I got a call last Friday to do a closing at 8 PM. I turned it down because I was scheduled to do a closing at 6 PM. Both closings were in Colorado Springs. It usually doesn't take more than a half an hour to get from one end of town to the other. So one might think that I should be done with the 6 PM closing in enough time to do another one at 8 PM.
Not necessarily.
I have learned a lot of valuable lessons about closings. One of the most valuable lessons that I have learned is to allow more time than you think you will need. You never know what will happen.
Unlike driving distance, where you can guess how long it will take to drive 10 miles, a mortgage loan closing cannot be measured.
The number of pages in a loan package might be of help. But strange things can happen in a closing. I once had a borrower spend an hour with only 20 pages of loan documents. I would have sworn that I was going to be done in less than 20 minutes. On the other hand, I once did a 1st and 2nd in less than 45 minutes. I thought it would take me at least an hour and a half. So you can't judge how long a closing will take by the size of the loan package.
Something else that I considered is that the company might not have had the documents ready for the 8 PM closing. A lot of times companies assume that the notary signing agent has nothing else to do except sit around all day and wait for loan documents. They wait until the last minute to send the documents. They don't realize that we are doing closings for other companies.
Yes, I always want to make a little extra money. But at the same time, I don't want to be in a position where I have to keep a borrower waiting. I don't like to be late to a closing. So sometimes the best thing to do is play it safe. Anything can happen.
One thing is for certain: it's better to do a closing and know that you and the borrowers have more than enough time, than try to take on a second closing immediately afterwards and have to rush the borrowers, or have to drive over the speed limit to get to the next one.
And if you get pulled over by a policeman for speeding, you will be very late. It just isn't worth it.
Good luck.
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