notary license earning $137,000 (gross) ?

[shortduck]

Hello All,

I am coping and pasting this from the latest Choose FI newsletter:

•   Falcon said, “I have really been enjoying the weekly emails! You guys are awesome and I look forward to the show every week. I just wanted to leave you and Jonathan a quick note and let you know that I heard your side hustle episode, and I am a personal case study for the notary gig. I first heard about this a little over a year ago on the BiggerPockets money podcast. I immediately took action and got my notary license, my very first month I brought in $2000. That's when I realized this was really scalable, and I quit my job to go full-time notary, earning $137,000 (gross) my very first year. I am now regularly bringing in $10-$20,000 per month running my notary loan signing business! As you can imagine, this has super charged my path to FI. Just wanted to let you know in case you were curious about the legitimacy of this endeavor.”


My questions how can someone make so much money? I am in MI, I checked that the notary can charge upto $10.00.

The MiLONA provides that a Notary may charge up to $10.00 for performing each notarial act.

Is there something I am missing?

Thanks
sd

[Proud Foot]

I think the biggest thing missing is where this individual is located.

Here is the allowable fees per state in 2021. https://www.nationalnotary.org/knowledge-center/about-notaries/notary-fees-by-state

My guess is they live in one of the states where notary fees are not set by law.

[bacchi]

That's almost 7/hour if you work 50 weeks/year. "Falcon" must be somewhere where the charge is higher.

[shortduck]

That's almost 7/hour if you work 50 weeks/year. "Falcon" must be somewhere where the charge is higher.

137,000/2000 (hours per year) = $68.5/hour billing.

However, I guess you are right that we might be living in a place where you set your own price.

[solon]

The notary isn't making money by notarizing documents. He's making money by closing loans. The lending company will pay a hefty fee to a mobile closer, who must be a notary, but the fee is much higher than the notary fee.

[shortduck]

The notary isn't making money by notarizing documents. He's making money by closing loans. The lending company will pay a hefty fee to a mobile closer, who must be a notary, but the fee is much higher than the notary fee.

Now this makes sense, can someone please please explain what is meant by "closing loans"? Is this Mortgage license of some kind? Any pointer appreciated.

[solon]

The notary isn't making money by notarizing documents. He's making money by closing loans. The lending company will pay a hefty fee to a mobile closer, who must be a notary, but the fee is much higher than the notary fee.

Now this makes sense, can someone please please explain what is meant by "closing loans"? Is this Mortgage license of some kind? Any pointer appreciated.

You don't need a mortgage license for this - that is the job of the mortgage broker. By the time of the closing, all the work of putting together the loan has already been done. All that remains is for the borrower to sign all the documents. The mortgage company will put you through some training. Basically you just need to be able to explain to the borrower what the different documents are that they are signing. And one of the documents they are signing will need to be notarized, which is where your notary license comes in.

[Weisass]

The notary isn't making money by notarizing documents. He's making money by closing loans. The lending company will pay a hefty fee to a mobile closer, who must be a notary, but the fee is much higher than the notary fee.

I'm assuming that the rise of companies like Better are going to push more notaries into this kind of "mobile" business.

[therethere]

Anyone know how you get into something like this? I'm an engineer now, but on the lookout for a semi-FI gig that I could do in the future.

[solon]

Just google something like "mobile signing agent"

Here's one result: https://www.loansigningsystem.com/9steps-to-become-a-notary-signing-agent.html

[trollwithamustache]

mobile closing sounds like an awful lot of traveling on other people schedules.  Or, maybe not at all a bad gig, but hardly a FIRE activity...

[missundecided]

There are also remote notaries who do it for you online using a webcam.

[sonofsven]

I've closed on three refi loans in the last 12 months, each time a mobile notary came to my location with all of the documents for me to sign.
In chatting with the most recent notary I mentioned that she must be busy and she said she'd put 17,000 miles on her car in 4 months (rural area that is also a hot real estate market).
She said in this area there are not enough mobile notaries. Maybe they get burned out with all the driving?

[cchrissyy]

On my last refi the notary fee was $90
I don't know how much of that the scheduling company took
The person was at my house an hour or more and had driven from her house 2 hours to the job before me, then 1 hour to my place. I know she also needed to stop at the ups store to fax and overnight the docs. Assuming she was optimally scheduled, she could be doing 3 or 4 closings per day. At most that is 300, 400 daily revenue before heavy travel costs, printing costs, postage, and whatever the 3rd party took who scheduled her.
Anyway, I did not get the impression it was an attractive job opportunity.  If she nets 200 per day that's 4k per month before self employment tax.

[ender]

I've closed on three refi loans in the last 12 months, each time a mobile notary came to my location with all of the documents for me to sign.
In chatting with the most recent notary I mentioned that she must be busy and she said she'd put 17,000 miles on her car in 4 months (rural area that is also a hot real estate market).
She said in this area there are not enough mobile notaries. Maybe they get burned out with all the driving?

Or, they realize it pays pretty poorly by the time they account for all the hours commuting and commute expenses ;-)

[GodlessCommie]

Or, they realize it pays pretty poorly by the time they account for all the hours commuting and commute expenses ;-)

For some, it may be the least worst option.

Although in general, people tend to vastly underestimate car depreciation. That's the whole basis of Uber/Lyft business model.

[PDXTabs]

Or, they realize it pays pretty poorly by the time they account for all the hours commuting and commute expenses ;-)

For some, it may be the least worst option.

Although in general, people tend to vastly underestimate car depreciation. That's the whole basis of Uber/Lyft business model.

If you don't mind driving and if you are grossing 137K it doesn't sound bad at all.

[GodlessCommie]

If you don't mind driving and if you are grossing 137K it doesn't sound bad at all.

Oh, sure, $137K justifies any amount of depreciation. If that number is representative of the income that most mobile notaries pull, and some replies in this thread indicate that it's not.

[Jack0Life]

I have had 2 mobile notaries within the last 2 months. One on a closing that didn't go through and one this past Friday.
You see more and more of these when banks don't have a local presence or these online banks.
I can't imagine they make that much money. Even if they make half of that figure I should get my wife to do this as she just quit her job and she has a finance degree.