Of course, no one has the definitive answer. As we turn the page on another year, un-certain of what the next chapter holds, it’s worth reflecting on where we have gone as an industry since the financial collapse of late 2008. It’s been estimated that Ameri-cans lost approximately $13 trillion in home equity in the wake of the deep recession that followed. While much if not all of that equity has been recovered in the ensuing years, gross equity growth over the last seven years has been lost forever and millions of home-owners are still underwater.

Amidst an economy that has sputtered for 7 years, low consumer confidence, dizzying technological advances, tightening regulato-ry oversight (primarily, but not exclusively TRID) and other seriously challenging factors, I sometimes wonder what keeps us going as an industry. Then I remember: the key role we all play in making the safe, efficient transfer of property possible for American homeowners and the commercial interests who keep our economy going.

Think of what life in our society would be like if there were no Realtors to assist buyers and sellers, no lenders to help them make their homeownership dreams come true, no attorneys to guide them safely through the legal process and no title companies to provide assurance that a homeowner really owns that home. (Some would say good riddance to all of us; but after a short time experiencing the “new” real estate economy I am comfortable in saying they would be screaming for our return.)

There is definitely hope on the horizon. Consider these numbers from NAR’s 2015 HOME survey:

• 87 percent of households believe owning their own home is part of their American Dream

• 83 percent of renters want to become homeowners

And, most encouraging: 94 percent of renters under 34 years of age want to be homeowners.

As I see it, that last number is what we need

to hang our hats on. Once millennials start flooding the buying market — and they will, it’s just a matter of when — our climb back out of the economic abyss will reach its final stages and a positive new normal will be established.

In the meantime, our keys to moving toward renewed prosperity lie in improvement from within through increased use of technology, ever improving customer service, constant training to be certain that the processes our staff members use every day are as efficient as possible, and smart management of our staffs.

As managers (and often business owners), we must provide the tools our staff members need to do their jobs well, provide tools for two-way communication so we’re all pulling in the same direction and create incentives for performance that exceeds expectations. Perhaps as important as anything else, we need to be certain that we continuously nurture the feeling among staff members that we are all in this together, through good times and bad.

IN THIS ISSUE1. My Perspective

Another Year Arrives

2. 2016 Real Estate Economy Three Perspectives

3. News You Can Use Chicago Declaration Updates

4. TRID Update Progress in the Eye of the Beholder

MY PERSPECTIVE

By Frank Pellegrini, Prairie Title CEO

Another Year Arrives. And the Real Estate Economy Will

see FRANK page 3

Homeownership is Part of the American Dream87% of US households believe homeowner-ship is part of their American Dream for them, the top 3 most appealing aspects of ownership are:

A place to raise a family36%

Owning a place of one's own26%

A nest egg for retirement14%

Source: NAR Annual HOME Survey

(Pick One):

Improve

Stagnate

Retreat

www.prairietitle.com News from Prairie Title

January/February 2016

ASSURANCE

2016 Real Estate Economy: Two Points of ViewMany organizations and individual experts have weighed in with their predictions for the 2016 real estate market. Here are two that we think are particularly interesting.

Freddie Mac

• Expect the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage to average below 4.5% for

2016 on an annualized basis

• Gradually higher mortgage interest rates will present an affordability

challenge, but expect a strengthening labor market and pent-up

demand to carry 2015’s home sales momentum into 2016

• Expect house price growth to moderate a bit to 4.4% in 2016 driven

in part by the reduction in homebuyer affordability and demand

• Housing activity will grow in 2016 despite monetary tightening.

Expect total housing starts to increase 16% year-over-year

• While home purchases will increase, higher rates will reduce refi-

nance volume pushing overall mortgage originations lower

National Association of Realtors

1. ‘Normal’ is coming.Expect a healthy growth in home sales and prices – at a slower pace

than in 2015. “This slowdown is not an indication of a problem—it’s

just a return to normalcy,” writes Jonathan Smoke, realtor.com’s

chief economist. “We’ve lived through 15 years of truly abnormal

trends, and after working off the devastating effects of the housing

bust, we’re finally seeing signs of more normal conditions.”

2. Generational buying trends shape up.Young adults’ presence in the housing market has been predicted for

years, but 2016 may finally be the year they make a move in a larger

way. They are expected to continue to be a major buying pool in

2016, but two other generations will also have a big presence in 2016

as buyers and sellers: financially recovering GenXers and older baby

boomers who are entering retirement.

3. New-home construction focuses more on affordability.Builders have been faced with higher land costs, limited labor, and

concerns about the demand of the entry-level market. As such, they

have shifted to constructing more higher-priced homes, which has

caused new-home prices to rise significantly faster than exist-

ing-home prices. In 2016, they likely will shift to more affordable

product to cater to the entry-level buyers.

Contact UsYou can contact any member of our management team or department heads via e-mail. Or dial our main number at 708-386-7900 and ask for the following extensions:

Frank Pellegrini - CEO .............................. ext. 1301 frank@prairietitle.com

Mary Pellegrini - Customer Service ........... ext. 1306 mpellegrini@prairietitle.com

Mandy Valentin - Closing Dept .................. ext. 1345 avalentin@prairietitle.com

Donna Krzanik - Title Dept ....................... ext. 1305 dkrzanik@prairietitle.com

Scheduling ............................................ ext. 1303 scheduling@prairietitle.com

Steve Gillum - Account Executive ....... 630-450-0093 sgillum@prairietitle.com

Michael Guerin - Account Executive .... 847-651-5635 mguerin@prairietitle.com

Van Hante - Account Executive ...........708-692-2824 vhante@prairietitle.com

Brian Zeng - Account Executive ..........630-746-9855 bzeng@prairietitle.com

Prairie Title 6821 W. North Ave. Oak Park, IL 60302 www.prairietitle.com

Moderate Expansion, Easing Prices Expected for Commercial Real Estate MarketsSustained job growth throughout the country and improving credit conditions are forecast to help keep commercial real estate activity expanding into next year, but property prices are likely to cool off slightly after reaching their peak in some major markets, according to the National Association of Realtors quar-terly commercial real estate forecast.

National office vacancy rates are forecast by Realtors® to decrease 0.8 percent to 14.8 percent over the coming year as continued job creation drives demand. The vacancy rate for industrial space is expected to decline 1.4 percent to 9.7 percent, and retail availability to decrease 1.3 percent to 11.3 percent. With new apartment construction projects coming through the pipeline in several markets, only multifamily vacancies are forecast to increase over the next year, from 6.1 percent to

7.3 percent.

Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, says the outlook for the commercial real estate sector continues to look bright despite the multiple headwinds that have held back the economy in recent months. “Temporary turbulence in the financial markets, a stronger U.S. dollar hurting exports and economic weakness over-seas chipped away at third quarter growth and led to some deceleration in the pace of commercial investments,” he said. “The good news is that these deterrents are slowly reced-ing, which should ultimately reawaken the growing appetite for commercial space heading into next year.”

2 ASSURANCE News From Prairie Title January/Feruary 2016

I recently called an all-staff meeting at Prairie Title to discuss all these issues from a big-picture perspective. While each person’s actions may seem small in day-to-day operations, knitted together they create a whole that will lead us in a positive direction or, quite frankly, result in our downfall.

During the meeting I quoted Joe Maddon, manager of the suddenly resurgent Chicago Cubs, on his per-spective about bringing enthusiasm to your job. I attended two Cubs games last summer and was very impressed by the level of enthusiasm among the players (and the fans). Two things to keep in mind, Maddon says, are:

1. Don’t ever permit the pressure to exceed the pleasure.

2. Your motivation has to come from within.

I hope I left the impression among Prairie Title staff members that there is much they can each do as individu-als to help the organization as a whole achieve better results — just as the Cubs did in 2015. No matter what organization we work for each of us can strive every day to:

• Seek operational efficiencies

• Develop greater cooperation across departments

• Appreciate and respect co-workers

• Take pride in the industry and our part in it

• Exhibit healthy enthusiasm

• Laugh

• Exceed expectations of cus-tomers and consumers, and

• Display gratitude for their business.

Forgive me if I went on a little long here. I think we are at a critical juncture in the history of the real estate conveyancing in-dustry, and the outcomes we see in the next few years will have a major impact on business owners and staff members alike.

Happy New Year to all!

Frank speaks to Prairie Title saff members

FRANK from page 1

Prairie Title staff took time out from preparing for the

end of the year rush to celebrate the holiday season.

Effective January 1, 2016, all Chicago Real Property Transfer Tax declarations must be filed electronically. Paper declara-tion forms will no longer be accepted by the City of Chicago. The city has established a link to electronically file Chicago declarations on the City of Chicago’s City Service site at mytax.illinois.gov/MyDec.

According to the city site, benefits of electronic filing include:

• Your declaration will advance through the approval stages of the recording process.

• PIN information will be validated against county assessor data immediately.

• Math errors are reduced because calculation fields on declarations are computed automatically.

• Declarations can be saved and edited at a later time before they are submitted.

• Fields that contain errors are displayed in red, providing a clear indication where changes must be made before the declaration is submitted.

Also, as of January 1, 2016 the city’s MyDec filing system will automatically assess applicable interest and late penalty charges on declarations where the payment for Chicago transfer stamps is made more than 7 days after the date of the transfer in question. Inquiries regarding this process or requests regarding penalty abatement for reason-able cause can be directed to taxpolicy@cityofchicago.org.

You can also check in with Betsy Rousakis, our resident expert at 708-434-1332.

News You Can UseCity of Chicago Declaration Updates

Prairie Title Celebrates the Holidays

ASSURANCE News From Prairie Title January/February 2016 3

TRID UpdateWe are now into our fourth month of processing and settling

loans under the new TILA-RESPA Integrated Disclosure rule and

opinions about how it’s going are all over the board. On Dec. 21,

the Wall Street Journal published a story under the heading, “New

Federal Rules for Mortgage Forms Blamed for Delaying Loans,”

that noted a three-day average increase

for November loans to close (up to

49 days). The Journal article

quoted several industry

experts who described

“chaos” and “turmoil”

behind the scenes.

In mid-December,

Moodys reported

that up to 90 percent

of the closings it

analyzed contained

violations.

“Many of the violations

were reportedly technical

in nature, such as the need to

use the same spelling convention

for counterparties or the absence of a required hyphen,” the

Moody’s analysts write. “However, the (third-party review) firms

still believed the violations were material because the extent

to which a secondary market purchaser, such as an RMBS trust,

would bear damages or costs from delayed foreclosures is still

unclear without further court or CFPB interpretation.”

Meanwhile CFPB Director Richard Cordray in a December speech

had this to say:

“When our ‘Know Before You Owe’ mortgage disclosure rule took

effect two months ago, some again asserted that its imple-

mentation would paralyze the market. In fact, applications for

home purchase mortgages were up 22 percent year-over-year in

October,” Cordray said. “Reports from participants across the

market seem to be indicating that implementation of the new

rule is going fairly smoothly. So it seems that these anxieties

were much like the errant predictions of technological disaster

stemming from Y2K, which of course never materialized.”

The lesson in all this seems to be the smoothness of TRID imple-

mentation is in the eye of the beholder. At Prairie Title, we are

closing loans in the new era with some challenges emanating

primarily from the confusion over how to include title fees in the

new Closing Disclosure and other interpretation issues.

We all hope that the CFPB will provide additional guidance as

2016 unfolds so we can put the bumpy implementation period

behind us and firmly establish our new normal as we anticipate

better times.

TRID Questions, AnsweredPeriodically, ASSURANCE will answer common questions regarding TRID implementation.

Question: Is it a violation for the buyer’s Realtor to be in the closing room while the buyer is reviewing and signing their Closing Disclosure and loan documents? Is the buyer’s Realtor permitted to receive a copy of the Closing Disclosure without written consent by the buyer?

Answer: The TILA-RESPA Integrat-ed Disclosure (TRID) rule did not change anything regarding privacy. Companies should review their privacy policies to ensure it matches with their data sharing practices. Closing agents are encouraged to consider the role closing data plays in the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) system or agent licensing when as-sessing how to share data. One of the primary reasons real estate agents are interested in receiving the Closing Disclosure is because they have to report certain data fields to MLS to close the listing. These requirements vary by state, so there is not a uniform set of data fields that will satisfy MLS. Reporting these data fields is a re-quirement for participating in the MLS system, so the information is

needed by the real estate agent. However, not all information on the Closing Disclosure is necessary for real estate agents to comply with MLS requirements, which is why ALTA encourages closing agents to consider what information they provide to real estate agents and what the best method of sharing that information would be.

This being said, there is nothing within the TRID rule that prohib-its the buyer’s Realtor from being present while the buyer reviews and signs his or her Closing Disclosure and loan documents. Additional-ly, the rule does not specifically address who may or may not receive the disclosures. Most lenders, however, will not provide the dis-closures to the Realtor even if the Realtor obtains permission from the buyer. If the Realtor would like a copy of the disclosures, he or she can obtain a copy of them directly from the buyer. At Prairie Title, we provide the Realtor with the settle-ment statement.

Reprinted from the American Land Title Association’s TRID blog.

Prairie Title is TRID Ready

4 ASSURANCE News From Prairie Title January/February 2016