Ryan,

I am not a vendor manager, but I do on occasion find myself looking for out of state abstractors to accommodate customers who need a search done wherever.  There are some counties where the choices are so few that the going price is a lot higher than you would expect.  Not long ago, I needed a search in Wyoming in a county that had so few people, I wondered who would look after the gas station while the attendant was off doing the search.

It looks like in other places, though, the herd of abstractors is thinning.  Unfortunately, many of those looking for greener pastures may be experienced and knowledgable abstractors who have been discounted to the point where it's just not worth it anymore.

You could be seeing the first scribblings on the wall, I don't know.  Maybe we'll see a day when you will not only pay dearly for service in remote areas, but the (now) saturated areas will also offer fewer choices and become more expensive for poorer quality.

The vendor managers may eventually kill the golden egg-laying goose if they don't figure out a way to compete other than on cheap service.  If not, the information they can't get from Bombay will only be available at a premium.  And the folks writing title policies based on the information they receive will have more people investigating claims than writing new policies.

I'm sure you weren't looking to start a discussion on how the vendor managers might better do business, but that's where my thoughts went after reading your post.