I constantly remind people that they have both the Right and responsibility to be good stewards of their own property, and that includes exercising their ownership powers to go to the county recorder adn search their own title. 

  Many think they can get a title report for $10  or so just for the heck of it.  They think its a novelty item or something of the sort.  When they are quoted a cost in the hundreds of dollars range, they usually balk at the price.  That's when I know that they are not serious about it, and so I direct them to the nearest public library to use the free internet and download their own history from the Recorder's online database, since they'll clearly be too cheap to drive all the way down to the actual Recorders Office.

  I guess, for these people, the cost of their novelty search is the time it takes them to do it themselves online, the travel time to an internet computer, the cost of electricity or gas, and the price of ink and paper. 

  I always use the analogy of a person's tall lawn as apt in these situations:  you can mow your own lawn with a push mower and the sweat of your brow, or you can pay hard cash for someone to do it for you.  Abstractors are your mowing service with regard to title matters.