About Gradus Management

Long before our formation in 2016, the principals of Gradus Management were at work designing the structures, service offerings and success models for the California settlement services marketplace. From independent escrow firms, to statewide title companies, to brokerage and agent-owned affiliates, there isn't a settlement services offering that the Gradus Management team hasn't formed, revived, reimagined, or run. The team's deep experience in sales, marketing, operations, regulations, compliance and business strategy arm clients, partners and employees with market-leading insights and approaches to the settlement challenges and opportunities of today's markets and tomorrow's transformations.

Our Leadership

Brian Hurley

If there really are people for whom work is a favorite hobby, then Brian Hurley is just such a unicorn. Having co-founded his first escrow company before he even graduated from college, Brian truly learned escrow from the ground up, personally handling tens of thousands of successful closings. It’s an odd professional journey for an academic who graduated first in his class with an MBA from one of the top US business schools and later led one of California’s largest title companies. But that’s his secret: he sees and understands escrow from 30,000 feet and from 3 inches, and his experience and wisdom bridge that distance with solutions, insights and guidance that drive outstanding outcomes.

All of that experience, and a desire to put it to work, inspired Brian to launch Gradus Management and its managed companies. As our president, he’s our official “answer man” who guides our strategy and shapes our future.

Beth Sackett

Let’s end the rumor: no, Beth Sackett didn’t invent escrow. It’s fair to say, though, that she elevated escrow in Southern California by bringing common sense and a desire to “get it done” to every real estate transaction. As one of the co-founders of Pickford Escrow, Beth once counted more escrow officers across California than any other escrow company. And with California’s largest real estate brokerage as her founding partner, she counted the perspectives of real estate professionals when building out her approach to customer service, creativity, communication and excellence.

All of that learning, and the thousands of successfully closed escrows on which it’s based, inspired Beth to launch Gradus Management and its managed companies. As the Executive Chair of Gradus Management, she’s our north star when it comes to doing the right thing, doing it well, and getting it done!

For Settlement Firm Owners

The title and escrow business was challenging before TRID, before ubiquitous broker-owned shops, before inadequate regulatory oversight and unconstrained competitors, before widespread cyber threats and fraud, and before today's anxious mix of low sales volume and high sales complexity.

So what does tomorrow hold?

The potential of artificial intelligence and related technologies promise to upend processes, empower new competitive threats, and invite price competition.

So why go at it alone?

Talk with the team at Gradus Management about the power of partnerships and staged exits (earn-outs, buy-outs) that let you capitalize on the current value of all that you've built.

For Escrow Professionals

Many great escrow professionals feel stuck.:

They built a solid book of business.
They distinguished themselves by demonstrating strong technical skills matched with outstanding customer service.
They moved upward in a career that took them from an assistant’s desk to a unit of their own.

But then something changed. Maybe their company began to eliminate escrow assistants. Maybe sales shifted from a supporting role toward a strategy to redirect client loyalty.

Or maybe management became less about support and only about the bottom line.

At Gradus Management, we’re proud to work with the best escrow talent in Southern California. We support our escrow officers ... and with our support, they close one out of every eight residential sales in their markets.

If you’re ready to step up to an environment in which you can truly climb, contact us today for a confidential conversation.

For Real Estate Professionals

The escrow fees look great until the liabilities overwhelm you! Today, even real estate brokerages and top agent teams that aren’t actively handling escrow transactions have likely thought about how to capture escrow revenue. And the prospect is admittedly tempting: brokers can legally handle escrows when they represent either a property buyer or seller, and an extra four or five thousand dollars of revenue per deal can really help brokerage economics.

Sadly, too many California brokerages and top agents have ventured down the escrow path without expert advice. Today, the staircase to escrow success requires that we step over cyber crime, wire fraud, employee error and much more. And the costs of a misstep can spell the end of a brokerage.

Don’t try escrow alone. Talk with the team at Gradus Management about escrow solutions that really work.

Does escrow have a future?

If you own an independent escrow company, it's worth getting to know us.

When it comes to a career, we don’t choose escrow – somehow, escrow chooses us. Decades in, we have yet to meet the escrow professional who sought out this business in the way folks pursue teaching or accounting, or even real estate.

It’s also true that you need to walk a day in the shoes of an escrow officer to have any real appreciation for the job. Part legal advisor, part accountant, part marriage counselor, part real estate assistant, and part circus-level juggler, an escrow officer is almost always the unsung hero without whom many a real estate deal would simply fall apart.

And now?

Now we’re the targets of artificial intelligence, bots, and technological innovations that promise to replicate our “value add” in real estate’s endless quest for faster, better and cheaper. Of course, we’ve seen all of this before: our clients are under never-ending attacks from technology that promises to “automate” real estate brokerage and deliver a more “transparent” experience for buyers and sellers. But the threats aren’t hollow. Online home search is a big deal, and firms like Zillow have certainly challenged real estate agents to justify their commissions and redefine their value propositions.

There’s just no question that such justifications and redefinitions are coming to escrow too, if they haven’t already popped up in the form of zero-fee discounters whose efforts unfairly ding our value without offering anything better than the status quo. It’s when those lower fees actually do come with new forms and frontiers of service that a real upending will be upon us. The title and escrow companies of tomorrow are being formed and funded with billions of dollars flowing into “proptech.” Our upending is the essence of their mission statements.

As an escrow company owner and entrepreneur, you likely see our industry’s future with a combination of skepticism, curiosity and dread. Your work to build a company, a brand, and a nest egg, is undoubtedly measurable in endless hours and more than a few shed tears. But the truth is that through no fault of yours, the value of what you’ve built is decreasing even amidst a record-breaking real estate market.

You may not care. Perhaps you’re planning to ride the business out to “the end,” confident that online escrow won’t be for everyone. Perhaps you’ve built a nest egg beyond your business equity, so when this job ends, it just ends. Or perhaps you’re like most escrow company owners, and you’re just too busy dealing with today to think much about tomorrow. One way or another, though, tomorrow is going to come.

There are some in our industry who saw the prior market boom as a chance to get out at the top. They sold to title companies who have historically danced in and out of an escrow acquisition wave once a decade. For those sellers who sold and fully exited, the future of our business may not really matter. But for those who stayed on, a ride into the sunset may be … bumpy.

Don’t take that ride alone. Let’s talk about how the team at Gradus Management is winning now, and will win in the markets ahead.

The Best Escrow Officers Find Homes at One of Our Managed Companies

There’s nothing about an escrow career that’s easy. The best escrow professionals spend years honing technical and interpersonal skills that make a meaningful difference to homebuyers and sellers and to the real estate professionals whose efforts drive our local housing economies.

But they also know that every day starts anew, and they often feel that they’re regarded for being only as good as their last closing.

With a portfolio of companies that, together, close one out of every eight residential sales in one of California's largest real estate markets, we understand that our employees are our customers. Our job is to give them the context they need in which to succeed ... to surround them with compliance and training support; to nurture them with seasoned, experienced and understanding management; to support them with unmatched sales professionals; and to cheer for their ongoing success every day.

Escrow isn’t easy – but it’s a bit easier for escrow professionals who entrust their careers to our stewardship.

If you’re climbing toward something better, reach out to us.

California's Real Estate Settlement Experts