Do you use the title company your agent always uses, or shop it yourself?

Somebody asked me this week and I gave a muddier answer than I wanted to, so putting it to the room.

A buyer signs a contract, and there's usually a title or settlement company already penciled in because the agent uses the same one every week. In some states the seller customarily picks, in some the buyer does, in some it's an attorney doing the closing rather than a title company at all, so the local custom shapes what's even on the table.

The case for going with the agent's usual shop: the agent has a working relationship, the escrow officer picks up the phone, and when something ugly turns up in Schedule B somebody already knows how the local county works. That's worth real days on a timeline. Volume relationships also mean your file doesn't sit at the bottom of a queue.

The case for shopping: title insurance premiums are filed and regulated in some states and negotiable in others, so the premium may not move at all while the closing and escrow fees absolutely can. I've seen closing fee lines differ by several hundred dollars between two shops in the same town for the same work. And the agent's usual shop is usual for reasons that may have nothing to do with your file.

The uncomfortable version of the question is whether a buyer who shops on price ends up with a cheaper file and a worse escrow officer, and whether that trade is a good one on a first purchase where you don't know what you don't know.