Hi Sarah-
That particular signing agency charges the client $125 and pays me $75. I picked up the docs from Escrow (had to cool my heels for 70 minutes in their lobby waiting for the package), and ahnd carried the signed papers back. What I'd like to see is our profession approaching that of, say, the entertainment profession. Down here in Lalaland (Southern CA - I cover LA, Orange, Riverside and San Diego counties) the escrow companies work on an estimated signing fee of $150 per loan. If the signing agencies would quit being so greedy, they could take a standard 10% off the top for their overhead, and leave the rest for those of us who drive the miles, spend the hours at the kitchen table, AND CARRY ALL THE DAMNED RISK! If anything goes wrong, it's not the agency who goes back out to fix it. It's not their butt in a sling if someone wants to complain to the Secretary of State about something. It's not their bond or their E&O that gets hit when the stuff really hits the fan!
In another thread on this forum, someone suggested we should sign up with "at least a hundred signing agencies". Great idea, except that most agencies charge between $50 and $150 a year just to register with them. Do the math. and figure out how much it would cost to pay an average of $100 to each of 100 agencies! How many of us can afford an annual investment of $10,000, paid up front at the beginning of the year? Then they add insult to injury by raping us on the share they take out of the signing fee.
For this job it should have been $150 for the 1st TD and an additional $75 for the 2nd TD, less 10% for the agency, plus $15 courier fee for pickup and another $15 for delivery, for a total of $232.50. |
