Becoming a Notary Pubic Loan Signing Agent: Get a Dual Tray Laser Printer

By Mark Wills - Course Instructor of the Loan Signing System and Forbes Real Estate Council Member

I'm frequently asked what kind of printer a new loan signing agent should buy.

In short, a new loan signing agent should buy a dual tray laser printer.

Here’s why:

Let's start of with what does ‘dual tray’ even mean. It is an absolute requirement that a loan signing agent's printer can print both legal and letter size paper in the same document. Hence the name dual tray laser printer. The printer will have one tray for letter size paper and one tray for legal size paper. The printer will automatically alternate to the tray to print the required size.

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Understand that if a loan signing agent prints a legal sized document on a letter sized piece of paper (or vice versa. A letter size on a legal piece of paper) there is chance the loan documents will not accepted. And a re-sign of the loan signing will need to happen. 

If a re-sign happens that means that loan signing agent doesn't get another loan signing again. So don't take a chance. Get a dual tray laser printer. 

The next thing is why a laser printer versus an inkjet printer. There are two main reasons:

The first is price. A lot of new loan signing agents are turned off by the higher upfront price of a dual tray laser printer versus an ink jet printer. But you actually save a lot more money in the long run. 

Laser-toner cartridges print more sheets relative to their cost than inkjet cartridges. The cost of printing in black–and–white with an inkjet cartridge generally ranges from 5 to 7 cents per page, and can frequently exceed that cost. A laser printer’s cost per page can range between 2 and 4 cents per page, and there some laser printers that can get that down to less than a penny per page. Regardless what laser printer a loan signing agent gets, the more pages they print, the more money they stand to save by opting for a laser printer. 

Remember, as loan signing agents who work for loan sign services you are required to print out two sets of loan documents: one for the borrower to sign and one set for the borrower to keep as their copy, you may be printing 250 pages per loan signing. You should now see why a laser jet is truly the cheaper choice. 

Do the math with me: If you are printing at 3 cents a page versus 6 cents a page, that is $7.50 per signing you save per loan signing! That $7.50 dollar savings is profit in your pocket. 

Even if a loan signing agent only does five loan signings per month, that ends up being a $450 savings in the first year alone. 

The next reason you go with a laser printer over an ink jet printer is speed. You can't put a price on time. Especially since the sooner the docs print, the sooner a loan signing agent can get to their loan signing appointment. 

Laser printing speeds range from 12 to 20 pages per minute (and the best ones can print up to 45 pages per minute), while inkjet printers run from 3 to 13 pages per minute. Essentially a laser printer is two to four times as fast an inkjet printer. Once again, you can be printing roughly 250 pages per loan signing. Imagine if your printer only printed out six pages a minute. That is 40 minutes until all of your docs are printed! Wowzers! 

I think you can see why a loan signing agent would want a laser printer. Ink jet is great if a loan signing agent is printing five pages once a week. An active loan signing agent will easily be printing thousands of pages a week. So get a dual tray laser printer. You'll thank me later. 

Now let's talk about scanners. Some printers come with scanners built right into the printer. This will obviously drive up the cost of the printer considerably.

For this reason I do not believe it to be necessary to buy a printer/scanner combination-save your money. 

I believe this for a couple reasons:

But first, some loan signing agents are probably wondering why you would even need a scanner to begin with.  The reason why is that some escrow companies or lenders require loan signing agents to scan the signed docs and email them back before they put the physical docs in FedEx for delivery. 

Which leads me to my first reason why I don't necessarily recommend buying a scanner/printer combo to new notaries:

There aren't that many lenders who ever require it. And for the handful that do, either tell them that you don't have access to a scanner or simply spend the $5 at a FedEx Kinkos once every other month to send them over via email. Or better yet, buy an inexpensive separate scanner (you can get one for less than $50).

But the biggest reason why I suggest that loan signing agents save their money is because, like I teach in my Loan Signing System online video training course, is that they shouldn't be a loan signing service notary for that long. The fact that a loan signing agent even has to print documents eats into their profits. More importantly, they split the fee with the loan signing service, losing even more money. Getting direct loan signing business from escrow or mortgage officers eliminates the need for a printer at all. So I wouldn't recommend spending big bucks on a fancy scanner printer that you won't need for that long. 

The printer I have is a Brother dual-tray printer. It's wireless and prints at a very affordable price per sheet. The link is below! (I've also included a link to a similar printer but with a scanner... while I don't recommend getting a scanner, some signing agents want to do signing service business which is easier when you have access to a scanner)