John,

I agree with you. The pressure is definitely on to
produce a high quality product at the most efficient
cost. Most of the search orders I receive now are
for partial rather than full searches. In this area
lenders providing loans of less
than $25,000 are often foregoing the title search
completely, and just verifying home ownership through the
local tax assessor's office. The advent of automation
will almost certainly increase the pressure. I have been told
by searchers from Wisconsin that the entire state system
of land records has been automated, and that local title
companies are performing searches themselves on line
without the benefit of outside searchers. As a midwestern
abstractor have you heard anything about this? If what I
have been told is true, the Wisconsin example is probably
representative of the future for the industry.

I think that you are probably right in that the time is fast
approaching when we will need to diversify and offer
our clients a range of services such as abstracting,
title insurance and signing services in order to survive.

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