144 pages + ( Borrower copy ) 288 pages in total, 20 minutes drive all for $85.
Any thoughts?
3 Likes
I have copied & lightly edited this from a long ago post from another forum by a lady who has since left the business because it accurately states what Iâve been repeating endlesslyâŠYOU MUST do your own evaluation of all costs to do a job in order to calculate YOUR PROFIT from each & every âofferâ.
" There is no such thing as âfairâ profit margin. Your profit margin is personal and needs to be based on your individual business needs. You have to do a lot of market research, both industry wise and for your local area. You also have to consider your individual needs to know how much money you need to be making.
While you should know and consider what your competition is charging in your profit margin⊠you shouldnât use it as a primary factor, IMO. The primary factor should be YOUR individual needs and figuring out if this business will help you meet them.
Simply putâŠand this is really simple to paint the picture with rounded numbers. Itâs not exactâŠjust an illustration.
Consider how much money you need, personally, per month/year/whatever. Take that and add it TO you business expenses for the same period of time.
Letâs say you have monthly business expenses of $2,000. Recall that these expenses also include business taxes, not just paper, toner, gas, insurance and such. This is EVERYTHING that it costs to open, run and maintain your business. Consider things like utilities, internet connection, mobile phone and the like.
In order to survive personally â outside of your business venture (pay the mortgage, eat, etc.), letâs say you need a personal income of $4,000 per month, gross. That means your business needs to pull in at least $6,000 per month in invoices ($2,000 in business expenses PLUS personal gross income).
If youâre a loan signing agent who averages $150 per invoice, that means you need to handle about 40 loan signings per month at $150.00 each. Now, you may thinkâŠwell shoot, I can charge half that ($75) and double my appointments and still make the same amount of money, right? NO. Remember that the more appointments you have, the more monthly expenses you have. There is NO SUCH THING as volume work for individual signing agents. Donât fall for that trap. Volume work assumes you can control your business costs and make a higher profit overall. At the signing agent level, there is little, if anything, you can do to do that. Your average expenses per signing remain essentially the same whether you handle 40 appointments or 80.
In my example, it would mean oneâs average expenses per loan signing is $50. That means youâll have a profit of $100 per signing. Now, just because this is âprofitâ remember that this $100 is what youâre actually pocketing. That $50 expense is just that⊠an expense. Itâs money thatâs GONE and youâre not being paid for it. Youâre only making $100.
If you only charge an average of $75 per loan signing, you still have that $50 expense⊠and youâve gone from making $100 to $25. Think about that⊠that means you will need to be doing FOUR times the amount of work to make the same amount of money. You could do 80 signings at $75 and still make $6,000. But the thing is⊠your average cost per signing is still $50. If you do 80 signings at a cost of $50, your business costs go from $2,000 to $4,000⊠which means youâve cut your personal income in HALF even though youâve done twice the work. In what world does that make any sense? You need $4,000 per month to survive. By doubling your workload and slashing your price in half, youâre increasing your business expenses and decimating your personal income. If you need $4,000 a month (grossâŠthatâs before personal taxes) to survive and only pull in $2,000, meanwhile youâre overworked, exhausted and broke. How long will you last?
No folks, Donât fall for the âany money is good moneyâ line â itâs not true. Youâre going to find yourselves deep in debt and overworked.
Do not apologize for YOUR profit margin. Your profit margin needs to cover your personal and business goals⊠not the desires of other companies. If they wonât meet YOUR fees, then move on. There are plenty of good companies out there who will. Theyâre harder to find and get on withâŠbut they do exist. Leave the low paying companies to deal with the uneducated who will overwork themselves and get in to debt quickly disappearing once the tax man starts sending nasty letters. I cannot tell you how many notaries Iâve met who think theyâre stealing all my business by charging half of what I charge, gleefully rubbing it in my face⊠just to find that in a year (or less) theyâre no longer working as a notary.
BTW⊠yes, I fully realize that, for many, certain business expenses are tax deductible and some notaries may choose to take the self-employment exemption, etc. For the purposes of my illustration I wasnât going to get in to all of the specifics of that. Those are all individual circumstances that impact the expenses per appointment. My example of that $50 expense assumes all of those are essentially calculated and the $50 is the expense after all of that is factored in. Trust me when i tell you that $40 - $60 average cost per loan signing is actually pretty accurate when everything is factored in."
22 Likes
Fantastic advice!
Also consider every cost sheet Iâve seen has $150 for Notary. Whoâs keeping the rest? The signing company of course.
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Two days ago I did an Amrock refinance for $150, which wasnât complicated because theyâre very well put and organized plus it wasnât far, but caught my attention that the CD read $450 closing settlement⊠they gave me $150 and kept $300. There you figure 
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Because that fee involves a lot more than just notary fees and your fee; that fee also includes prep of the package, reconciliation of the numbers, title review and compliance and issuance of the title insurance policy (for which the title company is liable if there are any errors), post closing review, recording, follow-up and tracking, etc etc - speaking from the title side of the table, they put a lot more hours into a signing than a signing agent doesâŠtrust me on this - been there done that - 25 years as a closing paralegal in CT I did it all from contract to close the post-closing follow-up and tracking.
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The way you explain makes sense then
After 3 Refi closings, 2 for $ 85 each, and 1 for $ 100, I realized the amount of time to put these documents together and go through more paper, toner and gas. not worth it! I donât really get any profit. I also donât like the fact that I have to be close enough to my phone to capture a signing.
Iâm going to start applying directly to the title and escrow companies.
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I took a certification class thru Blueprint Notary and He suggested this as well, indicating that one does not make money really with most signing companies, so I think you are right on about that! He did suggest to start with signing companies just to sharpen skills then start calling the title companies. So that is where I am:)
Absolutely no! $150-175 minimum.
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150 to 175 for something like that
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Donât be afraid to ask for more money! You are worth it.
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Dont doit
This is the time to drive prices up,Hot Market, we have been under paid to long
If everyone says no to cheap agencies, they will pay us more
Supply and demand, raise the bar people
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I dont do a refi for $85.00. Raise your fee to a least $100.00 or more your time is worth it. And time is money.
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288 did not equal $85.00. That is a lot of ink used in the process, envelopes, your time, and gas.
I would ONLY do these if I was using something material and that doesnât happen often.
I would as for $100 minimum
When you are new to the game, it is good to take what you can. Just be careful that they are not on the list of non payers.
1 Like
re fi $125 minimum about 100 pgs ⊠no scan backs those are extra
depends on distance to borrower and what else u have to do
scan backs that day ? plus fedex trip for drop?
all extra
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The easiest way to figure it out is to do some mathâŠ
Printing Costs 288pgs @ .08 cents a page = $23.04
Travel costs 20 Miles @.55 per = $11
$85-34.04 = $50.96.
Print and Prep time 15min
Drive time 20min
Sign time 60min
Drop time 20min (especially if it signs after hours)
Invoice, Collect etc 15min
130 minutes if everything goes according to plan (which rarely happens)
$50.96 for 130 minutes of professional work. .39 per minute or $23.40 per hour. Normally making $23 per hour would be amazing for lots of peopleâŠ
But consider all your other costs. Cell, Internet, Computers, Printers, Software, Commission, BGC, E&O, Certifications, TAXES, Office space, Office supplies, Journals, Stamps, Business cards, Electricity etc⊠These vary for each of us, but my rough estimate is when billing $85 for your services you are taking home less than $13 per hour.
The minimum wage in Oregon is $11.25 so I could go make sandwiches at Subway for about the same as I am charging to provide a professional service, enter a strangers house risking all sorts of things especially with Covid, all while having to be 100% accurate in your work.
Personally, I bill at closer to $65 per hour. 44 closings this month to date $7200 invoiced. That is an average of $163 per signing. I have ones that are $100 (single docs locally) and others that are $350+ (travel or large packages with scans).
Whatever you do, get paid what you are worth! I believe that if you truly provide a professional service you should be making no less than $50 per hour. DO THE MATH AND NEGOTIATE FOR PROFESSIONAL FEES 100% OF THE TIME NO EXCEPTIONS!
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Thank you, dcaldwell. THATâs what Iâve been talking about forever. Each & every one of you HAS to âdo the mathâ for yourself, using your realities. This man is a business owner who makes a profit because heâs done the math.
And, liliana, youâre catching on faster than most.
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ââŠ08 cents a pageâŠâ
Who pays eight cents a page?
I pay $.006/page for letter (92 bright) and $.013/page for legal (92 bright).
Someone is paying too much for paper�
Paul
Foundation Notary
Kansas City, MO