At a time when companies are holding back their recruitment programmes due to slowdown in many sectors, the US-based String Real Estate Information Services, a global title services firm with a strong presence in Chennai, is planning to significantly increase its Indian workforce.

“We want to increase our India-based workforce to 1,500 employees from the present 915 by the first quarter of 2020,” said String’s founder and Managing Director, Prashant Kothari, a native of Chennai. "We are also potentially looking at small acquisitions within India,” he told BusinessLine without elaborating.

At present, String's employees are located in Chennai, Chittoor and Tiruvannamalai, he said.

The company has so far invested around ₹2.5 crore in India, and plans to spend another ₹7 crore over the next six months to add 14,000 sq ft of space at DLF SEZ and another 20,000 sq ft in DLF SEZ by January 2020, he said.

String is looking for mortgage talent in Chennai and Chittoor – people with expertise in title, residential mortgage and commercial mortgage, he said.

String is now part of SitusAMC, a leading provider of consulting, strategic outsourcing, talent and technology solutions for the real estate industry, evaluating over $5 trillion of residential mortgage assets monthly and over $1 trillion of commercial real estate assets annually.

SitusAMC has 3,200 employees across 25 offices in the US and six international offices, with a 60 per cent market share in the US for mortgage quality control review.

The goal at String is to help mortgage lenders and title agents improve margins, shorten cycle times and reduce risk.

The US mortgage industry is the largest in the world, comprising both residential ($14 trillion) and commercial mortgages ($3.5 trillion). The String team in India processes mortgages and related back-office tasks.

With its parent company planning aggressive expansion, String plans to boost its workforce and is looking at additional skill sets, with very specific expertise in US mortgage – title and land record analysis, residential and commercial mortgage back-office processing, underwriting and servicing, and more, he said.

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