An escrow closing business that opened here four months ago has begun promoting a mobile, all-hours closing service to try to differentiate itself from competitors amid continuing softness in the Inland Northwest real estate market.

"We just started it," says Aloar Durheim, one of the owners of the business, Integrity Closing & Escrow, which is leasing about 2,200 square feet of office space at 1403 W. Third.

Particularly in this type of market, Durheim says, "You have to lower your prices or offer something else no one else does" to gain a competitive edge, and the mobile closing service was seen as one way to do it.

He says he's heard, though, that some other businesses here that handle real estate closings are starting to offer mobile services as well.

To further differentiate itself, Integrity accepts manufactured-home and commercial property closings, which some of its competitors prefer not to do because they involve considerable additional paperwork, Durheim says.

The firm employs five people, four of them closers. One of those closers, concierge account executive Bonnie Evans, is assigned to market the business to the real estate industry and says she also will be the primary closer working in the field.

"My role is to take the closing service to the client. I will do it on every transaction," says Evans, a 30-year real estate industry veteran who has been a mortgage loan office and title representative, as well as a real estate closer for 12 years.