Team Title Services Chief Executive Web Raulston says his business is aimed at trying to free up Realtors to sell rather than tying them up in an office while closing on a sale.
"Leave everything up to us," says Raulston about his business that began late last year and focuses on supporting real estate buyers and sellers.
Team Title now employs about 36 people and expects to hit up to 50 by the end of this year.
Raulston, the 34-year-old company owner and attorney who has 10 years in the title business, says he started the company last year with the intent of bringing more technology into the title business. In his past work with another company, he saw a pattern where industry business practices were "very antiquated."
Also, Raulston says, the industry has an aging workforce and ownership base. He says that the Great Recession of 2008 which hit hard the real estate sector prompted younger people to leave the title industry for greener pastures.
"A whole generation is missing from what we do," says Raulston, who grew up in Chattanooga, graduated from McCallie School and later the University of Mississippi with a degree in real estate finance. He went to law school in North Carolina. After a stint in Nashville, he returned to the Scenic City, worked for another title company, started a separate business and then Team Title.
The company has landed at the former Alstom property on Riverfront Parkway, where it's leasing temporary space while a build-out is underway on an adjacent 20,000 square feet location.
We can do business all over the country. You don't need a physical location all over the place. Our view is that title companies will go the way banks have.
Staff photo by C.B. Schmelter / Team Title Services Director of Communications Chloe Brackett stands in front of a "vision board" for the company's new offices at the site of the former Alstom plant on Riverfront Parkway.Chloe Brackett, Team Title's communications director, says the move is "a huge undertaking." But, she says, company officials like the vision that property owners Jimmy White and Hiren Desai are taking with the redevelopment of the massive riverfront site.
Raulston adds that there's "a huge change" going on within the title industry as it takes on a more digital flavor. The old model of bringing together a dozen people into a room as property buyers purchase a site is being replaced by digital signing, Raulston says.
In Tennessee, for example, the Remote Online Notary Act is soon to enable electronic closings on property sales, he says. Other states also have moved in that direction, according to the business owner.
"We can do business all over the country," Raulston says, noting Team Title is already doing work in 10 states. "You don't need a physical location all over the place. Our view is that title companies will go the way banks have. The little guys will get gobbled up by the big guys."
Team Title also can pick up other business activities, including offering property and casualty and title insurance," he says.
In addition, the business is in contact with Chattanooga-based moving company Bellhops related to home-moving services.
Additionally, he says, Team Title can go to groups of Realtors or developers and set up a title company for them.
"We manage it but don't own it," Raulston says. "We have a fairly progressive model. We're trying to be full service."
Team Title is quickly growing with revenues in April up 68 percent over the prior month. The company's headcount grew by 59 percent, Raulston says.
"We already are writing more title insurance premiums in the Chattanooga area," he says. Raulston predicts that by year's end, the company's gross premium revenue will be close to $8 million. Additional services will generate another $2 million, he says.
At the new offices at the former Alstom property, Team Title will have a full audio-visual room.
Brackett says Team Title can offer marketing services for title companies.
"It will be a state-of-the-art recording studio. We can do podcasts, photography," she says. "It's added value."
White, the Chattanooga real estate developer who purchased the former Alstom factory site along with hotelier Desai for $30 million in 2018, says their redevelopment plans are off to "a good start."
Recently, Team Title announced it eventually plans to have 80 employees on site. Also, filter media manufacturer Micronics plans to bring on 140 people to the tract that held Combustion Engineering for many years.
White says those numbers nearly match the 235 workers Alstom had in 2016 when then-owner GE Power announced it was shutting down the steam turbine manufacturing facility and boiler service center.
White says the proposed redevelopment of the Alstom property, dubbed the West End, could bring $2 billion to $3 billion in investments, add over $11 million in tax revenue annually for Chattanooga and Hamilton County and spur more than 5,000 jobs.
In March, after a lengthy planning effort, White's company revealed possibilities for the tract including a 10,000-square-foot food hall and music venue, townhomes, workforce housing, a canal, brewpub, child care center and more.
Manufacturing on the site goes back more than 100 years.