Posted by MistarellaFL on 7/13/08 8:24am
Msg #255033
The sky IS falling
I have been reading the last hour or so catching up on NR forum posts...and over and over and over.....low-ball offers, no-pay deadbeats, slow-pay companies, bad check payments, and arbitrary fee reductions seem to dominate the topics anymore.
I hope everyone is taking notes on these companies....and beware.
| Reply by 101livescan on 7/13/08 9:32am
Msg #255039
Hard to track all these dead beat companies, but I have a memory that serves me well. Six years ago, I worked for Nations Direct, BRIEFLY. Too many fax backs, micromanagement, I'm not a turnip, and low/slow payment to their notaries who MAKE THEM TONS of money. Would I do an Esigning, yea, but it's going to cost you, up front before the signing and my fee is $150. CLICK! On to the next notary listed on this board....my friend who calls me up and says they offered her $80, we chuckled, stick together and they have to raise their fees.
This is one company I won't work for out of principal.
Generally, I prefer to work for title and escrow directly, but I do have a couple of signing services who treat me well, so there are exceptions to my rule.
Don't forget to keep the door open for opportunity. Every dark cloud has a silver lining, I think we're going to see some action this summer. I'm already signing quite a few foreclosure workouts, short sales and purchases of properties that have reverted to the beneficiary. Prices are low...there are some great deals out there, but they are going to get greater because we're not at the bottom of this yet. Any one see the front page of LA Times yesterday. Foreclosures are 400% MORE THAN THEY WERE IN 2007!
| Reply by DebbieT on 7/13/08 10:21am
Msg #255043
Local news stated yesterday that home sales are up from this time last year by a good percentage. They said that Lee County Florida is selling more than anywhere else. Thats good news to my ears since my home of good ol Cape Coral is the worst in the nation with foreclosures... so they say.
| Reply by MistarellaFL on 7/13/08 10:43am
Msg #255045
Well, call me with your overflow, Debbie, lol n/m
| Reply by 101livescan on 7/13/08 10:45am
Msg #255046
That is GREAT NEWS! When my father passed away last year, I inherited his home. Just sitting on it because market is SOOOOO bad. Maybe I'll be able to sell it soon at a good price.
Great time to start marketing ourselves!
| Reply by MW/VA on 7/13/08 11:17am
Msg #255050
The sky is really falling--IndyMac, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae--almost total meltdown of mortgage lending. Some reporters are making references to 1929/Depression. It will be interesting to see what happens. We take mortgages for granted. What will happen if there are none to be had?
| Reply by Lisa Bittner on 7/13/08 12:15pm
Msg #255058
The sky fell last August.
Brokers, Lenders, and Title have lowered the Signing Fees in a lot of cases.
The trend I see, Low fees, less work, this is being set by the LENDERS and trickling down through to escrow/title to signing companies.
Its a different industry today for signing agents, I am hearing all over how the phone calls are not coming in. I AM NOT SAYING that one should say yes to every offer that comes in.
But you have to realistically figure out what this job is costing, and set fees accordingly. In most cases what was paid a year ago may not be paid today.
( this is not a blanket statement I realize its not the case everytime)
There are so many contributing factors.
If you remember a few years ago on this board, their was talk about cutting 3rd party fees.
Seems it is happening, One client use to pay $250.00 now dropped it to $200.00
Another Lender used to pay $200.00 has dropped it to $150.00
More clients have dropped fees, to attract the consumer, or lender or whomever has the lower fees wins the clients.
I also found out a competitor is offering and paying kick backs to the broker, in this case paying many thousands to the broker.
How can anyone compete with that?
We all know what Brokers make, some want a kick back from a signing agency? 
Talk Gas prices ot your clients, they get a dazed look on their faces, they do not care.
just a few things that this thread brought to mind
Lisa
| Reply by SueW/Tn on 7/13/08 12:30pm
Msg #255061
Right on Lisa
I followed Ms. Bren's lead and got a "part time job" in September and believe me I'm glad I did. I have one client I work for, fee is $50-65, ON docs and I can catch them coming or going to my job so not costing a dime for gas. 50 pages, 2 certs...20 mins and I'm out the door so yes Lisa, one has to figure total costs when deciding on a fee. I have had NO luck with those that call and want a signing with long distance, e-docs etc. meeting my fee and ya know what? That's fine with me, let my competitors do it...they can go in the hole rather than me.
Expenses are going UP, not down and it's mainly due to oil. Toner has polymers in it, polymers are oil based...look for toner to make a drastic jump in price. Everything that has an oil base has jumped dramatically and while you think it's only because of the price of gas/delivery/transportation you can think again. That gallon of milk comes in a plastic container that's made from plastic pellets that are manufactured from oil. Same with that bread wrapper, your trash bags, that modem you using to read this, your cell phone etc., the beat goes on and on. Anything oil based is going to jump in price, definitely be prepared as far as fees go so that you can at least break even. Me? I'm fortunate, got the job that is getting me through these "lean" times but personally I don't think we've seen the worst of it YET.
| Reply by Lee/AR on 7/13/08 1:56pm
Msg #255070
Re: Right on Lisa
I do understand, but when you say "I do signings on my way to/from work, so it doesn't cost me a dime".... I really want to (scream) tell you that you MUST factor ALL expenses into your fees because to do anything less is basically treating SS/TC/Lender as your favorite charity. There are far more worthy causes out there.
| Reply by Lisa Bittner on 7/13/08 2:25pm
Msg #255071
Charity
Everyone needs to come up with their own business plan. You can not determine what is charity to someone else.
Only what is Charity for you.
| Reply by SueW/Tn on 7/13/08 2:44pm
Msg #255074
Lemme see if I got this right Lee
I'm on my way to my part time job, I stop in route and do a signing, go on to work. WHAT PART OF THAT IS CHARITY IN YOUR BOOK? That's rich! I too have a few things that make me scream....the countless SA's that "won't start their car for under $100" comes to mind. We each have to work our own business plan, prior to the meltdown I did just fine thank you. Now it's not as cut and dried, one either has to bend a bit or break. The role of an SA obviously has shrunk over the past year, those SA's that have been very busy and successful are now posting about getting "jobs" because there just isn't enough to go around. I wonder if they would NOT consider doing a quick signing on their way to/from a more traditional job....
| Reply by Lee/AR on 7/13/08 3:53pm
Msg #255076
Re: Lemme see if I got this right Lee
I said I understood (the rationalization) and totally agree that we each have to find our own way---but it still undeniably 'lowers the bar' and the time/gas spent IS subsidizing 'not you'.
Many examples of this type of rationalization have been stated ad nausem...'as long as' the dentist/doctor/mechanic/whatever is 'doing', he could also 'do' something else at no additional charge. They don't work that way and I wonder why many think it's OK for us.
| Reply by Susan Fischer on 7/13/08 6:09pm
Msg #255084
It takes two barrels of oil to make one printer
cartridge. Just to add to your list, SueW.
And, I'm with you, the worst is ahead, not behind us.
| Reply by WDMD on 7/13/08 7:39pm
Msg #255087
Re: It takes two barrels of oil to make one printer
"It takes two barrels of oil to make one printer cartridge. Just to add to your list, SueW."
Where did you find this info at? I found a site that states it takes a pint of oil to make a toner cartridge. Just wondering why there is that big a difference between your statement and theirs.
Quote:
"Did you know... on average it takes a pint of oil to make a toner cartridge? So just by buying 8 remanufactured cartridges, you'll save a gallon of gas and save 40%. Our Advantage brand toner cartridges are remanufactured right here in Atlanta, Georgia and they work great.
We really appreciate all of our customers business, and we're doing what we can to eat the fuel surcharge and not pass it along to our customers. -Marvin
posted by Advantage Laser Products at 8:28 AM | 0"
Link: http://www.advlaser.com/v/vspfiles/micr-toner-blog.html
| Reply by Susan Fischer on 7/13/08 8:49pm
Msg #255092
Re: It takes two barrels of oil to make one printer
"While some cartridges may still get dumped, this amount can be drastically cut down - for every cartridge that is refilled, one less enters the waste stream, saving it from draining the planet’s natural resources.
The plastic alone in each toner cartridge takes more than three litres of oil to produce and each new inkjet cartridge around 70 grams (2.5oz) of oil. For each laser cartridge that is returned for remanufacturing, around one and a half litres of oil is conserved. Worldwide, remanufacturing cartridges instead of producing new ones would reduce the demad of oil by 300,000 barrels and save 17,000 tons of aluminum as well as 10,000,000 tons of timber."
http://www.inkost.com/recycled.php
Looks like around 3.5 qts per cartridge. My toner-filler guy told me it was 2 barrels. Nevertheless, look at the total cost - if you read the link, you'll see that just in the UK alone, "the total weight of cartridges thrown away each year is equivalent to more than 112,000 VW Beetles and because many of the parts used in cartridges are non bio-degradable, they will take around 1,000 years to decompose in landfill sites. It’s estimated that landfill sites worldwide contain ‘buried treasure’ worth more than £100 million in raw materials from discarded printer cartridges."
Re-filling and Remanufacturing are a great way to go.
By the way, one pint of oil does not equal a pint of gasoline, like your ad claims.
| Reply by WDMD on 7/14/08 6:09am
Msg #255097
Re: It takes two barrels of oil to make one printer
So then it doesn't take 2 barrels of oil to make a toner cartridge.
| Reply by LynnNC on 7/14/08 8:36am
Msg #255102
Cost of Printing
I went to Advantage Laser Products’ website to check their price for high yield cartridge for an HP 1320. The price of Advantage's compatible cartride is $89.00 and I can get one for half that price on eBay, including shipping.
What I found interesting on Advantage's website is the cost per page of 1.48 cents using their product...I have never thought about the actual cost per page to print. I pay about $40.00 for a carton of legal paper, so my cost, excluding the depreciation on my printer, is about 1.5 cents per page.
I don't like my average fee considering the time I spend on my business to be below $35 per hour, so, if I print a typical package of 250 pages (two copies) where printing & sorting (I put @ 10 documents of borrower's package in a certain order) takes 30 minutes, my actual cost is $20.25. With the number of large FHA packages lately, I now charge 25 cents per page over 250.
One cannot forget the cost of time and travel... if you have to return to your home office just to print docs, they are a real loser. Using a website to determine cost of travel, including auto maintenance, depreciation, etc., my actual cost of driving my 2003 Toyota Highland is within cents of $1.00 per mile.
Driving 10 miles to return to my home office to print docs would cost $22...$10 for travel and $12 for time...and my loss would be $17.25 ($20.25 printing toner/time + $22.00 travel/time minus $25.00 fee).
| Reply by Gary_CA on 7/14/08 8:22am
Msg #255100
Okay Sherlock... er I mean Nancy Drew...
Haven't checked today but oil is about $140, right? So two barrells would be $280, no?
Nope the raw material in you $85 cartridge doesn't cost $280.
But even 1.5 liters is good to save...
EXCEPT...
My whole fiasco was based on remanufactured cartridges. Got a good batch then a bad batch from the same supplier. 5 cartridges all of them problematic... they'd take them back but it's such a hassle I gave up.
I did use remanufactured drums (new drums in old plastic cases, I checked) without issue. But I'm sticking to the best deal I can get on OEM toner.
The whole cartridge this is a scam.
| Reply by JanetK_CA on 7/14/08 9:27pm
Msg #255183
Re: Okay Sherlock... er I mean Nancy Drew...
Gary, why not try refilling your cartridges yourself? I prefer to buy new OEM cartridges, them refill them myself 2-3 times. As you probably know, for many HP printers, cartridges come in two "sizes" (xxxxx-A and xxxx-X), which seems to only refer to the amount of toner it comes with. I've been buying the new cartridges in the smaller, cheaper version (about $65), but when I refill, I can get a full bottle of toner in it, equivalent to the "X" size. Bottle of toner is about $10 each, so my cost averages out to about $25 per cartridge use. You never know how those remanufactured ones have been handled, especially the drum. [I don't know if they replace them or not, but I'd be surprised if they did for the price.]
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