This has been my experience as well Michaela. I've always charged a minimum for distant counties and it seems to work well for my clients as well as for my company. They get the searches they need at a fee they understand up-front and I'm reimbursed for the extra time and expense. My willingness to serve counties that others reject often brings me business for my more metro counties. Because my clients understand they can count on us, I'm often offered a chance to do large projects that involve multiple counties - some of which are outside my normal area.

As to mitigating the increased cost of fuel. I recently bought a 2005 Ford Focus that gets twice the mileage of the other vehicles we had been using as mobile offices. The Focus cost $5800 and has 75,000 miles on it. This may sound like a lot but one of my other mobile offices has 275,000 miles so if I can squeeze this much out of the focus, I think it is a bargain that will quickly pay for itself in saved fuel cost.

I wish I didn't have to pay so much for gas, but I don't see the prices going down. Some of my competition that was charging the same fee regardless of county have gone out of business. These are the same people that tried to buy their way into this market with cut throat pricing. But for me, orders and profits are both up in spite (or maybe because of) the added fuel cost.