Last October, First American Financial Corp. announced plans to exit its property and casualty business to focus on its core business. First American’s property and casualty insurance subsidiaries are seeking to expedite that exit through book transfer agreements.

Pacific Coast Title has selected SafeWire’s wire fraud prevention software to protect consumers from wire fraud risk, both companies announced. Read on to learn what executives from both companies had to say about the partnership.

October Research, LLC’s complimentary webinar, “Evolving Realtor Relationships,” included two industry experts who discussed how the real estate transaction is changing, their expectations for the future and what they will need from their title partners. Read on for more from Drew Coleman, team lead of The Drew Coleman Team/The Hasson Co. Realtors in Oregon, and Realtor Cor Donovan of Corbett Donovan PLLC in Florida.

National Association of Realtors (NAR) President Charlie Oppler represented the trade organization at a wreath-laying ceremony honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Washington, D.C.

Oppler acknowledged Realtors’ historic role in furthering residential segregation and opposing the federal Fair Housing Act. He said fighting housing inequality and racial discrimination in real estate as is one of the organization’s top priorities for 2021. Read on for details from NAR.

Promising his administration will hit the ground running, President Joe Biden announced a slew of nominations days before his inauguration, including Rohit Chopra as the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. What does this mean for the industry? Industry experts say his past opinions may hold some clues.

The Virginia General Assembly is considering legislation that would require clerk’s offices to record a paper copy of electronic documents, require electronic notarial certificates to include the county in which the notary was located and indicate whether the notarization was done in person or remotely and add additional forms of satisfactory evidence of identity for remote notarizations. Read on for more details.

Florida Realtors Dec. data: More closed sales (single-family sales up 21%, condo-townhouse sales up 27.7%), more new pending sales, higher median prices and more new listings year-over-year. Chief Economist O’Connor: Higher pending sales “strongly signal” higher closed sales into 2021.

U.S. buyers keep snatching up homes as soon as they hit the market. Dec. existing home sales rose 0.7%, and 2020 yearly sales were up 5.6% – the most since 2006.