Posted by Tina/Idaho on 7/6/12 9:31pm
Msg #425837

Low Ball Signing Services - Uuugggggggghhhhh!

Sorry, but I need to vent. This is just getting crazy.

Title charges borrowers $$$ for the signing portion of their services. In steps a signing service (which is fine - I work with some great ones), but so many are undercutting each other. I was asked to go to Wilder, Idaho this evening. Great, it is an area that I work in. They pay $70. Fine, but I charge $xxx. I'm then told that they can't pay that because they don't make that on signing. Would I please reduce my rates. NO. That is my fee. I would be willing to reduce it some, but only if the borrowers come to me. So the signing service continues to whine that they don't even make that much and could never ask the borrower to go somewhere for the signing. I let her know, nicely, that is their problem. That they need to be charging much more than they are. That my expenses keep going up, not down. And just because they have a poor business plan, does not make mine obsolete.

Then about an hour later I got a call to go to McCall, Idaho. That is about 3 hours, one way, on a good day. More when there is road construction, accidents, slow traffic, holiday traffic, etc. - all of which are applying right now. It is a twisty, windy road up into the mountains (this is our South Lake Tahoe). I was told that they, the signing service, normally pays $75 for a signing, but since it is a distance they can go up to $85. Again, that is fine, but I charge $350 for this area. The guy about fell off his chair. Then told me that there is no way anyone would pay that (that is what he thinks!). And tried to chew me out for even thinking that is an acceptable fee. It's ok for me to take 7 to 8 hours out of my day, but how dare I . . . If they want me to go there then that is my fee. I don't appreciate being told otherwise.

I am so tired of companies that try to tell me what I should be charging (try doing that with the plumber, Wal-Mart, a restaurant, etc). I know that I have higher fees than maybe others. I also have the understanding that people get what they've paid for. I've been doing this for years. I refuse to work for free, or even worse, loose money on a job. I would rather sit at home, my feet up, enjoying a Sangria, watching a good movie, being with my family, than to take money out of my pocket to get their work done.

Earlier this year I had to replace all of my printers - a colored laser, a bw laser and the all in one. It was time. I plum wore them out. Accepting the $70 fee won't even pay me minimum wage by the time I pay my usual business expenses, self-employment taxes, vacation time, insurances, gas, car operation expenses (one of these days it will also need to be replaced), etc., etc.

If someone wants to run their business on these fees, I have no problem with that (that is not my complaint). I've seen these individuals come and go. They will always be out there. Then they wise up or get out of the industry. But don't ask me to reduce my fee just because you aren't charging what I've set my fees at. I know what it takes for me to be able to make a profit. And that is the reason all of us are in business - to make a profit. Just don't try to do it on my back.

Sorry for the long post. I appreciate you listening (and so does my husband!). ; )

Reply by HisHughness on 7/6/12 9:43pm
Msg #425838

Signed a reverse mortgage tonight

The 85-year-old borrower has a Chihuahua quite a few years younger than Lucy the Chihuahua. Lucy weighs just under 7 pounds. This Chihuahua weighs close to 25-30. She is so obese it looks like someone has shoved an air hose down her throat and pumped her up. She is just one enormous, elogated blob with projections for a muzzle, ears, legs and a tail. She could hardly waddle she was so fat.

That's gotta constitute animal cruelty. I really want to do something. The poor dog's heart must work overtime every minute of the day trying to keep up with that huge overload.

Reply by HisHughness on 7/6/12 9:44pm
Msg #425839

Argggg! Supposed to be a separate thread. n/m

Reply by Treasure Valley Notary - Tina on 7/6/12 9:50pm
Msg #425841

Re: Signed a reverse mortgage tonight

That is so sad! Cruelty comes in many different forms.

Reply by brass/LA on 7/7/12 9:01am
Msg #425868

Good for you! My sentiments exactly.

Reply by Clem/CA on 7/7/12 10:15am
Msg #425874

If you were a low ball SS would you be Brass Low balls?

Reply by ikando on 7/7/12 10:23am
Msg #425876

I agree with Tina 100%.

Reply by Linda_H/FL on 7/7/12 10:53am
Msg #425881

Re: Low Ball Signing Services - Uuugggggggghhhhh! n/m

Reply by Linda_H/FL on 7/7/12 10:56am
Msg #425884

Umm...not sure what happened there...was reading, not

posting...though I was thinking of doing so...wow, mental posting.

Okay...Clem, I think you need to restrain yourself - this is not the first "off color" post you've made and I for one don't find humor in your off-color comments. Perhaps you think they're cute and humorous but I find them inappropriate and not fit for this forum. If you don't have a fitting response to the topic at hand, I'd suggest not posting at all.

JMO and Thank you.

Reply by Linda_H/FL on 7/7/12 11:11am
Msg #425887

Clem, I apologize and take that comment back...I had you

mixed up with someone else...

My public deepest apologies to you...

Reply by docs1954CA on 7/7/12 11:16am
Msg #425888

I have to say, I've enjoyed Clems' humor

It may be a bit off color for you Linda, but somethings been missing since Calinotary left us..Is Clem a good replacement? Time will tell.

Reply by Linda_H/FL on 7/7/12 11:18am
Msg #425889

LOL....Cali was a whole different breed of humor

you either liked it or you didn't...there was no middle of the road

I don't mind some off-color now and then - but when every response is that way then something's not right.

That's why I apologized publicly - I was wrong. Clem made one comment the other day that had me laughing...like I said, I was wrong..

Reply by HisHughness on 7/7/12 12:01pm
Msg #425894

I'll scrooch over and make room in the corner, Clem n/m

Reply by HisHughness on 7/7/12 3:55pm
Msg #425918

Clem...take some advice from someone who lives on the border

... of propriety. You have to learn how to channel your obscenities.

Let's deal specifically with body parts.

In the instant case, you have simply chosen the wrong nomenclature. I realize that the jest would not have worked had you not chosen that unfortunate description of a couple of male appendages. Better to pass on the joke, though, than have Linda passing out the torches and hangman's nooses.

There are references that <will> pass muster. Generally speaking, identifying a body part in a foreign language will get you by. In this case, for example, "cojones" was an option. Certain usages have acquired a level of respectability through previous applications; if former President Bill Clinton can have a "package," so can the rest of us guys. Also, giving a body part an actual surname can sneak it in. You can have a "johnson," for example, but not a given name, as in ... well, you know.

What you cannot do is use the more commonly applied identification for those areas we learned about in sex ed class (unless you live in Texas, in which case you learn where the storks roost each night).

As a general rule, the shorter the name you want to use, the less acceptable it will be. Note that "testicles" is generally acceptable, but not the B word nor the even shorter N word. "Teat" is something that can be used in almost any company when referring to four-legged creatures, but shorten it to apply to humanoids and you're in trouble. You will, in fact, probably wind up sharing the abode of some of those four-legged creatures.

The smartest thing you can do is never get below the navel when speaking of females. Only recently, we had a couple of threads in Discuss Work about dogs poking their snouts in inappropriate female nether regions, and some of the women on the forum used a pet anatomical name or two. DO NOT BE LULLED INTO A FALSE SENSE OF ABANDON. <You> cannot go there -- speaking figurtively, of course. The most you can ever do -- and even I would do this only if someone was holding a blowtorch to my cojones to force me -- is tangentially refer to the "crotch" in a completely asexual sense applying to both sexes.

There is one body part, though, to which virtually none of the rules apply anymore. That is the butt. Used to be that "butt," like "pee," was verboten. This despite the fact that you could walk into any butcher shop and pick up a butt roast; you could make your best friend the butt of a joke; you tossed away cigarette butts, and so on infinitum. But people, especially women, could not have butts. They could have derrieres, or, if you made it plain in advance you were just being cutesy, they could have tushes. TV promotion of fitness devices, though, has changed all that. It is difficult to sell something designed to reduce the size of a rump if you are forced to call it "hips." All that aside, though, the shorter-is-worser rule still applies: It's a butt, not an a$$.

I hope this helps when you start pushing the envelope in the fuiture. Ignore these rules, and you will wind up with some really painful paper cuts.

One other thing, Clem, that is an absolutely inflexible, unbreakable rule: Don't ever post a picture of a naked woman in Discuss Work.

Ever.

Reply by JanetK_CA on 7/7/12 7:45pm
Msg #425953

Re: Clem...take some advice from someone who lives on the border

Well, Hugh, I think you outdid yourself with this one! Not only is this excellent advice, these posts offer a great example of the difference between clever play on words and juvenile bathroom humor (imho). Guess we all have different tastes.

Reply by Leo Farmer on 7/7/12 10:22pm
Msg #425964

Is there pretty much a standard fee that lenders pay signing compannies or do lenders treat signing companies like signing companies treat signing agents. I think its deplorable for a signing company to net more on a signing than they are paying the signing agent.

Reply by JanetK_CA on 7/8/12 2:22am
Msg #425974

"But don't ask me to reduce my fee just because you aren't charging what I've set my fees at."

Great point. "Stuff" tends to roll downhill, as the saying goes, and there's still more competition for less business. So lenders try to compete for borrowers on price, then pass on the reductions to the title companies, who try to compete with each other on price to get the lenders' business by squeezing the signing services. They then turn to us to try to squeeze on price ("I'm only making $xxx"...), except that we're at the bottom of the hill and we have no one to pass on the reductions to.

Tina was right on point about "usual business expenses". Plus we can't tell the grocer, insurance co, paper suppliers, toner suppliers, gas stations (thank goodness at least that is going down - for now), mortgage holder or landlord, car note holder, utility companies, cell phone carrier, etc., etc., etc., that "I'm only getting $xxx..." Our fees are going up!

It's the opposite of what is happening in other markets. I heard on the news today that food prices are likely to go up because of the crop damage from the heat wave hitting the midwest. Less corn makes it more expensive, which affects a multitude of food products, plus less available for ethanol, which makes fuel for trucks more expensive, so shipping costs go up, along with ingredient costs, so the scarcity makes prices go up in ripples throughout the entire economy.

But I guess it's all the law of supply and demand at work - and NSAs are still on the wrong side of that demand in many areas - or eventually may be again. To survive, we need to work smart - and working at a loss isn't working smart, in my book.