My target is to get on the first page of google at some point for a new site. There's already a Page rank 4 website on the first page of results with the page title I want to use. It's a combination of a several keywords. Right now my website has an identical 8 words to the start of the PR4 site's title which has about in total a 11 word page title. My question is does anyone know if having my page title identical to the start of another better ranked site, will make it more difficult to rank next to the better site, rather than having a more unique page title tag?
Duplicate title matters for your own website only. If you have multiple pages with same title then its problem. Having same time like other websites isnt a problem.
It's not a problem to have the same title as, or similar to, another website. For example, I just Googled "New York real estate" and found lots of websites with those words in the title. No problem. As far as rankings, your success against those other websites with the same title will depend on other on-page and off-page factors (backlinks, keywords in content, etc.).
i am agree with Jim4767.. Same title is not problem but same content is problem and also effected ranking. So dont worry you can use same title in you website.