Should a buyer use the agent's usual title company, or shop it separately

This question comes up often enough to be worth laying out clearly. 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, and in some an attorney handles the closing rather than a title company at all, so 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 turns up in Schedule B, somebody already knows how the local county works. That can be worth real days on a timeline. Volume relationships also mean a 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 closing and escrow fees absolutely can. Closing fee lines can differ by several hundred dollars between two shops in the same town for the same work. And an agent's usual shop is usual for reasons that may have nothing to do with a given file. The harder question underneath is whether a buyer who shops on price ends up with a cheaper file and a weaker escrow officer, and whether that trade makes sense on a first purchase where the buyer doesn't yet know what to watch for.