Hmmm....my response is going to be a little different than the rest.  Why haven't you raised your prices on residential searches in 20 years?  That is hurting the rest of everyone else.  You should raise your prices every year...that is the only way you can keep up with rising costs of salaries and supplies.  I think you need a "big" jump in pricing and for one reason alone.  Unemployment is at 3.7% which means everyone of your employees could leave and probably get an increase anywhere else at this time.  When did we all decide not to run a business and become someone else's patsy?  Keep increasing your prices over time.  If you have to figure out something else you can add to your business or some other industry that might need your business.  I don't know how many records are online in Michigan but it will continue and get worse so figure something out now and the answer is not ...not raising your prices for 20 years.  Good grief.  Do two part-time businesses.  You don't need business if the profit is not there.  Starting a second one you might end up saving your financial future.

Let's look at one cost of title....title insurance.  First, title insurance is supposed to cover error and emissions missed in researching title.  So why do we have to buy errors and emissions insurance?  Did you ever think of that?  Second, their fee, is tied to the price of the mortgage...a guarantee that will increase their revenue from year to year.  Should we tie our price to the amount of the mortgage?  I mean realistically the claims could be much higher against us if the house was worth more.  There are many times more security documents or second mortgages the more the house is worth.  In that scenario, with the rising costs and home values, we would be able to charge at least 3x the amount we charged 20 years ago.   Did you know title insurance claims cost 3-4% of all the premiums charged.  Run a search and read about this....it is very interesting.  In Iowa there is a STATE RUN title agency that the title insurance actually only costs $110 up to $500,000.00 and they still make a profit from claims to help with down-payments for low income individuals.  They want abstracting fees to be low so they can keep raising theirs.  

When a company complains about the cost of a fee, I say well you have taken all the work away from us so we have no choice but to do it.  I use to go to one courthouse with 20 orders.  Each of those orders paid a portion of my travel expenses, parking and my driving time.  Now one order does.  I am in Texas and there is a lot of counties online but there are still counties that are not too far back but they are small rural counties.  

As far as working with foreigners, I say that not one abstractor should.  It might be helping you right at that moment but in the end it will kill you.  The work will continue to go over to other countries if we let it and by gosh you are helping them....how stupid is that.  There are certain things in this world that should not be in a foreign county and that is anything that has to do with our personal possessions including our land, and our personal information, including our social security numbers.  It will not change unless you complain.  I needed to make a call to my bank and I was greeted by whom I knew was a foreigner and asked what country they were in...somewhere in Central America.  When he was asking the questions including my full social security number I stopped the call.  I told him no one in a foreign country needs to know my full social security number.  I call the bank and voiced my concerns asking if they were simply stupid and why would they put their customers at risk knowing that it is very hard to find and prosecute those stealing other identities who are from other countries so why place their information in their hands?

I am curious if anyone has thought about the vendor management companies.  They became vendor management companies so that the originating company could give them all the orders and then farm them out.  So given the fact that this isn't happening anymore and they are keeping the orders in their businesses, is it us or the vendor management companies that they don't need?  Now I know people don't want to ruffle feathers sorta speak....but has anyone tried to go directly to the mortgage companies and title companies bypassing the vendor management companies.  After all, unlike them, we have all of the records, not them.  Did they think of the abstractors when they took the work?  Did the vendor management companies allow the abstractors to restructure some of their fees according to being able to access some records online and then differently when they went to the courthouse, or did they just take the work?  With all we know about the difference in searching in individual counties do you think they are getting it all right, or is there potential for a lot of bad stuff to occur in the near future?  

I do not have a problem charging fees...there aren't very many abstractors left in Texas.  I actually think mileage plus a fee should be charged.  I don't even think of myself as Whole Foods Store....I am more like a Kroger where you get quality at an affordable price.  Might not be a price they think is affordable but only I know what I need to run my own businesses.