See October’s issue of the Traverse City Business News as they cover a story from our President and CEO Brandon Hunt. This is a followup to Brandon being honored in last months 40 under 40.
One of the last – if not the last – locally-owned and family-operated title companies in Traverse City is on the move.
Mid-American Title Co. is scheduled to relocate from its site at 522 E. Eighth St. to 424 E. Front St., next to Bubba’s Restaurant and Bar, according to President and CEO Brandon Hunt, a fifth-generation local whose father Dale started the business with his sister Charlene in 1988.
“Opportunities to be on Front Street don’t come up very often, so we felt we had to take advantage of this,” said Hunt. “We’ve been looking for over a year. Our goal is to be in there no later than the first of the year, hopefully sooner.”
He cited two major reasons from making the move to Front Street.
“We’ve grown in staff and just need more room. And since we work so closely with realtors, we wanted to be downtown where so many of the real estate offices are located. We’ve actually had some of them comment that we were too far out of town being on Eighth Street. Now we’ll be just a short walk for many of them.”
Contractor Tim Whiteford is handling the remodeling of the location, which will take place very soon. The building was originally built in the 1930s, according to Hunt, and updated in the 1980s. Not only is it a larger building, but it has more available parking, always an attraction for downtown businesses.
From a two-person operation that began downtown on Boardman and State Street, Mid-American Title has steadily grown to an operation that has 15 employees in two locations – the Traverse City office and Crystal Clear Title, which is based in Beulah and mostly serves clients in Benzie and Manistee counties.
Though the staff primarily works with clients in Grand Traverse, Leelanau, Kalkaska, Antrim, Benzie, Wexford and Manistee counties, it is able to serve buyers and sellers anywhere in Michigan. They also provide services of notaries, oil, gas and minerals searches, 1031 exchanges, mobile closings and more.
The company’s business has been steadily growing in recent years, according to Hunt. “It’s been a couple of good years for us,” he said. “We’ve grown from nine employees to 15 in that time. Regulations have made lending easier to understand and the Traverse City real estate market is really good. Many sales are going for over the listing price.”
In addition to real estate transactions, Mid-American is seeing some growth in the oil and gas business where they typically track who owns the mineral rights to a piece of property. Much of that work comes from sites in Michigan, eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania, according to Hunt.
“Mid-American Title is one of the only non-affiliated title companies throughout northern Michigan,” he said. “This makes us your truly independent agent. We take pride in knowing that every deal we participate in is because we have been selected by choice. We strive to have the best customer service and believe that only a truly independent agent can provide such service.”
