Would YOU buy a house or invest in a piece of real estate without having the title searched?  I certainly wouldn't.

There have been volumes of posts on this forum about title defects which have been simply insured over, rather than the settlement company taking the time to correct them.  This is precisely because lenders and brokers don't place enough emphasis on the importance of a thorough title search and are only interested in getting their deals closed before the borrower figures out what's going on.

A given piece of property is worth whatever someone will pay for it.  In my opinion, if you don't have a clean title, to me it's worthless.

But, that's just me...

Regards,
Scott Perry