You never know what you’ll read next on social media.

I stumbled upon this Facebook post today from a local real estate broker. The names have been changed to protect the greedy.

“What a great office/business meeting today. We had 85 percent of all our agents in attendance.  Our title company XYZ Abstract released our quarterly profits. Our agents with one share got a check for $250 and our agents with two shares got a check for $500. Since we started title sharing with our agents over 8 years ago, agents have been receiving profits from titles every 3 months.”

As if earning a sales commission on each transaction isn’t enough, many real estate brokers set up profit-sharing arrangements with both mortgage and title insurance companies for additional income.

That is, additional income that comes directly out of your pocket in both increased and unnecessary additional fees.

As a licensed title insurance professional who built a business serving as an advocate for the consumer, I’m equally embarrassed by those in my industry who prostitute themselves by offering to split profits with any warm body that will refer them business at their mutual customer's expense. This behavior isn’t right and should be illegal.

Such behavior is the reason we strongly suggest that you shop around for your mortgage, title insurance and related settlement services when you buy, sell or refinance real estate. If someone suggests that service and fees are the same regardless of which company you hire, your B.S. detector should sound an alarm.

Not only can you save hundreds of dollars on customary fees, but you might even save hundreds more on additional services that an independent lender and/or title insurance company can provide at no additional cost.

As always, if you’re looking for a local real estate or mortgage professional who puts your bottom line ahead of their own, our website www.alttitle.com is a great place to find them. The professional men and women that we work with on a regular basis forgo quarterly profit checks in return for great customer service and appreciate that we eliminate miscellaneous and unnecessary administration fees so that you leave the settlement table with money in your pocket. A novel approach to doing business or the way it should be? We’ll let you decide.