Closing Market Weekly

A notarized document may still need authentication before it can be used abroad. Finding that out late can leave a closing team coordinating documents, signatures, and delivery under pressure. On Closing Market Weekly Ep. 56, Phillip Hogan speaks with Corinne Jones, owner and lead apostille agent of Maryland Prime Notary and Apostille, about the questions that surface those needs early. For title,...

Going digital can leave a closing team managing two workflows, because paper doesn't fully disappear. Eddie Oddo, Director, Settlement/Closing Services at DocMagic, Inc., joins Phillip Hogan to examine why e-closing adoption depends on people, document preparation, and process design. For title, mortgage, and escrow operations leaders, the question is how to manage both paths without creating avoi...

The people keeping deals moving need time to learn, too. In this solo episode, Phillip Hogan pauses to thank the listeners, guests, and production team behind Closing Market Weekly. For leaders in title, mortgage, and escrow operations, it’s an invitation to help shape the conversations ahead. Hogan reflects on the show’s beginnings, its early production challenges, and the industry perspectives g...

Every borrower call is an operations signal. When customers don't understand a payment change, escrow notice, or loan transfer, the question isn't just how to answer the call. It is what the call reveals about the process that created it. Ray Mueller joins Phillip Hogan to discuss borrower communication, clean servicing transfers, escrow administration, process improvement, and why leaders should...

A clean closing is won before anyone reaches the signing table. The earliest document, fee, timeline, and communication gaps are the ones most likely to create downstream friction. Jeff Anderson joins Phillip Hogan to explain why every participant must be ready before the file reaches them. They discuss clear to close versus funding, proactive communication, accurate loan estimates, contingency ti...

Fraud does not need to defeat an entire closing operation. It only needs one gap between teams, systems, or handoffs. In Episode 51 of Closing Market Weekly, Chris Morton, Chief Executive Officer of the American Land Title Association, joins Phillip Hogan to discuss why fraud prevention has to be layered, coordinated, and supported by professional judgment across the real estate transaction. The c...

Commercial closings became more efficient when the industry learned to work without everyone at the same table. But Tom Baughman explains the trade-off: faster execution can also remove the relationship-building that used to happen naturally inside a closing room. The conversation moves from remote versus table closings into office culture, customer service, and why commercial title may be less co...

One wrong destination country can invalidate an apostille before the document reaches its final stop. An apostille is not a bigger notarization, and confusing the two can send the entire request down the wrong path. John Nelson explains why you must confirm Hague status, receiving-party requirements, document type, and translation rules before processing begins. He also breaks down the notarial mi...

Most title operations do not break because of volume. They break because the process only exists in one person's head. Jamie Wunder co-founded OS National in 2013 and helped build it into a national title and settlement operation serving residential and commercial clients across multiple markets. In this episode, she breaks down what actually holds service levels steady as an operation scales,...

In 2020, Americans lost about $4 billion to fraud in real estate transactions. In 2025, that number reached $20.8 billion. Same five years. Five times the loss. Rodney Anderson has spent 30 years in the title industry, and as an underwriter, he sees the claims after the process breaks. On this episode of Closing Market Weekly, he walks through a North Carolina cash-out refinance where the notary d...

A shopping center parking lot sat two feet inside its setback line for 30 years. Nobody flagged it until the survey hit the escrow officer's desk in the middle of a closing. That is the kind of thing that stalls a commercial file, and it is why this episode is worth 25 minutes for anyone who owns closing operations. Stephanie Thomas is a 25-year commercial escrow officer with Commonwealth Land Tit...

Banks credit wire transfers to the account number. The name on the wire does not have to match. Kevin Tacher has spent 23 years running Independence Title in South Florida and has worked with the FBI, the Secret Service, and the state attorney's office on fraud cases. In this episode of Closing Market Weekly, he walks through the seller verification controls his firm runs on every file, includ...

Most business owners are told to "just switch to an S corp." Almost nobody is told about the payroll obligation that comes attached to it. In this episode of Closing Market Weekly, attorney Roxanne Smithers of Smithers Law Group joins host Phillip Hogan, CEO of Signing Services of America, to break down the difference between your LLC legal structure and your S corp tax election. They are not the...

After 25 years in real estate, Elena Gallo did what most people only talk about: she walked away from a national title company to build her own. In this episode of Closing Market Weekly, Director of Operations and COO of Fulcrum Title Elena Gallo joins host Phillip Hogan, CEO of Signing Services of America, to open up about what really happens inside a title company before a closing table is ever...

Most agents move from residential real estate to commercial real estate. Bryce Grandison did the opposite, and it changed everything. On this episode of Closing Market Weekly, host Phillip Hogan sits down with Bryce Grandison of SERHANT. Atlanta. After earning a master's degree in real estate and managing more than $150 million in multifamily assets, Bryce brought an investor's lens to the...

On this episode of Closing Market Weekly, host Phillip Hogan sits down with Rodney Anderson, Executive Vice President and National Agency Manager at Alliant National Title Insurance Company. With more than 30 years in the title industry on both the agent and underwriter side, and three terms as a Texas State Representative, Rodney brings a rare front-row view of where fraud is actually landing in...

Top title companies don't close clean by accident. They build systems. After 100 closings with Signing Services of America, Phillip Hogan breaks down the seven operational habits that separate reliable title operations from those lenders who stop calling. Book a call with Phillip:   https://calendly.com/phogan-signingservicesofamerica/meeting-w-phillip-hogan Learn more: https://signingservicesofam...

What do supplemental tax bills, 50-year-old surveys, and employees who do not know what the person across the hall does have in common? They are all symptoms of the same problem in title operations. In this episode of Closing Market Weekly, host Phillip Hogan sits down with Brandi Abercrombie, Senior Vice President of Title Operations at National Investors Title Insurance Company. With more than 2...

After 25 years in the U.S. Army — including a tour in Iraq — Master Sergeant BT Robinson retired in 2025 and made a deliberate choice. Instead of taking the steady contractor job on base, he became a certified notary signing agent in Georgia. Eight months later, he's running Palindrome Services LLC, choosing the appointments he wants, and most importantly, he's home for his 11-year-old son's baseb...

Wondering who is involved in a real estate closing and who actually does what? In Episode 37 of Closing Market Weekly, Phillip Hogan breaks down the three key players in every settlement: the signing agent, the title agent, and the escrow officer. If you're a new homeowner staring at a stack of closing documents, or you're about to be, this is the episode that makes sense of it all. Philli...

In this episode of Closing Market Weekly, Phillip Hogan breaks down a hard truth most signing agents don’t want to face—chasing speed can quietly destroy your reputation, your relationships, and your long-term income. As demand for faster closings increases, many agents are stacking more appointments and rushing through signings, only to create more errors, more re-signs, and more frustration for...

In this episode of Closing Market Weekly, Phillip Hogan sits down with entertainment attorney Omara Harris to break down what really happens behind contracts, deals, and business relationships that most people never see. Omara shares her journey from having zero connections in entertainment law to building a career negotiating deals for major shows, networks, and personalities. She explains how co...

In this episode of Closing Market Weekly, Phillip Hogan sits down with Noel Serrato, CEO and co-founder of Notary Every Day Inc., to talk about how technology, automation, and family-driven vision helped shape a platform built to solve real problems in the notary industry. Noel shares how his mother’s experience running a successful signing service, combined with his own background in software eng...

In this episode of Closing Market Weekly, Phillip Hogan sits down with notary entrepreneur, educator, and content creator Tanisha Baptiste to talk about what it really takes to build a thriving notary business in today’s market. Tanisha shares how a challenge from her husband pushed her into the notary world, how that decision grew into a dual commission in New York and New Jersey, and why she bel...

In this episode of Closing Market Weekly, Phillip Hogan sits down with mortgage broker and real estate investor Mike Ryan to break down one of the biggest questions buyers and investors keep asking: should you wait for rates to drop, or move now? Drawing from decades of experience across mortgages, construction, and real estate investing, Mike explains why trying to time the market often keeps peo...