Monday, February 11, 2008

Hey bud, wanna buy a cheap title search?

My new favorite online community is Active Rain
Where people are hashing out the "hot topics" in real estate. For anyone not in real estate, such discussions may seem as exciting as watching paint dry. But for those of us in the trenches, even talk about title work gets our blood boiling!

For example, did you realize our industry is trending toward outsourcing title searches to vendors on the other side of the globe? Yes, as more and more municipalities put all their records online (ah, progress!), the offshoring of title searches and abstracting as an effort to save money (or is that to increase profit?) is gaining traction. But as Lenn Harley, a RE broker covering Maryland and Virginia, points out, this may be a foundation not to be built upon:
The title search is one of the most important transactions involved in
buying a home. It's isn't the place to begin an economy drive. As a
person who has never really been comfortable with poorly written
abstract reports that look like a physicians prescription, how on earth
are we to depend on an abstract performed by an offshore vendor who
cannot go to the office of land records to verify a suspicious entry in
the county computer record[?]. Or, follow the trail of a incomplete
record entry[?].
Film at 11
Local title guru Ed Rybczynski put together a cute little video clip summarizing the comments. Do YOU "get it?"

Cass



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