "We're not closing this loan." And that was that.

So there's definitely a drama side to this job. And then there's a glamour side too. Like during the 80's New York City real estate boom, there'd be these huge building loan closings. Developers like Donald Trump would get money from the big commercial lenders and they built all these highrises and offices buildings. Everyone, at the time, on all sides of the real estate market, including of course, the title companies were very euphoric because everyone was making so much money. It was intoxicating, you know? The value of real estate kept going up and up.

Then, in the Fall of '87, the stock market crashed and everything went down the tubes, including the real estate market. After that everything was totally changed. Transactional real estate slowed down tremendously. A year or two later I'd go to closings to insure title and I'd see the same attorneys representing the same developers--only the bankers were different because the original ones had all gotten fired for making bad loans. And now, instead of all the backslapping and cigar-smoking I used to see, there was a lot of nervous Tum popping for the ulcers they developed. The market eventually restabilized and it's been doing very good now for quite a while, but that was an amazing time to see.

I plan to stay in this job as long as I can. It's a good fit for me. I mean, when I was an actor, I found you could be good at something and not be rewarded for it. Like, on a couple of TV shows, I got right down the wire for a part. I was like the east coast choice for a leading role on this pilot once for ABC. And then they decided to go with another actor on the west coast. Those kind of things happened to me. So I was good. And I got, you know, nothing for it. Now, if I'm good at it, I get rewarded. I get compensated. When I was in my twenties, this didn't matter to me. But when I got into my mid-thirties, I wanted a house. I wanted security. I wanted money in the bank. Did I sell out? I don't know. I'm happy with what I do, and I love my job. I wake up in the morning, and I look forward to going to work.

But there's a couple of plays that I remember doing when I was working in theater. One of them was called A Prayer For my Father, which I did like Off-Off Broadway. And the experience was just incredible. The actors were so good, and we rehearsed so hard, and the feeling of being on stage was absolutely electrifying. And what I do now doesn't compare to that experience at all. But what is the same, is that I'm still playing a part in something that is happening in real time. I'm playing a part. And I guess a closing has its own little dramas, so to speak. It's certainly not as interesting or dramatic as what happens on stage, but still, I'm playing a part and there are a bunch of good people around me working together to get something accomplished. And I like working with lawyers. I find it interesting.

And it's not like I do the same thing every day. Every piece of property is different. You know: just like everybody is different, every piece of property is different. There's a different story behind every property, and different problems come up. And there is a certain amount of drama there. People lose their temper, you know, things happen occasionally. There's a certain commitment. And I love the people that are committed, the good attorneys. I mean, I'll look at a good attorney sometimes, and I'll go, why is he being so adamant about this? He's talking about a garage door opener that doesn't work, and he's arguing with this other attorney. And why is he doing this? The attorney is committing to this client's interest like the good actor will commit to a character that he's playing. It's very similar. So I guess you could say there is drama.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

TO ARCHIVE