Curious to know which states represent the greatest opportunity for e-recording adoption? Get the full scoop from one expert on the near-term outlook for e-recording and e-mortgage progress.

(10/12/2007)

A lot has been said and written about what the market downturn means for mortgage lenders and their technology plans. But how are county recording agencies affected, and what is the outlook for the spread of e-recording systems?

According to Alan Cellura, president and CEO of Landata Technologies, filings are down across the country, but counties can look at the downturn as an opportunity to re-evaluate their offices and position new technologies to maintain costs when the market swings in the other direction.

He pointed to Bexar County, Texas, Clerk Gerry Rickhoff as an example of someone who has implemented e-recording for his county.

“He (electronically records) almost 40 percent of his documents and probably has reduced his costs by 40 percent,” Cellura said.

In Harris County, about 20 percent of documents are now recorded electronically.

In terms of e-recording, Cellura said, “the big states continue to be Colorado, Texas and Pennsylvania, and Ohio just came on board.”

“Florida is the next big one. It’s already passed legislation and has a committee in place to position the rules for e-recording implementation.”

Florida could green-light e-recording implementations by the end of the year, he added.

California is also in the phase of developing implementation rules for e-recording. There’s been some e-recording in California, but overall the rollout has been limited. Those in the e-recording business are eager to enter the Golden State.

“In Southern California, Orange County, L.A. County, San Bernardino County and Riverside County along over the past four years have averaged about 10 millions documents processed per year,” Cellura said.

Vendors are starting to reach out to recorders, as well as get submitters in place to ramp up e-recording business in Florida and California.

Although lenders would like to see more counties come online for recording, there’s little private enterprise such as mortgage and title companies can do to make that happen. According to Cellura, those providing e-recording service are the ones that need to coordinate mortgage lenders and counties.

“Generally, you need that mediator,” he added.

New trends in e-recording

Change is also afoot in the user base on the private-business side. According to Cellura, lawyers and attorneys are starting to use e-recording processes, in addition to banks and title companies.

“In Massachusetts, which is an attorney state, we’re positioning special services to employ e-recording,” Cellura said.

In addition, consolidation has hit the recording technology space. Several providers were purchased by larger companies in recent months, including Hart InterCivic and US Recordings.

The technology vendors that will continue to thrive will be the ones with transactional revenue models, according to Cellura. Those that rely primarily on selling recording systems without providing document conversion, data warehousing, e-recording and others services won’t be able to drive enough revenue.

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