🐐 Title Underground: Frozen FIRPTA, Fiery RESPA, and How to Cash In

Written on 11/09/2025
Cheryl.wtf

This Week in the Title Underground (9-Nov-2025): FIRPTA’s frozen, RESPA’s heating up, and Fannie just torched the credit score floor. Title chaos? We call it Tuesday. Here’s what to do next.

🐐 This Week in the Title Underground

FIRPTA’s frozen, RESPA’s heating up, and Fannie Mae just pulled the floor out from under credit scores. In other words—it’s another perfectly normal week in title land.

Here’s what we’re digging into:

⚖️ Regulators are restless. FinCEN wants to know what compliance really costs, the CFPB is staffing up for more RESPA enforcement, and how to make sure your friendly marketing “favors” don’t become violations.

🏠 Credit scoring just blew wide open. VantageScore is in, FICO minimums are out, and a wave of first-time buyers and bankruptcy survivors could be back in play. Get ready for more deals—and more chaos.

📄 Weird title problems, wild solutions. From churches selling land for housing to HOAs ghosting their own payoffs, our curative files this week prove divine intervention is no substitute for due diligence.

💼 Thinking about selling your shop? Adam Coffey breaks down how private equity really looks at title companies (hint: they pay more for order than for adrenaline). We added a quick-hit checklist to make your business acquisition-ready.

Click below to read the full issue—packed with resources, insights, and the kind of wickedly useful intel no algorithm will ever spoon-feed you.

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After you click through for all your hyperlinked headlines, don’t forget to come back here and tell us what you think! 👇


View Last Week’s Poll Results Here



🐐 This Wednesday’s Deep Dive:

Get ready for the 2025 ALTA One Wicked Awards — our semi-official, totally un-sanctioned round-up of the best & boldest. It’s a not-so-serious look at the serious business of title. 🏆

I’ll share my favorite vendors, a few honorable mentions for “creative chaos,” and plus clips from my chat with Nancy Gusman of Brickhouse Consulting on how to squeeze every drop of value out of big industry events.

Expect candid tips, my personal opinions (as if you wanted that!), and maybe a photo or two that proves title people do leave their offices occasionally. Half the magic of ALTA One happens between sessions, in line for coffee, or during a spontaneous lobby bar strategy meeting at 1am. Come for the awards, stay for the real talk and the trip pics, because the swag bags are temporary, but good vendor intel lasts all year.. 👇

👉 Upgrade now to get all the inside dirt!


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Stay Wicked,
Cheryl
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