Flipping an REO - Do I need title insurance?

[Katharine Chartrand]

I am closing on a bank owned property this week. The selling bank did a title search and their title company has offered me insurance. I plan to own the property about 4 months... what it will take to repair it and sell it.

My very experience REO realtor is telling me that the title is obviously clear since they did the search and I can get away without buying title insurance if I don't want to.

Her very experienced title company owning husband advised me to get the title insurance because there is a very large discount on the policy when i sell the house if the time between this sale and the next is short.

Does anyone out there every buy houses without title insurance when the risk has been characterized and determined to be negligable? I'd love to save $920.

Has anyone ever gotten this discount when the last insured transfer was recent. Does the same title company have to do both transactions? If the discount is easy to obtain and really big, then I guess I can agree to cover the insurance on the sale of the house for very little out of my pocket.