Hey Roger,

That is a fair question.  I have always been honest about this - I own an abstracting business, VersaTitle Services, Ltd.  We have four full time abstractors and cover 6 counties in North-Central Ohio.

I am also a licensed title agent and operate the agency under the name VersaTitle Agency, Ltd.  I do the closings myself and the only other person who works in the office is my secretary, Tammi.  We have only done 20 closings all year.  My main business is abstracting, the closings just help us fill the gaps.  I do not plan on growing the agency beyond our home county - we really don't even market it much here.  We focus on abstracting and I like it that way.

I started Source of Title to help other abstractors, and I think I have.  I am proud of it.  I am a little offended that you would insinuate that I have ulterior motives (and I hope that was not your intention) after all I have done for so many companies for FREE - including yours.  I consider myself to be very ethical, I even allow my competition to list their services here for FREE.

Now I am not saying that I don't want to make a profit with this site.  I have sunk a lot of money into running Source of Title.  I would love to make a profit by helping the abstractors, including my own abstracting company.  If forming some kind of Joint Venture with other abstractors can help all of us - we should do it.  It makes sense to make it a part of this site, since this is where it all began and we have the database of abstractors to contact.

I guess it would be nice if I could be completely impartial and not own an abstracting company or title company, but if it weren't for those operations, I could never afford keep Source of Title up and running.

As for offering advice that benefits my title company, I don't know what you could be referring to.  I have been a strong proponent of abstractors NOT caving into pricing pressures, I have encouraged them to carry E&O insurance, and I have helped them organize by assisting with the efforts of NALTEA.  All of my advice has been sound business advice that benefits abstractors.

It is this kind of distrust and paranoia that keeps us all from working together and we have so many problems facing our industry (declining prices, thin-title plants, etc...) that we need to work together to overcome them.

I hope this helps - you all know far more about my business than I know about any of yours. I feel it is important to share information like this, and I hope I have demonstrated that there is no harm in being open and honest with one another.

Thanks,
Robert A. Franco
SOURCE OF TITLE