As a 25-year title industry insider in San Mateo County, California (San Francisco Bay Area), I can speak to this issue.

  The Title Plants have mostly been relocated, down-sized and outsourced away.  In the process of doing so, most title companies dropped their low-end products like lot book reports, judgement lien guarantees, and even property profiles. 

  The influx of private researchers into the field as this occurred was tremendous.  Most are out of business now as the economy has tanked.  They were fly-by-night, uninsured, and slip-shod.  They  offered great deals for useless products which our firm has frequently had the subsequent honor of cleaning up at our own rates. 

  Many times, members of the public have wandered into the Recorders Office looking for "XYZ Research Firm" which has been out of business but issued a report for them for forty bucks years ago, but seem to have missed a magical "something" in the chain.

  Regardless of this, the central issue you address is why they should use you and not a Title Co?  Then the answer is simple:  You are a local research who supports the local economy and provides jobs in America.  You provide a face that is not an outsourced, overseas man in a far foreign land.  This means that you are a responsible, respectable member of a local community of landowners and homeowners.  This is a good thing;  one which is often overlooked and underestimated by us in the modern hustle and bustle of life.

  In all frankness, with my wife working in the title industry still (title end, not escrow), she continually gets reports from India that are done wrong and must be sent back only to be done wrong again, and finally searched locally with their remaining skeletal staff that nary has time for such hassle.  Your are competing with THAT!   It shouldn't be too hard to provide faster, higher quality, more knowledgable, and more accurate service.