Four same-day closings funded from my side, and what the flat fee covered
I've been putting a slice of idle cash to work on the funding side of double closes for about three quarters now, and last quarter was the first one clean enough to be worth writing up. Four deals. Advances of 118k, 176k, 92k and 204k. I price at 1% flat with a 1,500 minimum, and wire fees are the borrower's. Total fees for the quarter were 6,400. Total time my money was actually out was somewhere around eleven hours across all four.
The part that nearly broke it was the 204k one. My condition is that the end buyer's funds sit in the closing agent's escrow account before my wire leaves, verified by the closing agent directly, not a screenshot from the wholesaler. On that deal the end buyer's bank sent a same-day wire that landed at 4:52pm local, past the recording cutoff in that county, so the A-B leg recorded the next morning and my money was out overnight instead of for two hours. Nothing went wrong. But an overnight exposure on a file I priced as a two-hour exposure is the whole risk of this business showing up at once.
What I'd keep: funds in escrow before I fund, no exceptions, and I now ask the closing agent for the county's recording cutoff in writing before I commit. What I'd change: I'm adding a written condition that if the second leg doesn't fund the same business day, the fee steps up. Recording practice and what an escrow agent will agree to differ by state, so I confirm the mechanics with a closing attorney in each state I fund in.