Blog – Tuesdays with Mary

Tuesday, February 10, 2026 Land, Title and Ownership in America at 250 series In its earliest days, the Massachusetts Bay Colony operated under English common law in most matters of property and civil governance. When it came to coastal land, private ownership generally extended only to the high-water mark, while the land below (the foreshore) remained the property of the Crown. Certain public rights, like fishing or navigation, could be granted and exercised there, but ownership stayed with the sovereign. That division of upland and foreshore shaped nearly every early dispute over waterfront property and would become the point of [...]

Tuesday February 3, 2026 One of the lesser acknowledged facts about today’s housing market is that scarcity isn’t universal. In many rural areas and small towns, a robust housing supply exists. Inventory is widely available. Prices are (often dramatically!) lower. What’s often missing isn’t housing itself, but the ability for people to live in those homes and connect to reliable high-speed broadband to remain economically productive. Said differently, the shortage in the housing supply today isn’t just about what’s built; it’s about what’s usable. And increasingly, usability depends on whether people can participate in the information economy from where they [...]

Tuesday, January 27, 2026 For years, conversations about housing have circled the same drain. Prices are too high. Inventory is too low. Younger buyers feel locked out. Renters feel stuck. Policymakers promise relief, often through subsidies, credits, or new rules layered on top of old ones. What’s changing, is that a growing number of influential voices are starting to say the part out loud that often gets skipped. If there is a housing shortage, the primary cure is to build more housing. That idea sits at the center of what’s increasingly being described as an abundance agenda and a key [...]

A new year means a new slate of both challenges and opportunities. It’s also an opportunity for reflection on the lessons learned from the year before. Guest blogger Chris Morton, CEO of the American Land Title Association, did just that, looking back at what 2025 taught us about how critical title insurance’s real protections are in the 21st century. I’ll be back next week, but until then, I’ll let Chris take it away. Thanks, Mary! If 2025 taught me anything as I stepped into the role of ALTA CEO, it’s that the title industry continues to prove its value with [...]

Series: Land, Title, and Ownership in America at 250 Tuesday, January 13, 2026 Before there was an American nation, there was already a land problem. England didn’t arrive in North America with a single, unified system for land ownership. What it brought instead was a mix of traditions, assumptions, and paperwork — charters issued thousands of miles away, vague descriptions of boundaries, and a firm belief that land could be claimed, granted, and transferred by authority of the Crown. That belief mattered more than precision. Colonial landownership began with royal charters, many of which were breathtakingly broad. Some granted territory [...]

Tuesday, January 6, 2025 In 2026, the United States turns 250. That milestone invites all kinds of reflection; on independence, on institutions, on how a collection of colonies became a country. This year, I want to spend some time on an aspect that won’t be honored with splashy fireworks or trumpeted during celebrations - but that was entirely elemental and fundamental to this nation’s birth and its endurance: land. Who owned it. Who didn’t. Who thought they did. And what happened when those answers didn’t line up. Long before there was a Constitution, there were land disputes. Deeds overlapped. Boundaries [...]

Tuesday, December 30, 2025 When I was a kid, my grandfather had an answer for nearly every question I asked. “Go look it up.” I found this endlessly frustrating. I didn’t want a project. I wanted the answer. Just tell me. But it wasn’t a dismissal; it was an invitation to engage more deeply. Instead, he’d send me to the encyclopedias. I’d flip through the heavy volumes, find what I was looking for, and come back; sometimes satisfied, sometimes more confused than when I started. That’s when he’d ask the real questions: What did you find? What surprised you? What [...]

Tuesday, December 23, 2025 As the year winds down, it’s worth pausing to remember how many homes you helped move from idea to reality this year. How many keys changed hands because of your work. How many people crossed a threshold (their very own threshold!) for the first time.  This season is filled with memories being made in first homes; first holidays in a new space, first memories that will stick with them long past any closing chaos or move-in mania. And just as important, how many lasts happened quietly along the way. Final moves. Final sales after decades in [...]

Tuesday December 16, 2025 How much did your company have to pay to become TRID compliant? In every industry, there are moments when external forces change the cost of doing business. Sometimes those forces arrive with a press release. Sometimes they arrive buried in hundreds of pages of new requirements. Either way, the question for companies is the same: Who absorbs the cost? In lending and closing, we have lived through this before. When major regulatory changes reshaped disclosure, timing, and compliance expectations, technology providers were forced to re-engineer systems, workflows, and safeguards — often on aggressive timelines. And with [...]

Tuesday, December 9, 2026 “Now they tell me?!?!”  That was my first thought when I read about the Federal Trade Commission’s letter to the Texas Supreme Court about the American Bar Association. I didn’t grow up in a town with an ABA accredited law school, and going away to one wasn’t really a viable option for my family. The thought of being able to qualify for the bar through a different pathway — something that feels like a new idea today — makes you pause and realize how much opportunity in professional life has historically depended on geography, resources, and [...]