New title company grows despite poor housing market

When Adam Plevyak launched True Line Title a little more than a year ago on April-Fools Day, he knew he might be in for a rough start.
A title company’s job is to research the ownership and financial claims against a property and insure lenders in case of a dispute. Starting a business so dependent on the real estate market in the midst of a severe downturn might be considered perilous, at best.
“At that point, it had been dubbed the worst economic climate we had seen in a long time, and my thinking really was that if I could make it in the worst climate ever, then I could make it when it gets a little better,” Plevyak said.
Plevyak had been working at another Columbia title company since 1995. In early 2008, the company made an offer that got him thinking about making a change.
“As the real estate market started to choke a little bit, I was offered a position managing a group of agencies in the Springfield market,” he said. “Instead of doing that, I decided to open up my own company and just do it myself.”
Plevyak said he liquidated his assets and began spending 80 percent of his time  talking to potential clients. “Within about six or seven months, it grew to where I was busy every day with current clients and didn’t have any time left to get new clients,” he said.
Today, True Line is busy enough that Plevyak has hired two employees and doubled his office space, going from 270 square feet to about 600.
Grace Meiners, a full time MU student, works about 20 hours each week as Plevyak’s personal assistant. The other position is full-time and has just been filled by Carrie Bellinghausen; her primary role will be in research and preparation of client reports.
“Having Carrie allows me to spend more time marketing,” Plevyak said. “We’re heading into a time of the year for real estate when sales start to come up again. Hopefully my timing is just right for adding the new space and the additional employees.”
“The downturn has slowed business in my industry as a whole,” Plevyak said. “But business is good for me, personally, because I started out with the idea of right-sizing from the beginning and not trying to get too big too fast.”
Realtor Susan Horak, with RE/MAX Boone Realty, said there is another key to Plevyak’s success-service.
“I had worked with Adam at his former company and still do business there,” Horak said. “When he opened his own company, I sent a few files over to him and found that the good service I had experienced with him hadn’t changed. I was impressed.”
Horak said she considers herself particularly analytical among real estate professionals; she expects more detailed research from a title company than many in her industry.
“A lot of times, I’ll do the research simultaneously with the title company to make sure nothing is missed,” she said. “Adam does the extra work, and I’ve found him to be 100 percent accurate.”
Plevyak’s long-term goal is for True Line to develop into a self-sustaining company, allowing him to be an adviser to the staff and to be on hand when clients really need him.
“I don’t see this particular company growing to a very large size,” he said. “I want to keep it small and manageable so all of my clients can feel like they get a lot of personal attention from me and from my staff and don’t ever feel like they are just another person sending quarters down a rabbit hole.”