Ready for the rush

Tomorrow is the last Friday of the month and the last business day of the month, both of which are historically quite busy for us. I'm anxious to see if that trend holds true. The last day of April did show a substantial increase in recording volume and, with the Federal first time home buyer credit still available for closings (provided that the purchase and sale agreement was executed by April 30, 2010), tomorrow should see a uptick in recordings. One indicator of such a surge that's missing is an increase in telephone calls to the registry during the week leading up to the last day of the month. Typically, an increase in telephone call volume signals in increase in upcoming transactions, but this week, the phones have been largely silent.

We have taken some steps to prepare for a busy day with the most significant being the activation of a third recording terminal on the recording counter. Previously, we had two on the counter and three combination recording terminals/scanners off the counter. Those are typically used to record mail and process electronic recording, but they are also available for walk-in customer overflow. I do find these combination terminals slower than stand alone terminals and scanners during busy times. When you divide the core recording functions of data entry and scanning between two separate machines, I believe we process the documents much more quickly than when it's done on two combination stations. In any case, we're ready for whatever volume of recording the real estate market sends our we tomorrow.