There are plenty of ways to save money when buying or selling real estate, but one vital area that I’ve noticed most people don’t think to look is… shopping around to lower title fees. Sure you called your mom’s favorite friend that works at a title company or you’ve called the title company that handled your last purchase and they tell you the all to familiar.. “we’ll give you our repeat / reissue discount because you have been such a loyal customer”… but how do you know you’ve truly been given a discount? Well, you don’t… not unless you shop around.
My trick has always been, call multiple title companies, one-by-one, asking who has the lowest fees; But to say this so vapidly is not-accurate… Because really what I would do, is contact the first Title Company on my list (probably from me just researching the top 10 in my area) and asking them to give me a quote. Then once receiving their quote, I contact the next Title Company on my list and ask if they can compete with the existing offer (usually this requires that I email the previous quote received to them before they’ll negotiate). One by One working my way down the line.
My Personal Steps:
I usually go through the list about 8-10 deep, (ONE-AT-A-TIME… lol… that’s HUGE in fact, because calling them all simultaneously is incredibly counterproductive). Anyways, at this point I’ll have arrived at what we’d call the “Bottom-Dollar”…
Herein, if at this point I have 2-3 Title companies that have quotes within $50-$100 from one another I either..:
A. Go with the least expensive…. OR….
B. (MY FAVORITE APPROACH) Take the Cheapest Quote received and then send it back to the title company that I preferred in the first very place, to see if they’ll match it or come close.
The reason I prefer option B is because over the years I’ve learned that the “Cheapest” is not always the best. In fact, often times, the “Cheapest” is the cheapest for a very good reason…. chalk that up to what you want my friend.. I’ve seen clients, friends, and colleagues that go with CHEAP and end up regretting for one reason or another.
Sometimes… the cheapest, is the cheapest, for a reason…. <– Think on that for a minute.
What are Title Companies?
DEFINITION:: Title Companies are essentially an office run by attorneys that specialize specifically in Real Estate Law. You can think of them as Property Lawyers or Real Estate Attorneys. When you are buying or selling Real Estate, they are the ones making sure that all the paperwork is done by the book, covering not only you, but your lender, and the seller/buyer on the other side. If we want to get more in depth on what they do we can talk about the research the attorney does in the “Title Abstract” or the other real estate related services that those sorts of attorneys facilitate such as, wills, POA’s, Trusts, Estates, etc.
What information is needed when asking for a Title Quote?
Typically, for any Title Company to generate a quote on a Purchase or Refinance they simply need to know 3 pieces of pertinent information and knowledge of whether it will be or already is your primary residence:
- The Sales Price
- The Loan Amount
- The Parish or County in which the property is located.
- Whether or not the property will be your primary residence (as this helps with Homestead Tax Exemption math).