One of My Competitors is Trying to Pull a Fast One!

I received an email yesterday that had been forwarded to me by a customer. The email was one of those fliers showing how inexpensive First American's new fee was for a residential owners policy. I have been through this before and decided to do some research. Their new fee essentially is their old short term rate. They got rid of the base rate and made the short term rate their standard fee for issuing an owners policy in California. Well, as I dug a little deeper they also decided to raise their escrow fee here in Santa Barbara County. So I put together a spreadsheet showing different price points from $250,000 to $2,000,000 which illustrated what a seller would pay for title and escrow. I also decided to use the short term rate for all the other companies including myself because with the amount of refinancing that has gone on in the last few years almost all the transactions now qualify for the short term rate. To my amazement First American was more expensive than any other company in Santa Barbara County. I am not someone who has ever competed on price and really has relied on the professional service my company can offer. The thing that is getting me is that First American doesn't look like they are going to come clean and let everyone know that they raised their escrow fee. I suppose I should be the one to let folks know even though it isn't my style to do so. So there it is! See You In Escrow!