Posted by BrendaTx on 8/24/06 9:28am
Msg #140534
Notary History Page
Okay - I have been going back to the beginning of NR and reading from message #1 again.
I would love to get real history together on the signing agent. The truth is that if you do not know history, mistakes will be repeated. Not that this "history" will do anyone any good, but I am truly interested in the evolution of the signing agent.
I have only been studying this industry since the end of 2003. I started my business at the beginning of 2004. Here are questions I am curious about. If you do not want to discuss on this forum, please feel free to send me information via my email in my link. Put "Notary History" in the subject so I can easily find it when I start putting the research together.
1) When did you start doing signings?
2) What were the going rates when you started?
3) When did you first notice "signing services" (aka what I think of as notary service brokers)?
4) Pontificate, expand, etc. on anything you think is anecdotal.
I am not saying I am actually going to "do" anything with this info, but I might put together a history page. Mostly, I am just curious.
| Reply by Lee/AR on 8/24/06 9:59am
Msg #140544
Notary History Page... Glad you asked & think everyone needs
to see this:
Late '93 or early '94...not sure which. SOX was the company and they were a good company then & for a good many years after that. So, I knew from the get-go about SS. Fees for local were $50...and negotiable. Took a few years... maybe 1995-8? to get to edocs (say what?!?) If you could/would do edocs on a laser printer, they just DOUBLED whatever your negotiated fee was. (Voiced reason then--which still applies---was: we are saving paper, toner, an employee's time to print, package, label & FedEx/UPS charges... why wouldn't we give it to you?)
Confirmations were faxed to you. You signed (officially accepting it) and faxed it back...always to a tollfree #. Upon completion, you added the Tracking # & faxed same page back again.
NO calls from the table, faxing of anything else, nobody called you or wanted to be called constantly, no fee docking, dress codes, no pages of what to wear, say, not say, do, etc. The instructions came in the package and were very clear & concise. In less than a page they told you what you needed to know, who to call if you had a question, where & how to ship the docs & what acct. #/carrier to use.
All of which may help you to understand my posts on 'stick to your fees'. This business has been constantly eroded over the past couple of years & most particularly THIS year. Ah, the good old days...when we were trusted, respected and were paid what the job was worth.
| Reply by John_NorCal on 8/24/06 10:01am
Msg #140546
1) When did you start doing signings? 1993
2) What were the going rates when you started? $65.00 - $75.00 overnight docs, no fax backs, etc. (there was no such thing as e-docs)
3) When did you first notice "signing services" (aka what I think of as notary service brokers)?
2004 (I was out of the industry for a few years)
4) Pontificate, expand, etc. on anything you think is anecdotal - I see this business as being a great service to the consumer. There is a value to this business that some agents seem to sell themselves short on. At the same time some signing agents seem to read more into their duties than they should, i.e. we are not, in most cases attorneys, and we are not adjudicators of a persons legal status and we are not there as an advisor to the client. Our purpose is to witness, explain the purpose of the documents, notarize, and get the docs back to the lender asap.
| Reply by Lee/AR on 8/24/06 10:05am
Msg #140547
LOL... I hear ya' John!
It took me 3 signings to figure out I could NEGOTIATE fees. Those 3 are the only ones I've ever done for $50.
| Reply by BrendaTx on 8/24/06 10:37am
Msg #140552
Re: LOL... I hear ya' John!
For $50 they wanted you to do how far?
| Reply by Lee/AR on 8/24/06 11:19am
Msg #140565
How far?
1st 3 were all within a couple of miles. Then they called with one that would have taken almost an hr. round trip. That was more time than I wanted to take away from my primary business (r.e.) so I said "Gee... that's too far...no, I don't think so." And they asked: What would you charge for that long a trip? Understand, that for the first 2 or 3 years, it was always thru an SS. (SOX, FOX, FASS, Leading Edge...and a bunch of others, many of whom have either gone bad or gone out of business.) Far cry from today's offers, hey? Didn't know the NNA existed; didn't find (or even look for) SS or TC on the 'net... they all found me. I found the NASA about 6 months (& a change of state of residency) before the NNA bought 'em out... and began the carnage that this business has become.
| Reply by BrendaTx on 8/24/06 11:45am
Msg #140571
Now the next question....does anyone know of a site
that gives comparative prices from 1990, 1993, etc. to today's living expenses?
I have tried my google skills to no avail. By comparing fees to gallon of milk, to gallon of gas, etc. it might help us to realize if we are too high or too low, etc.
The outcome of all this research might not be to my favor, but it's the way I learned to do research while working at an economic development office.
REAL information is what we need to combat (or to quieten down about) the problems we face with our industry.
| Reply by Lee/AR on 8/24/06 11:56am
Msg #140574
Brenda: Now the next question....does anyone know of a site
This one looks promising:
http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/steccpi.html
Now, I really gotta quit this now, but it sure is interesting.
| Reply by AngelinaAZ on 8/24/06 12:37pm
Msg #140587
I think this might be a good one...
I think what you are looking for is the historical data for the Consumer Price Index (CPI). I found this site
http://www.bls.gov/cpi/
and you can pull up all kinds of stuff. For instance... it has an inflation calculator on there that says that $75 in 1993 has the same buying power as $105.62 does today. (Using the numbers from John and Lee).
This is interesting... let me know if you need help looking stuff up.
| Reply by Dorothy_MI on 8/24/06 10:45am
Msg #140555
1) Had my very first signing on Jan. 3, 2001. I heard about it through a friend of mine that had a friend that was doing it.
2) Oh, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Friend of friend was working for two CA companies (won't mention the name) who specialized in Ditech, who paid a whole $50 per signing! He said that's what they all pay. Now, in their defense, if it was a double you did get $100 and there were a lot of them at that time. After about three weeks doing this (and all for $50 companies, I got a call (didn't at the time realize it was a title company), who asked "What is your fee?" I thought nothing ventured, nothing gained, and quoted, "my fee for that area is $65.00" Response: OK. Boy did that start the wheels turning in my head and I quickly made up a fee sheet based on time and distance. Still at that time didn't realize that title companies sometimes called you direct and that they would pay more. I wised up very quickly! E-docs were just starting and one company called offering $85.00. They only wanted to pay $50 for o/n docs, so I thought, humm, guess I can add $35 to my base fee and started doing that.
3) My friend of a friend only knew about Signing Services so that's all I started out doing. Best thing that ever happened to any of us, was that one of the formerly mentioned companies black balled him, so he did an internet search and we found the NASA site. From then on, everything changed because we became certified and had a very large list from which we could easily solicit business. Yes, I think of Signing Services as a notary service broker, but it is the only broker that I know of that takes 50% or more of the price!
4) When I first started, friend of a friend (she started doing this too) was very unhappy, because he'd gotten into the business through a friend of his and he didn't know if there was enough business in the Detroit Metro area to support 4 notaries!!! Like I said, you don't know, what you don't know. Message boards such as this one make this whole job a whole lot easier. In the beginning, we all had NO ONE to ask anything of, no wealth of knowledge available country wide. You really felt as though you were on a dessert island all by yourself. But with the advent of the boards, you get to meet people (even if you wouldn't recognize them if you ran into them), and can learn from each other and help each other. I have no trouble with Newbies wanting to know, just don't come on the boards asking for the whole enchillada handed to you on a plate, do some research first yourself.
| Reply by ReneeK_MI on 8/25/06 3:54am
Msg #140824
Here's a few points that might be interesting ... this is all specific to MI, OH, IN & IL however, all gleaned from my inside exp., from the mouths/Huds of about 1000 title co's across those states, info dated up to about 6 mos ago (I'm getting farther and farther out-of-the-loop):
On AVERAGE, when a closing was going to be 'mobile' (regardless of SA or SS, and as the lender I was almost never aware), they tacked on $100-150. If it was ALSO going to be e-docs, there was an additional $50. FIFTY. Combo loans were not discounted much, and it was still another $50 if e-docs. It might not be specified on the Huds, but it was the increase from their normal fees. The "closing/settlement fee" BASE was $250 for a refi, so a single refi mobile, with edocs was a total of $400-450.
What we rarely have access to (otherwise) is knowing what the local market's charge when a SA is NOT involved, and the 'gold' is in the spread.
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