Judy,

We have raised our prices within the past few months for several reasons one of which has been the increased cost of gasoline. A number of the searchers on this board have also been batching their searches according to geographic areas with the furthest land records offices being performed only on certain days of the week. Batching the searches into a certain volume makes the profit margin sufficient to justify the increased cost of travel. Both of these methods accomplish the objective of maintaining a decent profit margin for the abstractor, but both also have draw backs. The increased price method may lose you some clients that are unwilling or unable to pay the higher price. Batching the searches may result in turn around times greater than the client wants because he has to wait until the abstractor's next scheduled visit to that land records office.

We have elected to raise prices rather than to batch the searches. If you are afraid of losing clients, a variation of this method is to temporarily add a surcharge to the price of your searches in an amount sufficient to balance the cost of travel. The prospect to a temporary price increase may be more acceptable than the permanent increase.