Charlie, I have about ten years of doing this. For the first 3-4 years, I did it part-time on evenings and weekends while I worked a full-time job. Since August 2015, I've been at this full-time. I have a standalone office located downtown.
What's different now is that I have other spin-off services that I offer and now the income from those sources far exceed what I make doing signing agent work. What are those other services?
General Notary Work
Process Serving
Notary Trainer
Insurance Agent for Small Biz Owners
and in the last few months I added Private Investigation.
I was never under the impression that I could rely solely on notary or notary signing agent work. The numbers never added up for me. I know there are others who have made $50k and higher doing this, but once I actually sat down and did the math...I realized just how many assignments I needed five days a week to earn that much. To pull it off I'd be living out of my car and I wouldn't have much of a personal life.
Most of the posts I've read suggested that NSA's had another steady source of income in the form of a spouse, retirement, or full or part-time employment.
I'm not good at forecasting but I do think the current administration will stimulate the housing industry and we'll see more buying, selling and refinancing. However, the rules have changed now that there are companies like SnapDocs in play. I don't see these text message notifications and emails going away. I'm not optimistic at all about NSA fees getting much higher than they are today. Which is why most of my marketing efforts are focused on the other services I offer.
I will say this in closing: location - location - location. States like Florida, California and Arizona (to name a few) always appeared to have higher volumes of NSA work than other states, like mine - Alabama. Folks here are settled - with the exception of those in the military. I can't tell you how many people I've met who have told me that they still live in the same house they grew up in, and on land that's been in their family for generations. So...everything I've said so far may be different for notaries in other states.
Whew! I didn't mean to get on a rant. Sorry if this sounds preachy.
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