In late December of 2018, I was called to do a HELOC with American Title. The closing went smoothly and I was contacted by one of American Title’s managers and had a phone interview.
The manager said the I would be contacted soon due to an expectation of many closings in the future. In January, I received 4 closings and I decided to use 2 weeks vacation in February and accept as many closings as American Title offered me. I was delighted and was about to quit my “day job” when I got word that Title365 was to be the new company and as I was assured that the closings would continue, toward the middle of March things started to slow down. My last closing with ATI was on March 27. Since then, I have had no offers from either ATI, Title365 or XHOME another company of the same own group. Is Mr. Cooper, the apparent company trying to monopolize the signing business? Has anyone else experienced this shift in the business.
I hope this is only temporary, but i’m more pragmatic than that.
We shall see.
Quit your job???
Are you nuts?? ( sorry for the language, but you need a slap on face to wake you up from what ever dream, call it tough love ).
Nothing is ever gauranteed in life. Only death …
Many things happen in between, birthdays, growing up, etc… You get the picture.
Many title companies and agents used to supply to get you to lower your price. They say oh we will give you a lot of business provided you can do this for a much lesser price. Now you have learned your lesson. Determine how much you are time and effort is worth but not as yourself you have to think of the value of service that you are providing to company. If it’s a last-minute Rush deal usually it means the other appointed notary dropped it for some reason and the company is desperate. So you can charge as much as you want. Never settle for some lowball price unless you are completely new and you want to learn are that is right across the street or block or few blocks away.
Don’t quit your job. I’ve been in this field for 25 years and the ONLY constant is CHANGE. I get a lot of jobs from ‘this’ co. in ‘this’ year…next year/different co. Every. single. year. You can be a ‘favorite’ notary until they find someone cheaper (and some companies will even pit you against one another…‘if you’ll drop your fee $5…’ You do and they tell the other notary the same thing… rush to the bottom.) Don’t fall for it.
Arichter is right again on all counts. Regarding discounted fees for promises of high volume of work: don’t do it. High volume never happens no matter how good you are and what you do. We are not selling tangible goods, where you buy a gross of them and get a dozen free. They are paying for assurance of quality service, EVERY TIME. We also have unlimited liability in doing this work.
A loan broker started using me a lot then asked for a discount for volume and I refused. He works with the same escrow officer I work with at this company. Apparently, not many escrow officers will work with this broker. Now he doesn’t want to use anyone but me and this one escrow officer. I helped the escrow officer and the 3 of us are now a team. He is difficult but we have developed a friendly relationship and won’t use anyone but this escrow officer and me for his closings. No discounts. People respect you more.
It’s a game of who is the flavor of the day. I my area I was doing all the Wells Fargo HELOC’s. Well now Wells Fargom had all their staff members get their notary as they found it was cheaper to pay for everyone to be a notary than pay $75 everytime they needed to call me in. Again the Title companies were not doing accomodations for other branches of their cimpany they were calling in me. Well, now and escrow officer or escrow assistant can do an accomodation if they are not busy withanything else and then pocket the signing fee themselves. It saves the Title company from giving raises.
DO NOT QUIT YOUR JOB!!! I do HELOC’s for Service Link, and Wells Fargo thru Old Republic Title
I agree w everything said above. On another note, odd you say Mr Cooper. Last week while closing a loan, my LO commented that Mr Cooper was taking over all the loans? I assumed he meant buying the servicing of them? I’m familiar w them but I don’t hear much ab them where I’m at.
American Title has always been my top company to work for for the past 7 years - professional, no hand holding, pleasant staff and will always work with you on fees but since they are now 3 companies - the staff can be rude, docs are not right and all the offers I used to get are not coming as often. There is no partnership with any company no matter how efficient and available you are so do not quit your day job. I consistently read all the notary threads and sign up with new companies monthly.
They had such a good thing going for a really long time…Good Luck all!
Totally - That Joint Venture between ATI, Title 365 and xome is horrible. Xome Charges Title 365 $150 for a sellers package on a deed in lieu. The notary gets paid $65 then xome docs the pay $10 for late scans etc when title 365 says no big deal on the scans or the drop. Bottom line xome and 365 and ATI are playing ssh… bird games and cheese balling Notaries. My advice take there files then sue them immediately when they pull there games. Sue them in your local town court and when they start paying attorney fees then they get the hint.
i heard some big guys in Mortgage industry took over these business and it involves kickbacks and other dirty deeds . So they need your slice of the pie to cover those dirty deeds .
Imaging vegas trips, strippers etc God knows
So what can you do? Ask a firm price and stick to it. Else tell them you wont budge on your price. Ask them do they go to a store and haggle on milk/eggs / bread , citing the price of costco or walmart ?? Huh !!
Same attitude. Tell them to take a hike.** If enough of your notaries have the spine to say.**… these scumbags will straightern out faster than a starched shirt being steam pressed…
Good Morning. I just began sifting through the notary threads looking for companies to add me to their database.
If I may ask, “How do you word your email to these companies?” Thank you and so funny you mentioned American Title, as I just emailed them the other day. No response yet, but it was a holiday weekend.
Thank you for the helpful insight and for taking the time to add to the notary thread