Of the entire house buying experience the escrow company was the least satisfying. They did their job but their service is grossly overpriced for what they do. Unfortunately, it appears the other escrow companies are doing the same price gouging.
These escrow companies do three things 1. Hold the escrow money 2. Pool and distribute the sales price funds 3. Circulate documents. For this service they are charging about .05% divided between the buyer and the seller. I called several companies asking for a price quote and they all asked the sale price and then gave a quote based upon a percentage that seemed to not go below the .05% range. I asked several of them if the paper work was any different for a $250,000 dollar house and $500,000 house and both said no. I asked why the higher price for the higher house. The response I got was "liability." This seems like a completely bogus explanation for simply scaling their fees to affordability of their customer.
I was quoted a price by the seller selected escrow company and then just before closing when I received a draft of the HUD1 they added about $500 in additional fees from notary fees, to an outside cloud storage fee, to a fee to download from my lender their documents. The latter was $300 alone. $300 to download an email attachment is absurd. As is $50 to store my documents in the cloud. These are normal overhead expenses of business should be part of the quoted price.