Whats the best way to do a title search on a property to reveal liens, back taxes, loans etc etc?
Are there are websites that offer a membership that does title searches?
some counties have free access on their websites, some you have to pay for. Its always free if you drive to your county office and check it yourself. All you have to pay for is copies usually.
Start at whatever county your property is in’s website.
Really, you can go to the county office and obtain all of the infromation on a property? I’m definitely looking into that.
Yep… its all public records.
You need the address, and you can find out the legal description, owners name (as shown on the deed) mortgages, liens, what taxes are owed, etc. Basically everything you need. You won’t have a payoff balance, but you can guesstimate it. 
oh boy, I hit the jackpot, it was hidden behind a bunch of garbage, but my county has an online database of real estate records dating back to 1809. ;D
What’s really nice is if your county has the records available via the internet. Luckily, my county has records from 1974-current available on the web for free (you don’t even need a login account). The only downside is that they usually delay the info for 2-3 weeks, so you would still need to go to the courthouse to make sure about any existing leins being slapped on the property during that period.
If you can get all of the info about the property yourself, why pay for someone else to do a title search? I ask this because I often see on this site to have a title search done by the title company or lawyer. If I do the search myself is it just as reliable as a search done by a “pro”?
My two cents…
I can understand what your saying. But whatever you know about title searches, someone else may not know have a clue about. I would never suggest or recommend a newbie to do their own title search without educating themselves. I am a newbie myself. I know there is something I might miss that someone who knows about titles probably wouldn’t. I might be accurate for about 99.9%, but it’s going to be that .1 that is going to bite me in the rear and I would have to pay $$$$$ to get out of it. Eventually, I will review how to do them myself, but I would rather pay someone else to do it because it is taking time away from my cash flow. I don’t want to do title searches for a living. Not my kind of thing, but making money work for me IS!
Thanks,
Lee
Title searches can be done by yourself through the county. However if you miss somthing you will be stuck paying the lein. If title company misses it they will pay the lein for you. I have found that when I work with fatcola the information they give me is not alway current so if I was going to do it myself and not pay a title company then I would research it through three different title companies and most surely go to the assessors office and run a microfish on it… Do not rely on the search of one company. Get with a title officer so that you can get a password to search. I usually get my NOD there too