I remember listening to a management consultant tell an audience about how handling e-mails determines what kind of person you are. He said that there were two types. The first group handled all their tough and involved e-mails (those that required lengthy responses, research, etc.) first, and then dealt with the other e-mails after they’d finished. That group was the one you wanted running companies, proving your innocence in a murder trial, etc. The second group first looked at all their joke e-mails, dirty picture e-mails, gossip e-mails, etc., and then went on to their more serious e-mails. That constituted 99% of people and is why I will never be a mover and a shaker, since I immediately knew I was in group #2.
Yesterday I noted a few comments by Warren B. about the tax on banks. In an effort to give equal time, many feel that a bank tax is fine. They say that because the government is already giving the banks money at 0% and the banks are buying treasuries and collecting 3%, or making mortgages and making 5%, so making money for them is not rocket science. And giving the profits to their executives doesn’t make sense.
I received several valuable comments yesterday about the new GFE form. One sharp mortgage banker in Santa Cruz, CA noted, “No one has thought about the bottom line impact to the IRS. Formerly you could only deduct origination points. Now all the origination costs are in a single box, which results in a greater deduction for the borrower!” “A lot of people didn’t know that you can include tax prorations in your bottom line. Now I put in on page 3 of the 1003. With all these crazy changes making out bottom lines look larger than it really is we need all the help we can get. Not to mention for qualifying etc.”
“The new GFE does not have a signature line and I don’t believe it calculates cash to close. It only shows the costs of acquiring the loan. I think after a little experience with the new documents everyone will chill out.” “The borrowers do not sign the new GFE. The issue of not having a cash to close number on the GFE is one with which we are all struggling. Many are putting Cash-to-Close worksheets together. Giving them an old GFE violates the rules.”
“Where my office is the seller has to pay for owner’s title and taxes on the deed, yet we have to disclose it as a cost on the GFE. The GFE isn’t ‘the cash you need at closing’; it is just a total of all costs. We have page 3 of the 1003 handy when going over the GFE so they can see their actual cash needed at closing. In the case where we are forced to show a seller cost on the GFE, we include a page 3 credit to offset it, so the cash to close is still correct from the application.”
You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you’ve made up your mind that you just aren’t doing anything productive for the rest of the day. Sometimes individual loan agents ask the owners of their company, “Dude, I know that I didn’t close any loans in the fourth quarter, but keep me on anyway – I am not costing the company anything, right?” Wrong.
Granted, some areas are more expensive, but I did a very informal poll of managers/owners on the cost of having producers. For retail agents, “The basic cost of overhead per agent is approximately $587 per agent per month. This is for the in-house agents that share an office. If they have an office by themselves, then the expense is $375 higher per month. The outside agents are $375 less. This doesn’t include the cost of the staff, which is an additional $843.75 per agent, whether inside or out.”