Your real estate Agent will always push for “their” title company when you purchase a home.  We, as the lender, definitely prefer you use our preferred Title companies.  We have absolutely no financial gain by doing so, we just try to stick with those title companies who pull through for us in the clutch.  When it comes down to the wire, we have no pull if anything comes up when we work with a Title company for the first time.  If something comes up on title, the company that doesn’t know us says “sorry it will take 48 hours and you’ll have to push settlement a day”…  the company that does know us and gets business from us says “we’ll get our abstractor down there at lunch today” and insure that we get to settlement on time.  I knew a situation where a title co. would not settle a loan that got pushed to a later time in the day on a Friday and had to go in the evening.  The title co. would not stay to close it.  The buyers had to keep all their things on a moving truck over the weekend, and sleep in a hotel.