🐐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. 🏆

ALTA One 2025 is when compliance met cocktails, and title nerds took Manhattan.

“You can’t replicate the hallway conversations,” said Nancy Gusman of Brickhouse Consulting when we caught up after the event. “That’s where the real value is—you find out what other agencies are struggling with, and suddenly you realize you’re not the only one.”

She’s right. ALTA One isn’t just a conference—it’s the closest thing our industry has to a family reunion. For a few days every fall, the agents, underwriters, vendors, and consultants who keep real estate running descend on one city to swap ideas, war stories, and the occasional round at the lobby bar. Deals get born in the exhibit hall, collaborations hatch in the elevator line, and somewhere between compliance sessions and karaoke you remember why you love this business.

So, with a little help from our friend Nancy Gusman—long-time ALTA One veteran and burger-and-fries philosopher—we turned all that networking, chaos, and caffeine into our semi-official, totally un-sanctioned 2025 Wicked Awards: a light-hearted look at the best, boldest, and most unexpectedly delightful corners of ALTA One New York, plus a few insider tips for making the most of it next year.

Author’s Note: While the Wicked Title Forum has sponsors that help keep the day to day operations afloat, no vendor mentioned in this article has paid for their “award”. All awards have been freely given based upon my own opinions and experiences.

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🏆 The “Best Booth Vibes” Award

Winner: Capitol Lien

By day two of ALTA One, your feet hurt, your tote weighs as much as a toddler, and your smile muscles have filed a complaint. That’s exactly when I stumbled into Capitol Lien’s booth—and straight into a pastel-goth daydream. Pink everything. Sticker heaven. A take-one-leave-one book exchange that somehow made perfect sense in the middle of a compliance conference.

I said hi to Lacy, Laura, and Marissa, half-joking about finding somewhere to stash my bag. Before I could finish the sentence, they offered to keep it behind the booth. Who does that? Saints. Saints in cardigans with great eyeliner. Real connections.

But Capitol Lien isn’t just good vibes and cute décor. They’re the quiet powerhouse you call before a file turns feral. They do the digging—current owner and full 60 year searches, UCCs, judgments, tax liens, corporate filings, even the buyer who is financing a double-wide that may or may not be a “vehicle” until someone proves otherwise. (Yes, they’re one of the rare vendors who can bridge that “is it a vehicle or is it real property?” gap without breaking a sweat.) Translation: fewer Friday-at-4pm surprises, more smooth clear-to-close.

Their booth matched their work ethic—organized but a little quirky, warm without the hard sell. If you ever find yourself buried in lien searches or multi-state filings, check out their Database Direct platform. Fast, accurate, and blessedly drama-free. Capitol Lien, you win “Best Booth Vibes”—and my eternal gratitude for saving me one more elevator ride.

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🪩 The Bar Is the Boardroom

Nancy & I both agree, the best thing you can do at ALTA One is stop networking like a salesperson and start acting like a human. Capitol Lien swears by adorable stickers and a booth that feels like coffee with an old friend. Nancy swears by her “burger and fries” rule—arrive the night before, park yourself at the hotel bar with a burger and fries, and let the right people find you.

Let’s be honest—half of ALTA One’s business happens after hours. Nancy wasn’t kidding when she said:

“You can always make friends in the bar—there’s always people sitting there networking.”
- Nancy Gusman

Now, I arrived after Nancy, so I didn’t partake in the day 1 Burger and Fries ritual, but I did see her park herself in the middle of Market One (the vedor expo) with a laptop and proceed to do zero work while she racked up new clients left and right. She just let the people come to her. And it works! I watched Bill Svoboda of Closesimple do the same thing. Their booth was set up like a lounge with comfy sofas and chairs. He just hung out on the sofa all day and I rarely ever saw him sitting by himself.

That’s the secret sauce of this industry: connection. The lobby bar becomes a think tank, the hallway becomes a classroom, and every shared cab or coffee line turns into a mini-mentorship. I always joke when explaining the title industry to people:

“It’s like living in a small town. Everyone knows everyone, memories are long, and you can never, ever leave.” - Cheryl Evans

We both agreed the best connections happen when you least expect them. Lunch tables? Gold. Lobby bars? Better. Forget chasing name badges; start asking real questions. You’ll walk away with actual contacts instead of another stack of business cards destined for your junk drawer.

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🏆 “Best New Compliance Tech” Award

Winner: FinCENRealEstateReport.com

You ever meet people who are so sharp, so confident in what they’ve built, that they don’t have to sell it? That’s Charles and Doug from FinCENRealEstateReport.com.

Night one in New York, hotel bar buzzing (see I told you!), I strike up a conversation with two guys I’ve never met; ten minutes later we’re knee-deep in FinCEN’s new reporting rule, laughing over compliance horror stories like old friends. They weren’t slick—they were solid. Just two guys who clearly get it. And that’s because they’d just built the tech equivalent of Tylenol for the entire industry.

The new FinCEN rule dropped this year and sent everyone into a mild panic: who’s responsible for filing, how, and when? Their platform answers all of it—automated data collection, form prep, submission, record retention. Real compliance handled by people who actually understand title workflows and federal regulations. No Silicon Valley tourists here.

Charles is your go-to encyclopedia of FinCEN sub-sections; Doug keeps the tech grounded in reality. And MJ, their CFO? She’s a wicked smart woman and it turns out she’s been a fan of WTF for months! *cue blushing* I highly recommend you check out MJ’s LinkedIn feed, she knows how to market Wicked Title style - guess what MJ, I’m a fan too👋!

When you’ve just solved the biggest compliance headache of the decade, you don’t need a hard pitch — just a working Wi-Fi connection and a live demo.

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🧭 Vendors are One Thing But What About the Clerks?

The people may be forever, but the jobs usually aren’t. Every year at ALTA One there is a selection of talent quietly looking for a new place to land. Many of them find what they’re looking for, but an annual event is a long time to wait when you need a new job. Which brings us to one of the smartest moves ALTA’s made this year—helping that talent actually find its next stop.

💼 ALTA Launches TitleInsuranceCareers.com

The talent shortage is real, and ALTA just gave us a fix.

TitleInsuranceCareers.com is the industry’s new central job hub, designed specifically for title and settlement professionals.

Here’s why it matters:

• 🧭 Industry-specific: No more explaining “what is title insurance” to recruiters.

• 💬 Free for ALTA members: Agencies, underwriters, vendors—post away.

• 🚀 Nationwide reach: From first jobs to leadership roles.

If you’ve ever said, “We’d hire if we could find someone who knows what a closing disclosure is,” start here.

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🏆 “Banker Who Speaks Title” Award

Winner: Metropolitan Commercial Bank

Ask any banker what makes them different and most will mumble something about “service.” But when you ask the crew from Metropolitan Commercial Bank that question, they don’t blink—they start talking about escrow compliance, wire-fraud mitigation, and 1031 exchange structures. In other words, they speak title.

Their Title, Escrow & 1031 Banking group doesn’t sell you a generic checking account; they build around how agencies actually operate. They know that when a decimal shifts, hearts stop, and that’s the kind of partner you want on the other end of the wire. They even taught me a few things—which is saying something.

🎁ALTA Member Perk: Metropolitan Commercial Bank will waive all cash management fees for ALTA Members!

Banker Honorable Mention:
Elier Diaz, BankUnited

Now, full disclosure — I didn’t spend much time talking to EJ at ALTA ONE. Mostly because I didn’t need to. EJ was my go-to back when I ran my own agency. Their dedicated title division still nails it: responsive, knowledgeable, and they play nicely with Qualia (which is saying something). If I had to pick a new banker today (oof, I’m glad I don’t), I’m not which one I’d go with.

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🏆 The “Underwriter to Watch” Award

Winner: Essent Title

Just when you think you know every underwriter in the game, someone new walks in and quietly changes the rules. That’s Essent Title.

If the name rings a bell, here’s why: Essent Group —the mortgage-insurance heavyweight—acquired Agents National Title in 2023 and rebranded it. They took a solid, agent-friendly underwriter and gave it capital, tech muscle, and a mission laser-focused on helping independent agencies grow. Think dependable hometown service with a Formula-One engine under the hood.

Their booth wasn’t flashy, but their conversations were. Fast underwriting decisions, integrated title production, real partnership energy. They understand that “independent” doesn’t mean “alone,” and they’re using their mortgage-side connections to open nationwide opportunities for their agents. If you’re tired of sending files into an underwriting abyss and praying for a reply before closing, keep an eye on this crew.

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🏆 “Most Entertaining Booth” Award

Winner: Closinglock

Some vendors hand out pens. Closinglock showed up with a glass box full of flying money.

Yes, really — one of those wind tunnels where you step inside, shut the door, and try to grab as many bills as you can before the timer runs out. It was ridiculous in the best possible way.

It wasn’t just for laughs — it was pure brand poetry. These folks spend their days helping us protect client funds from wire fraud, and here they were letting everyone literally chase the money. Only a company that confident in their mission can pull that off.

It takes a special kind of vendor to make cybersecurity memorable in a good way, but they did it.

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🧩 Turning Contacts into Collaboration

Nancy left me with one last piece of advice before we wrapped our chat:

“Don’t just collect cards. Pick three people you met, schedule a follow-up call within two weeks, and ask, ‘How can we help each other?’ That’s how you get ROI on your travel.” - Nancy Gusman

She’s right. The free open bar may be temporary 🍸—but building solid relationships? Those can last a lifetime.

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Brought to you by: Brickhouse Consulting, Closinglock, Dotted Line Signings, Foreign Tax CPA, & Razi Exchange

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Stay Wicked,
Cheryl

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