Finding A Great Title Company

Most of the creative transactions we do as real estate investors are not normal for title, closing, or escrow companies. I will only refer to title companies from here on out since that is what we use here in Colorado, but the process of finding a good one is the same for all three.

Title companies typically work with real estate agents and brokers and tend to do a lot of very traditional transactions, however, as investors, it's important that we find a title company that understands what we are doing and can accommodate some of our more unusual requests.

So, how do we find a title company that caters to investors and some of our more creative real estate transactions? The simple answer is

Follow up:

to ask other investors.

The best way I know of to find a title company that can do these types of transactions is to ask a fellow investor for the names of the people that he/she has worked with. If they have not found someone yet, at least they can tell you who didn't work and reduce the number of people you have to try out. Try attending your local real estate investor club meetings to network with other investors. Call ads that investors are running to buy houses or find tenants and buyers and ask them if you can take them to lunch to discuss this.

If talking with other investors does not work, my next best resource would be real estate agents who work with investors. Good agents have closed many transactions and have worked with many title companies. They can often tell you which to use and which they would avoid. Often they have insight into ones that work with investors and can do creative or hard to do transactions.

As a last resort, I'd call title companies and explain the type of transaction you are trying to do and see if they could handle it the way you want to do it.

Until my next post,

James