Blog – Tuesdays with Mary

Tuesday, October 6, 2026 October Research, LLC CEO and Publisher Erica Meyer is stepping in as a guest blogger this week. I am absolutely a Type A personality. For everyone who knows me, I’m pretty sure you can confirm that without hesitation. For all the other Type A personalities out there, you are my people. And for everyone else, thank you for dealing with all of us “A’s.” In an industry filled with entrepreneurs and small-business owners, I know there are quite a few of us out there. We tend to be ambitious, driven, competitive and goal oriented. We like [...]

Tuesday, September 29, 2026 I truly cannot imagine what the last 25 years would have looked like without Mark “Mac” McElroy in them.  There was very little ordinary about Mac. He was a wild thinker, a bold risk taker, a sometimes-maddening boss and a man with one of the biggest hearts I've ever known. He could inspire you, infuriate you, exhaust you and convince you that something you had never considered doing was entirely possible.  Sometimes all before lunch. Mac became an owner of RamQuest in 2001, when I was working for the Title Midwest family of agencies. Title Midwest [...]

Tuesday, September 22, 2026 Land, Title and Ownership in America at 250 Series By the time the Civil War was drawing to a close, the United States had spent generations ironing out what to do with an extraordinary amount of land. The Land Ordinance of 1785 had created an orderly way to survey the western lands. Two years later, the Northwest Ordinance didn't just establish rules for how territories would eventually become states, it also laid down rules for government and individual rights in the vast territory northwest of the Ohio River. It protected religious liberty, trial by jury and [...]

Tuesday, September 15, 2026 Daniel Mennenoh, ITP, NTP steps in today as a guest blogger, continuing our Land, Title and Ownership in America at 250 Series. Mary will be back next week. Land ownership in the United States has always been a significant part of our country’s success.  Many countries from which immigrants came to America did not have systems of land ownership by any ordinary citizen.  Land ownership was often a birthright, so the concept of the common man being able to acquire land and enjoy the benefits of ownership for those who came from the “old country” was [...]

Tuesday, September 8, 2026 Land, Title and Ownership in America at 250 Series America had a lot of land.  What it didn't have nearly as much of was money. That mismatch mattered in a place where the prospect of owning property was part of what drew many people across the Atlantic. There was land to buy and people who wanted to buy it, but hard currency was chronically scarce. Mortgages offered one way to bridge the gap. There was nothing new about them. Lending secured by land long predated the American colonies. What is more interesting for our story is what [...]

Tuesday, September 1, 2026 Land, Title and Ownership in America at 250 Series Over the course of this series, we have watched as Americans, step by step and layer by layer, built something that did not spring forth fully formed inside the new nation, our own system of property ownership. It took a remarkable amount of work to get there. Our young country had to decide which claims it would recognize and which sovereign had the authority to recognize them. Enormous territories had to become identifiable parcels. Rules for transferring land had to develop. Public records had to become dependable [...]

Tuesday, August 18, 20206 Land, Title and Ownership in America at 250 Series The public recordation system had done exactly what Americans asked it to do.  It had grown; it had successfully scaled while remaining local. As land changed hands across the growing nation, each generation added to the one before it. Deeds were recorded. Estates passed property to heirs. Easements were granted. Judgments attached. Parcels were divided, combined and described in new ways. While those public records were preserving the literal history of the land, understanding that history and what it meant in practical terms required a growing level [...]

Tuesday, August 11, 2026 Property records are public records. Anyone in our industry knows that. For generations, anyone willing to visit the county recorder, search an index or pull a deed could discover who owned a parcel of land. Public notice is one of the foundations of our property system. It protects ownership, establishes debt priorities and gives buyers confidence in what they're purchasing. Two weeks ago, New York City sparked a different conversation. As part of implementing its new pied-à-terre tax, the city published a searchable database identifying property owners who might be subject to the new assessment. The [...]

Tuesday, August 4, 2026 Land, Title and Ownership in America at 250 Series One of my earliest lessons about real estate happened long before I ever worked in the title industry. A member of my family expected to inherit a home that had been in the family for generations. In her top dresser drawer was a deed signed by her father-in-law. She proudly talked about it and believed that, when he passed away, she would simply record it and become the owner. I was less than ten years old when someone explained that the situation wasn't nearly that simple. There [...]