I founded Expetitle in 2019 because I closed on my own home and felt the pains of an archaic and paper-driven industry. The real estate industry, as developed as it is, still runs on archaic systems and processes; paper needs to be wet-signed with ink and processes that have been compounding for decades. I believe that the real estate process should be just as easy as opening up Facebook or Spotify, where you should have anything in your pocket within a couple of clicks while maintaining great customer service.
In doing so, I moved my family from New York to Miami to join Lab Miami Ventures, a venture studio that focuses on building Proptech (Real Estate Tech) solutions, and we began planning out how to change the title industry for the good. The first version of our software was, shall we say, scrappy, and we had no experience in real estate. But we charged forward on our mission. It took us a year to get everything in place to do our first closing: six months to build the product, underwriting with Fidelity National (the largest underwriter in the country) after 5 rejections, and hiring our first title agent. But after all that work, we finally did our first closing in January 2020.
After that, there was no holding us back. We began growing 20% month over month doing closings all over Florida, then expanding into Georgia and Texas. We then hired additional technical engineers and launched a mobile app. In 2021, we grew 400% and hired a top-flight title team. To this date, we are still in shock at how we were able to get this all done in just two years.
And now Expetitle has hit its most recent milestone: On January 21, 2022, Expetitle was wholly acquired by The Real Brokerage, Inc. (Nasdaq: REAX).
Why did we decide to take this path? We believe it’s because of three key reasons: People, Tech and Vision.
People: We believe so much in the power of people. Real has an incredible team and we have aligned so tightly with everyone there.
Tech: We believe that there is an incredible opportunity to leverage technology to make a better real estate experience.
Vision: We believe that a completely in-house and owned technology-driven value chain will allow both businesses to grow more effectively.
What does this mean for you? Right now, no changes. But over time, we will integrate ourselves more and more into Real, and we will eventually align our technologies and team to create a vertically integrated real estate solution. With that integration, we believe we will be able to scale faster and more effectively to become the leading national tech-driven title company of the future.
To all of our realtors, clients, and partners, thank you for your trust and business. We will continue to do our part to focus on building a better business every day.
Best regards,
Sean