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It is very rare for any property to change hands so quickly in a real estate state. Before it’s time to sign piles of paperwork for purchase agreements, promissory notes and mortgage documents, the parties should first confirm who owns the property and make sure there are no more hurdles to jump before closing.
That’s when Paula Bachmeier’s phone starts ringing because she’s been working in the title industry in Minot for nearly 50 years.
On Wednesday afternoon, Bachmeier was honored by colleagues and industry peers at The Title Group’s Minot office in recognition of her decades of work in residential and commercial real estate.
“Two weeks before I graduated, I answered a blind ad in the paper and she hired me on the spot. I was recruited to play basketball at UND-Williston and went to play basketball for one year. I came back at the end of the summer and I didn’t leave.” said Bachmeier. “I was making $200 a month and I thought that was a pretty good amount of money to leave.”
Her first gig at Divine Abstract lasted 35 years, starting as a typist before eventually moving into title insurance and managing real estate closings before joining the title team at what was then known as North Dakota Surety & Title. In the end, it’s more than money that keeps Bachmeier in the industry, because she has a purpose and a passion for the job, and she really enjoys peeling back the layers of history in each chain of command.
“It’s like a history book. To follow the story and get it in order and to have the knowledge to know what the lawyer is looking for and to give his opinion based on the facts that we have presented. Bachmeier said. “It was always fun. We started doing title insurance in the ’80s and in ’83 I did my first closing and started meeting people.
Bachmeier said she has closed more than 55,000 transactions during her career, giving her a wealth of experience and insight into a variety of subject matters. Along with experience, Bachmeier cited the increased access to information provided by technology and automation as a major development. Traditionally, such information resided only in dusty yellow tomes in county courts, but now it can be called up on a screen with just a few clicks.
Although AI machine learning algorithms loom on the horizon in the west, Bachmeier doesn’t see the end of the human element in her career.
“Before we typed abstractions and didn’t know exactly what we were typing, now when we do closure we need to be able to interpret and understand what fixes things.” Bachmeier said. “We’re a bigger part of things than ever before. Automation is amazing, but you still have to have the human factor. We have to make a decision and explain the documents. What are you signing? You will be in debt here. Better to have someone knowledgeable and experienced to explain the documents to you.
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