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For those of you who grew up in the 70’s, if you were like me and missed an episode of the Rockford Files, you were really bummed out. Missing the Rockford Files was almost as bad as my parents making me late for my soccer games. Not a good thing. Tivo, where were you?

Jim Rockford (James Garner), what a guy. He always seemed to get into a pickle and get out of it. That Pointiac Firebird of his; all my friends wanted one, even if it meant riding my dirt bike to the store and buying a $2.50 model of it and putting it on my dresser. That was good enough for me. Those humorous one liners with “Angel,” brings back lots of great memories. The humor reminds me of some of the things we have come across in the world of escrow. In escrow, if you can’t find any humor in the business, it will eat you up.

Rather than send out mundane APB’s to our entire client base about issues that come up or tips based upon transactions that go haywire, we think that adding humor into the fold has more impact and can also be helpful to our Realtor customers in providing better service and foster smoother closings for their clients.

For example, escrow companies are extremely busy at months end and the phones ring constantly. It’s hard to get work done when you receive phone calls from nearly every party, sometimes two or three times in a day, asking, “is it closed yet?” So, to help reduce stress at month end, we started a “counting” system where we tally the transaction with the most phone calls asking, “is it closed yet?”

We made the question, “Is it closed yet?” into a funny YouTube video parody skit, starring our kids who play the Realtor, the buyer, the seller and loan officer. The movie series is called “The Escrow Files.” This Fall our series will be both print and video.

Since the month ended yesterday, the transaction with the most “is it closed yet” calls was nine! For perspective, if our small office closed 30 purchase transactions this August, you get a good picture of all the people calling: buyers, sellers, agents, loan officers, funding depts, etc….on just one deal…now multiply by 30. Maybe we should get another number from Verizon dedicated as our “Is it closed yet?” hotline!

To tickle your funny bone here’s a sample from this year’s, The Escrow Files:

• Written on an “Addendum” during 2nd quarter 2006: “Buyer to walk through house prior to closing.” Didn’t they do that already, like many times?
• Lowest earnest money amount winner ytd: $200 cash. Wow.
• “Should I stick around for you to cut my commission check?” –agent with clients who just signed their loan docs and the deal won’t close for another week.

Stay tuned for more and have a great three day weekend! We are looking forward to the day off!
Tim & Lynlee