I totally understand your philosophy.  However, 75% of my business comes from out of state nationwide vendor managers and I know a lot of SOT participants have the same ratio.  If you do your due diligence -- check SOT; check AbstractorWatchdog; check that state's licensing board -- you'll be safe.  I haven't been burned in a long LONG time (years) because I learned how to ferret out the warning signs.  In my case, you'll see I've been a participant on SOT for years and the licensing board for Michigan shows I was an LLC prior to becoming a corporation in 2007.  If I weren't paying people, it would have shown up long ago.  (And I welcome new abstractors to check with my current abstractors regarding payment and ease of dealing with Argent.)

 A lot of the best work comes from nationwide companies -- refi's by the big banks.