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92 CALIFORNIA What's the Connection Between Names and Home Sales? As millennials take over the market, a recent study dives into who exactly these millennial buyers are. Santa Clara, California- based Realtor.com analyzed which demo- graphics outside of millennials have experi- enced significant increases in homeownership. e report revealed that home sales associated with female buyer names increased while sales with male names declined, up 1.6 percent and down 0.1 percent year-over-year on average respectively. e study looked in depth at names and found that millennials with the names Han- nah, Austin, Alexis, Logan, and Taylor were the top five names with the fastest levels of sales growth in 2018. However, volume-wise, these names are still dwarfed by others, but as the trend continues, we can expect them to expand their homeownership footprint in 2019 and beyond. According to the study from Realtor.com, women and Hispanics have seen increases in sales recently. e study notes that single women are one of the fastest growing de- mographics in the housing market, and the National Association of Realtors estimates 18 percent of home purchases will come from single women households, more than double the share of single men at just 7 percent. Many of these women buyers are baby boomer and silent generation women. Realtor.com also notes that Hispanic homebuyers are the only demographic to have increased their rate of homeownership for the last three years, according to the latest 2017 Hispanic Wealth Report. By name, 40 percent of properties registered under a Hispanic name is also under a single name, compared to 46 percent in the broader sample. Younger buyers have been moving up in the past year. In 2018, sales with millennial and Generation X names increased 5.3 and 0.8 percent year-over-year on average respectively, while sales with boomer and silent generation names decreased 2 and 3.5 percent year-over- year on average respectively. While volume wise these younger millennials still trail their older millennial counterparts like Ryan, Josh- ua, and Justin, their role in home purchases is expanding quickly. Ellie Mae Announces Hall of Fame Winners and Finalists Ellie Mae, a California-headquartered cloud-based platform provider for the mort- gage finance industry has announced the 2019 Ellie Mae Hall Of Fame award winners and finalists. ese awards honor mortgage lenders who have distinguished themselves with their innovative use of Ellie Mae technology. Win- ners will be honored at Ellie Mae Experience 2019 User Conference, from March 10-13, 2019 at Moscone West in San Francisco, California. "Congratulations to our 2019 Ellie Mae Hall of Fame award winners and finalists," said Jonathan Corr, President and CEO of El- lie Mae. "We are honored to induct these great companies into the Ellie Mae Hall of Fame where they join prior winners who have helped shape the mortgage market. Our winners are delivering on the promise of a true digital mortgage through their use of innovative technologies and a platform approach to lend- ing. We look forward to honoring them at our Experience User Conference." e winners and finalists were announced in five categories: » Business Growth Excellence – recognizing companies that have achieved demonstrable growth through the use of Encompass and innovative sales and marketing processes. » Winner: UBS Bank USA » Finalists: Idaho Central Credit Union, Right By You Mortgage by Fidelity Bank » Excellence in Compliance Automation – rec- ognizing companies who have truly excelled in leveraging business rules, alerts and Encom- pass Compliance Service to fully integrate compliance into their origination process. » Winner: Academy Mortgage Corpora- tion » Finalist: TruHome Solutions, LLC » Outstanding Improvement in Efficiency and ROI – recognizing companies who have shown outstanding improvement in efficiency and Return on Investment (ROI) through the expanded use of Encompass services, custom fields and business rules. » Winners: Elevations Credit Union, J.G. Wentworth Home Lending, LLC » Correspondent Lender Winner: Amer- iHome Mortgage Company, LLC » Finalists: Norcom Mortgage, Primary Residential Mortgage Inc., TD Bank, N.A. » Digital Mortgage Excellence – recogniz- ing companies who have excelled in the marketplace by using Ellie Mae solutions to create a true digital mortgage experience that automates the end-to-end loan origi- nation process and provides an outstanding customer experience. » Winner: George Mason Mortgage, LLC » Finalists: Paramount Residential Mortgage Group, Inc., Waterstone Mortgage Corporation, Homeowners Financial Group » Lender's Choice for Best Service Provider – recognizing partners from the Ellie Mae Network whose contributions are critical to our clients' success and to the mortgage industry. » Winner: First American Mortgage Solutions, LLC » Finalist: Arch MI (Arch Mortgage Insurance Company) The Shifts in Digital Closings By Charlotte Brown e real estate industry has been talking about fully digital closings for years. Many believe it's a necessity to satisfy the evolving demands and expectations of today's clients. People now shop online for loans and may have a hybrid live/digital closing, in which some parts of the transaction are digital but in most cases, documents are still signed with a physical pen in front of an in-person notary. ere have been numerous obstacles blocking progress towards a full digital closing including disparate systems across parts of the closing that could not integrate with each other, industry readiness and a wide variety of once well-crafted regulations that now under- represent what modern technology can support and serve. For real estate professionals, it can be confusing to change existing, older processes that have been relied on for years, no matter how much frustration they continue to cause. However, consumer expectations and technical literacy are driving change and it's key that professionals prepare for the shift. e indus- try will quickly go from the change to digital closings being an option, to it being a necessity to remain competitive with your peers. Technology innovation that would enable a fully digital closing is accelerating unlike any time in the past few decades. e regulations that would allow fully digital closings are not