Even if you tried to compete with the low end searchers, you would wind up like the bookeeper in your story. By the time you factor in copying expenses and gasoline you would wind up with about $5 or $10 in your pocket for each search. You would have to double the volume of your searches in order to produce the same profit margin for the $50 search fees. I say, let the discount searchers have the cheap business. They will make mistakes as a result of rushing through the searches, and probably not be able to return abstracts to their clients in a timely manner due to the increased volume of the cheaper search prices. The title companies are going to have to make a choice as to whether they want quality or not, and they will certainly experiment with trying to get the work done by less expensive and less experienced searchers. I just turned one down the other day who was either unable or unwilling to pay the market price. He was not the first, nor will he be the last.I agree that it is going to result in a long dry period for the rest of us until the title companies come to that realization, and I think that the only answer is for the rest of us to diversify the services we offer to get through the dry period. You can cherry pick the assignments that way

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