I am a new loan signing agent. I have been a notary public for over 2 years now.
I would like to expand my business to add loan signing appointments.
I live in Hollister Ca. Which is about an hr away from San Jose, the heart of silicon valley. I figured i would cover my county, Santa Clara county, and Monterey county. San Benito county (where hollister is located) is in the middle of these two counties. With your experience, do you think I am considering covering too much of an area? or too little? How far is too far for you to cover a signing?
This is totally your decision. Just be SURE to figure your travel time & mileage into the fee for each county you intend to cover. Whether or not you’ll get jobs in every county really does depend upon how many notaries are already servicing your more distant counties as hiring party will always go with cheapest notary available. The driving does get old and it’s usually easier to take 2 close ones rather than 1 distant one.
well I live in Maui so I cannot go too far but you wouldn’t believe how much driving I do About 100 miles a day. Do as far as is reasonable By that I mean you don’t want to take up your whole day driving to one appointment You want to make time for other appointments as well. I do go farther and usually charge a bit more but use your instincts. If you think you will be irritated by the distance don’t do it. Remember you are your own boss in this.
I personally do not like to drive father than an hour in one direction(includes traffic). I live in a densely populated area and traffic can be brutal. Another notary I know, bundles the towns in a county. He’ll go out 3 counties over and spend a day doing 3-6 appointments, all within 30 minutes of each other. And drive back when he is done.
He asks for permission to not scan back anything and lets title know they will not get any documents until the next day. That works for him.
This is a very good question, and was thinking the same thing. I received a message for a Contract w/ 15 pages or less which i thought was goo until I saw the location and fee. The fee was for 65.00 and the location was 55mins from my location. Not to mention the time for the appointment was 1hr and 10mins away.
So with all of that being said, anyone have any suggestions on how to get better signing.
I try to stay under a half hour and under 20 miles. I have gone over, but I’m usually being paid pretty good for it when I do. I try to stay in within a few towns around me. But then again, I work another job and don’t really like to do more than 2 signings a day and am appreciative of the days off.
I live by several counties. Some are more widespread than others. I typically stay under a half hour. Really, I like 15 minutes or less. I typically charge between $100 - $150 for signings, depending on what it is. Anything over a half hour, I may charge $150 or more because I don’t like to do those. Now, when you have to factor in traffic, that’s another story. I don’t travel in high traffic, so that is half the battle. I’m usually within town or back roads or straight shots on the expressway. I have another career, so I do have the liberty to pick and choose when and where I want to do signings. They have to be convenient for me in most cases. But every now and then, I’ll help out a company by traveling further as long as they compensate me accordingly.
That’s awesome question, but as @Arichter said, this is something that you will have to decide for yourself.
Things to take into consideration-
How long will it take you to get from one side of your coverage area to the other? You can be relatively close by distance, but sometime California traffic can make a 20 mile trip a total nightmare.
You need to factor in, what if faxbacks are needed. Let say it takes you one hour to complete your signing, and traffic is horrible and it takes another hour to get back. Then you have faxbacks and at some point you’re going to need to drop your docs, you can lose a lot of your time just driving or sitting in traffic.
Try not make your coverage area too small to the point you have little to no signing opportunities. On the other hand, don’t make your coverage area so large that you can get trapped in traffic in between signings.
Consider doing direct business with the title companies, this will save you the headaches and allow you to make the income you desire.
That my two cents on the matter, and happy signing.
LUCKY you! I’d love nothing more than live on Maui.
I agree with your advice on not wanting to spend your entire day driving to and from one single appointment. You might miss out on doing three local appointments because you’re driving.
