TitleBytes News & Happenings

Head Up For A Grand Time at Grand Traverse

By Tom Lico, MLTA President-Elect

We’re a little more than a month away from MLTA’s Annual Summer Convention to be held at the Grand Traverse Resort. We have fun, education, and time for relaxation on the agenda.

The evening of Sunday, July 14 will be our welcome reception and dinner. In an effort to engage all that are attending, the PAC Fundraiser on Sunday evening is “Pub Trivia”. Whether you are a vendor looking at getting a team of customers together or a family looking to have a fun night out – all are welcome to put a team together. For only a $100 Entry Fee, you can put a team together of 6 or less. Raise additional funds for the PAC and you can earn the opportunity for bonus questions to help move up in the standings. It should be a fun night together.

On Monday, our speaker topics revolve around: Industry updates, Housing Forecast, and Management.

David Townsend, ALTA Board Member, will give us the latest initiatives for the American Land Title Association. ALTA’s greatest influence is on Capital Hill and Mr. Townsend will update us on the latest from within the Beltway.

As the President of Brokerage Services of Michigan’s largest real estate company, Dan Elsea will give us the housing forecast for the balance of 2019 and beyond. Mr. Elsea will also give us the latest trends in the REALTOR world and how technology continues to evolve the role of the real estate agent.

Our final guest speaker of the morning will be author Jeff Butler. As people are living longer and working longer, we are faced with 4 different generations in the workplace. We have seen many speakers focusing on Millennials in the workplace, but Baby Boomers, Gen X’ers, and the newcomers (Gen Z) are all in the workforce as well. Different generations have different expectations of us as managers and of their co-workers. Mr. Butler has tips to help guide us through this daily maze of multiple generations in the workplace.

After Mr. Butler, you can grab a boxed lunch and spend the afternoon enjoying all that the Grand Traverse region has to offer or simply spend your free time relaxing around the resort.

Whatever your afternoon plans are, you won’t want to miss our evening festivities. There will be our traditional Silent Auction to raise money for the MLTA-PAC. There is always a wide array of auction items and this year will prove no different. After the networking reception, we will continue with our traditional dinner and official membership meeting which includes the induction of our board members. Immediately following our dinner and festivities, we have a surprise guest speaker that I promise you will enjoy. After our final speaker, we will move into the next room to enjoy live music and an open bar for our final gathering together. You’ll have a breakfast voucher for Tuesday morning so your departure is at your leisure.

The goal for this convention is to learn from our speakers, explore with our vendors, and build comradery and share laughs with each other. When you arrive at the resort on Sunday and the person checking you in asks – “Are you here for business or pleasure?” – your response can simply be – “Both”.

MLTA Board Update:

Last September, through the Executive Order 2018-19, the Department of Insurance and Financial Services (DIFS) created a Fraud Investigative Unit. On February 25, Joseph Thomas was named the DIFS Fraud Investigative Unit Manager. Mr. Thomas is a recently retired Post Commander for the Michigan State Police. On May 13 – members of the MLTA Board (Phil Savich, Tom Lico, John Bommarito) along with MLTA’s Lobbyist Cami Pendell met with Mr. Thomas. The goal was to introduce our association to Mr. Thomas and apprise him of the fraud that occurs in the title industry. The main discussion was on cyber fraud in real estate transactions.

While Mr. Thomas was most familiar with auto insurance fraud, he was not aware of the levels of cyber fraud in our industry. As he begins to build his department, we let him know that our association can be a valuable resource for him.