What's happening?

Payroll Tax Cut: Updated

Jesse Gonzalez — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 08:11:23 -0800

Payroll Tax Cut Extension, UPDATE: I wrote about why you should care about the impending payroll tax cut extension legislation coming down the pike a couple weeks ago, refresh your memory here. The payroll tax cut extension has passed and guess what, if you own a home then you may be helping pay for the “cost” of the tax cut extension. Guarantee fees, or G-Fees, will increase no later than April 1’st of 2012 according to this article by National Mortgage News. Another part of the law requires FHFA to review the g-fee hike and make sure that it’s sufficient, meaning that they may raise it even more. Congratulations homeowner’s, you’ve been taxed again, but it’s not being called a tax, it’s a fee hike. This is why it’s so important to shop for the loan program that meets your particular needs. Contact me today for a free, no obligation mortgage review. Jesse Gonzalez, Broker DRE#01855372 NMLS#278103

Why should I care about the payroll tax bill?

Jesse Gonzalez — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 08:04:57 -0800

Now that the fantasy football season is over for me I can get back to real work and focus on exciting things like guarantee fees and monetary policy. How’s that for a hook? If you’re still reading I’d like to point your attention to a matter that will affect you if you’re looking into refinancing a mortgage or planning on purchasing a home and borrowing the money to do so. I don’t know if you’ve been paying any attention to the news recently regarding the payroll tax holiday, but the House of Representatives has voted on and agreed to extend the tax cut and that bill has subsequently been sent along to the senate for their approval. The senate has made changes and it’s yet to be seen what version will finally hit the President’s desk for his approval or veto. There’s a lot of talk about how to pay for the tax cut and items are always tacked on to bills that the public doesn’t know about most of the time, but there has been an addition to this bill that should concern anyone seeking a new mortgage. The original version of the payroll tax cut bill I’m talking about concentrated on g-fees, or guarantee fees. What are g-fees? If you’re a fan of Eezy-E they you’d know exactly what a real g is, but that’s not what g-fees are. Investopedia.com defines guarantee fees like this, “Fees charged by mortgage-backed securities (MBS) providers, such as Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, to lenders for bundling, servicing, selling and reporting MBS to investors. The main component of the guarantee fee is charged to protect against credit-related losses in the mortgage portfolio (think of it like MBS insurance). You can read more about it here, but it’s basically insurance, and the cost of insurance is always passed along to the borrower. If you have a loan now then you’ve already been charged these guarantee fees in the form of discount points, or the cost for your particular interest rate. The House added an increase to g-fees of 10 basis points for any loan delivered to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. Ten basis points amounts .100% in cost to the loan so a $300,000 loan amount will carry an additional cost of $300. You may think, “Well that’s not a big deal, what’s $300 dollars to me?” Factor in the cost of title/escrow fees, lender fees, processing, underwriting, recording, and origination fees and you’ll realize that every dollar counts. The National Mortgage News has an article today talking about the Senate’s changes to the bill, one of which is the increase to FHA premiums because the g-fee hike on Fannie and Freddie MBS would cause a run to FHA loans. A higher number of FHA loans will mean a greater exposure to loan losses and mortgage insurers don’t like losses. So you see when the government starts messing around with things it’ll usually cost you more money. For an interest rate market that’s being held down artificially do you feel that increasing the rate fee is a good idea? Jesse Gonzalez, Broker DRE#01855372 NMLS#278103

Why aren't more existing FHA loans refinancing?

Jesse Gonzalez — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 03:44:38 -0800

Why aren’t more people refinancing existing FHA loans? I read a recent story on nationalmortgagenews.com written by Brian Collins that speaks about the lack of existing FHA mortgagors refinancing into today’s current low interest rates. His article states that at this time last year mortgage interest rates were a little lower than they are today, but mortgage refinance applications were at approximately 150,000. Today the number of applications sits at about 50,000. You may be thinking that the reason why applications have fallen is because values have fallen and it’s made refinancing impossible for existing FHA mortgages. The fact is that if you have a FHA loan and are refinancing into another FHA, this is called a FHA Streamlined Refinance, then the appraisal condition is waived, meaning that the borrower doesn’t need an appraisal to get the loan. FHA Streamline loans are much easier to qualify for as a result of not needing an appraisal, the only real hurdle is that you must have maintained on time payments and have an appropriate income to keep your debt to income ratios in line. I believe that I know the exact reason why people aren’t refinancing existing FHA loans into new FHA loans and that reason is because HUD is purposely making it more expensive to do so. I wrote about the different types of mortgage insurance in this article which is where the heart of my argument begins. FHA has a monthly mortgage insurance payment and a onetime upfront mortgage insurance premium that must be paid by the mortgagor. The simple explanation for the reason these mortgage insurance premiums are in place is because FHA loans carry more risk for the individual investors and this risk must be minimized and spread out over the borrower’s. The mortgage insurance premiums are based on mathematical calculations, the upfront mortgage insurance premium(UFMIP) is 1% of the loan amount, and the monthly mortgage insurance premium (MIP) varies based on loan term and loan to value, but it’s usually 1.15% annually. What does this have to do with the reasons for why people aren’t taking advantage of FHA Streamlined refi’s? One year ago the UFMIP was 1.25% and the MIP was .55% annually. How does this change in MIP affect the borrower? Let’s look at one of my client’s loans and you’ll see why it’s more difficult to refi FHA loans. Mr. Jones refi’d last year with a loan amount of $625,500. Below is the breakdown of his payment Principle and Interest payment= $3502/mo. Monthly mortgage insurance= $286.69 for a total monthly payment of $3788.69 not including taxes and hazard insurance. Mr. Jones now owes $616,000 one year later, but after closing costs, daily interest, new UFMIP, etc. the loan amount is $626,000. You’d think that a full 1.25% drop in rate on a large loan amount would produce huge savings, right? Let’s look at it. New Principle and Interest payment= $3,033.91/mo.(a straight savings of $468/mo.) Monthly mortgage insurance= $590 for a total monthly payment of $3,623.91 and a savings over the previous payment of $164.78/mo. The borrower drops the rate by 1.25% and the savings only equates to $165/mo., this is a direct result of the increased MIP. Is it worth it for you to refinance if you only save $165? You may look at this and say, “165 bucks per month is good enough for me, I’d enjoy saving that monthly.” Here’s the problem, FHA rules state that the borrower must have a net savings of 5% over the previous monthly payment to even do the loan. In order for this borrower to meet the 5% net tangible benefit test the payment would need to drop $189/mo. and therefore this borrower does not qualify. So why does HUD make it so difficult to refinance if it’s in the borrower’s best interest to do so? One of the last statements in the article made it clear, “the Department of Housing and Urban Development and FHA are constrained from encouraging borrowers to refinance because most of the loans are pooled into Ginnie Mae MBS. Encouraging faster repays would diminish the value of the MBS and negatively affect investors, HUD says.” Follow the money and the question is answered. Investors earn less money when loans are paid off early, and if you lose investors, or buyer’s of your product, then it’s no longer profitable to offer the product. If nobody buys FHA mortgage bonds then the cost of FHA loans would increase dramatically, and ultimately less people would be able to benefit from the loan program. Is it a bad thing that these restrictions are put in place or are they in place to assure that the FHA product will be around for new borrowers? Jesse Gonzalez, Broker DRE#01855372 NMLS#278103

What does fiduciary mean to you?

Jesse Gonzalez — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 02:23:46 -0800

What does fiduciary mean to you? The dictionary defines it this way, Main Entry: fi·du·cia·ry Pronunciation: [fi-doo-shee-er-ee, -dyoo-] Function: noun Inflected Form: plural -ries : one often in a position of authority who obligates himself orherself to act on behalf of another (as in managing money or property) and assumes a duty to act in good faith and with care,candor, and loyalty in fulfilling the obligation : one (as an agent)having a fiduciary duty to another As a real estate and mortgage broker in the state of California, and I’m sure other states are the exact same way; I have a fiduciary responsibility to my clients. If I don’t fulfill my responsibility I would become susceptible to disciplinary action, and just plain wouldn’t be serving my client well. I had the opportunity to represent a seller in a short sale transaction and had the oddest conversation with the buyer’s lending agent. The buyer submitted an offer as an individual, he was married and also had a family trust, I didn’t know about the family trust, but on the residential purchase agreement he had stated that he would take title as a married man, sole and separate property. This isn’t a big deal, it happens all the time, but when we submitted to the first and second lenders for short sale approval in the beginning of the process we told them how the buyer would take title based on the fully executed purchase contract. Well, we were coming down to the last week of the short sale approval, meaning that the second lender gave us until a specific date to close and we were one week away from that deadline. Sometimes the lenders won’t extend the short sale approval, and if they do, it can take two weeks to get a response if the lender is really backed up. The reason why the buyer wanted to hold title in his trust is because he had a dangerous job and was worried that if he passed away prior to the property transferring to a trust then it could pose legal issues. The buyer’s agent called me and told me that she was having issues with the loan officer because he submitted the loan to his lender and stated the client wanted to take title in his trust, not as a married man as sole and separate property as the contract stated. This poses a problem because the short sale lenders’ agreed to the short sale, but they didn’t agree to a trust purchasing the property. In order to have the change made we would need to resubmit and because the end of the approval was approaching we ran the possibility of overshooting the dead line. There’s an easy way around this problem, the buyer would simply close escrow as a married man, sole and separate property, and then deed the property to his trust immediately following. The paperwork for this can be prepared ahead of time by the escrow officer and the home would be out of the ownership of the trust for 5 minutes at most. Because I have a lending background the buyer’s agent asked if I would call the loan officer. I’ve been in this business long enough to know you have to approach this situation with great care. I called the loan officer; we’ll call him Albert, and I was very polite when I called. I wasn’t accusatory; I approached the call as though we were teammates working toward the same conclusion. I simply offered up an idea that the buyer could have both deeds created and then recorded simultaneously and that he should seek legal counsel to find out if this meets his needs. Albert’s first sentence to me after I made my suggestion went like this, “I’ve been doing this for 24 years and have a fiduciary responsibility to my client, I can’t recommend this for him because the property won’t go into the trust for two weeks at the earliest.” He then went on to cut me off every time I tried to speak and the conversation ended with him telling me that I didn’t know what I was talking about. Albert was just plain wrong on many different levels. I called the buyer’s agent and suggested that she approach the buyer directly and explain the situation and have him speak with the escrow officer and his attorney to get the proper direction. The buyer ended up closing escrow as a married man, sole and separate and then transferred ownership nearly simultaneously into his trust. The sale closed on time, and everything ended well. Apparently Albert’s fiduciary responsibility stopped at his level of understanding. What he wasn’t grasping is that the transaction was at jeopardy of not closing, and his client would lose the deposit if it didn’t. He was so unwilling to hear an alternative solution because of his so called fiduciary responsibility that he shut everybody out of the process. My experience of people like Albert who speak about their years of experience and fiduciary duties is that they usually have an underlying lack of confidence in themselves and their ability. Did Albert fulfill his fiduciary duty to his client? What does fiduciary duty mean to you? How would you have handled the problem? I’m open to feedback, don’t hold anything back.Jesse Gonzalez, Broker DRE#01855372 NMLS#278103

What is mortgage insurance?

Jesse Gonzalez — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 03:47:12 -0800

What is mortgage insurance? A common question I get from borrowers is, “What is mortgage insurance, and why do I need it?” The easy answer is that mortgage insurance is an insurance policy that the lender forces you to buy that protects them from losses on the mortgage note should your loan go into foreclosure. Mortgage insurance is required on all loans that exceed 80% loan to value (LTV). In the case of FHA loans, mortgage insurance is required on all loans, regardless of loan to value, unless the term is 15 years or less. I’ll talk more about this later. There are different variations of mortgage insurance, and based on your particular situation one type may be better than the next. Because of this your mortgage broker must approach the question with your particular situation in mind and think it through. What is mortgage insurance? One type of mortgage insurance is Private Mortgage Insurance, otherwise known as PMI. PMI is an insurance product underwritten by private corporations; it has stringent qualifying criteria and is more expensive than FHA mortgage insurance. At one point in time PMI was unavailable if the LTV exceeded 90% in what was described as declining markets. Declining markets were defined by the mortgage insurance companies and if you exceeded the LTV threshold and happened to have a home in one of those areas you were out of luck. PMI has debt to income (DTI) restrictions and credit rating restrictions as well. For instance, if your DTI exceeds 41% then you are ineligible to receive PMI. DTI is a calculation of your monthly debts that show on your credit report, including mortgage payment, hazard insurance, property taxes, and mortgage insurance compared to your gross monthly income. Let’s assume that your monthly gross income is $1000 and your monthly debts, as outlined above, are $500 then your DTI would be 50%. PMI credit rating restrictions have loosened up recently, but it wasn’t uncommon to find that if your credit rating was below 680 then you couldn’t get PMI on higher LTV’s. See my article here regarding credit scores and how to keep them up. Radian, a mortgage insurance company, has an online calculator where you can figure out what mortgage insurance will cost you monthly. Here’s a hyperlink to Radian’s mortgage insurance calculator. The second type of mortgage insurance is guaranteed by the government and it comes in the form of an FHA loan. FHA stands for Federal Housing Administration and is actually an arm of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). FHA loans are beneficial to a large group of people. FHA loans were originally developed to aid the housing market during the great depression. FHA loans work well for people who have lower credit scores and don’t have a great down payment. Currently the down payment needed to acquire a FHA loan is only 3.5%. There are many benefits to a FHA loan compared to a conventional loan which I’ll write some other time. One benefit of a FHA mortgage is that the borrower can exceed the 41% maximum DTI calculation that exists with PMI. The monthly mortgage insurance premium that is paid on a FHA loan is typically less than that of private mortgage insurance, but FHA requires a onetime up front mortgage insurance premium (UFMIP) payment of 1% of the loan amount. The monthly mortgage insurance premium is where the FHA loan really excels. It’s calculated as an annual percentage rate actually, and it varies depending on the length of the loan term and the loan to value. If you’re interested just give me a ring or shoot me an email and I’ll give you all the details. If you take a loan with a term 15 years or less and the loan to value is equal to, or less than 78%, then there is no annual premium, meaning that you won’t have a monthly mortgage insurance payment. Now that’s cool! The third type of mortgage insurance is actually a lender paid mortgage insurance (LPMI) and closely resembles PMI. It’s actually still provided by a mortgage insurance company, but instead of the borrower paying a monthly mortgage insurance premium, the cost is actually calculated into the interest rate. Let’s say that you qualify for an interest rate of 3.25% on a 30 fixed mortgage, but your LTV exceeds 80%. For the purposes of this scenario let’s say that if the borrower had PMI on this loan the monthly payment would be $200 for the mortgage insurance. If you chose to go with LPMI instead of PMI your rate may jump to 3.75% as a result, but you would knock off the $200 that you would pay in a monthly mortgage insurance premium. You can see that you’re still paying for mortgage insurance, but it’s factored into the rate instead of a separate monthly payment. This type of mortgage insurance will still usually have the same restrictions as PMI, but the payment could be less depending on your specific situation. The downside to LPMI is that you can never have it removed from the loan because it’s calculated into the interest rate for the entirety of the note term. The only way to get rid of LPMI is to pay off the existing loan via refinance or sale of the home. So, what is mortgage insurance you ask? As you can see it’s not just a straightforward answer, and as always, one size does not fit all. It’s very important when sitting down with a mortgage professional that he/she understands the complexities of the market and puts together a plan that meets your needs and desires. Everybody doesn’t have the same situation and what may be right for you is not necessarily right for me. I hope this helps clear up some of the questions you may have regarding mortgage insurance and the place it has in our mortgage market.Jesse Gonzalez, Broker DRE#01855372 NMLS#278103

What is a BPO, and why is it used?

Jesse Gonzalez — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 02:22:17 -0800

What’s a BPO, and why is it used? Common questions I receive as a real estate broker surround short sales, and more specifically, the steps taken to complete the short sale process. A BPO is a very important step in the short sale process because it gives the lender an idea as to whether the offer that’s been made by the prospective buyer is a fair one. What’s a BPO, and why is it used? A BPO is a “Broker’s Price Opinion,” and it’s used by the existing lender, or lender’s, to determine a fair market value for the home that’s being sold. Let’s say that your lender is located in Pennsylvania or Maine, but your home is located in Glen Ellen, Ca. or maybe even Miami, Fl. It’s not realistic to expect an asset manager or negotiator from the bank to know and understand the intricacies of your particular real estate market so they’ll hire a third party to offer his/her opinion of value. This is of great benefit because computer valuation models are only as good as the data they have to draw off of and sometimes the data used to determine true market value isn’t something that can be harvested from a database. The lender doesn’t want to take back a home via foreclosure, but seeing as how they could potentially be writing off 100’s of thousands of dollars they want to make sure they’re getting a fair shake. After a homeowner requests a short sale from the existing lenders, and typically after an offer has been made and accepted, the lender will send out notification to real estate broker’s and/or appraisers that an order is ready. Broker’s and appraisers have found it valuable to sign up with the different lending agencies and their short sale and REO(lender owned real estate) departments to be informed of when these orders are available to be taken. BPO agents don’t usually get paid a lot of money for the BPO reports they write up but there is an upside to performing this needed task. The benefit for the BPO agent is that if the home in question doesn’t close escrow via the short sale process and gets taken back by the lender via foreclosure then the BPO agent will have a greater opportunity to receive the listing. It doesn’t always work out this way, but a hard working agent will always leap at the possibility for new business. Jesse Gonzalez, Broker DRE#01855372 NMLS#278103

The importance of setting realistic expectations

Jesse Gonzalez — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 03:44:56 -0800

It is very important to set realistic expectations for your clients. There’s a saying, “You know what you know, you know what you don’t know, and you don’t know what you don’t know.” It’s basic really, I know that I know how to ride a motorcycle, I also know that I don’t know how to fly an airplane, and then there are things that I don’t know that I don’t know, but will learn when the situation presents itself. I’m also not perfect, don’t tell my wife, and in this post I admit to making mistakes in the past, but the important thing is learning from our mistakes and the mistakes of others so that we can all be better in the future. When I first started working in the real estate business I learned on the fly, I had a great management team with decades of combined experience who brought in outside training specialists and I got a very fast education. Because of this training and the experienced professionals around me I was able to anticipate problems before they arose, saving me and my client’s potential heart ache. It is very important to set realistic expectations for your clients. I’ve been helping people get loans for over 7 years and I’ve seen qualifying and underwriting standards go from very lax to extremely tight and over the top. Back in the beginning of my career it was very easy to anticipate any problems that might arise during the loan process and I was happy to prepare my clients for these problems, but as standards changed it became more difficult to see ahead. I can remember one specific instance where I dropped the ball and failed to prepare my client for what lay ahead. We were able to work around the problem and closed the loan, however, at the end of the process my client didn’t go away with the upbeat and happy feeling I strive to convey, and as a result I lost any future business from this person. I’ve also had things come up that were impossible to predict like a lender changing program guidelines in the middle of the process, killing the deal as a result. Here again, the client wasn’t happy, but understood that it wasn’t my fault and the relationship is still strong today. What did I learn from these experiences? I learned that it’s important to set realistic expectations for the client from the very beginning. We have problems that can be foreseen based on our experiences and the experiences of others that we can draw upon. We also have problems that we can’t anticipate because we don’t know what we don’t know. What I tell prospective clients now is that there are things which I can anticipate with their particular situation, laying these out in detail for the client up front so that we’re all on the same page. I also tell my clients that as a result of the ever changing environment in real estate lending they should be prepared to go through things that they’ve never had to do in the past in order to get the loan done. Everything may go smoothly, but it may not, it may go sideways very quickly. Since I began preparing my clients and setting realistic expectations up from the very beginning I’ve never had anybody going away feeling like I underserved them. My clients are grateful and appreciative that I speak with candor, and if everything goes well then I’ve under promised and over performed, and this is what every good broker should strive to do. In summary, we can’t predict everything that will happen in a transaction, but we can do is learn from our experiences and the experiences of others. We can draw upon this knowledge base and set realistic expectations for our clients from the beginning. I guarantee that if you do this you’ll turn more clients into closed business and future referrals. Thanks for reading. Some links that will help with managing, and setting realistic expectations for clients: http://consultingacademy.com/a08.shtm http://tinyurl.com/7vvqguj http://outspokenmedia.com/online-marketing/how-do-you-manage-client-expectations/ http://boldperspective.com/2011/pt4-setting-client-expectations/Jesse Gonzalez, Broker DRE#01855372 NMLS#278103

What's the highest credit score needed for mortgage financing?

Jesse Gonzalez — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 02:23:35 -0800

What's the highest credit score needed for mortgage financing? Your credit score is important when shopping for mortgage rates, but is there a difference between a 740 FICO and the highest possible FICO of 850? I’ve literally pulled over a thousand credit reports for clients over the years and have seen the full range of scores. I’ve had some client’s who carry scores at 700+ say to me, “Oh darn, I thought my credit was better than that.” For the purposes of mortgage pricing the best possible FICO score is 740. It’s true that if your score is the best you can possibly have, an 850, you won’t get a better rate than the borrower with the 740 score. In reality for most mortgage clients a 700+ is all you need to get the best pricing unless you exceed 60% loan to value or are pulling cash out of your home. So how can you get the highest of credit scores, well there’s a lot of different information out there, but I’ve found the best resource is www.myfico.com. It has all the important info you need from the Fair Isaac Corporation (FICO). High credit balances to limits will affect the score as will numerous inquiries for different types of credit. One argument against allowing a mortgage professional to pull your credit is that too many inquiries will hurt the overall score. As a mortgage broker it’s impossible for me to quote you an accurate rate fee if I don’t know the most important factor in determining what cost, if any, there will be on your loan. Fair Isaac Corporation states that you can have your credit pulled an unlimited number of times when shopping for a mortgage within a 30 day period and it will only affect your credit as though it’s been pulled once. The important thing to remember is that the credit inquiries must be completed by a broker or bank for the purposes of obtaining a mortgage for this to remain true. The point where inquiries begin hurting your credit is when you apply for a car loan, a credit card, a gasoline card, a department store charge card, etc. in a short time period. This type of activity may be interpreted by the credit reporting bureaus as dangerous because it looks like you’re about to run up a bunch of consumer debt. These types of multiple inquiry situations can affect the score negatively. Bottom line, be smart about your credit, pay your bills on time, and don’t stress too much about things outside of your control like crazy credit score computer calculations.Jesse Gonzalez, Broker DRE#01855372 NMLS#278103

The Big Short, a very good read

Jesse Gonzalez — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 02:38:13 -0800

I just finished a very good book by a very good writer Michael Lewis, he doesn’t do twitter or I’d hook you up with a link. The book I’m speaking about is The Big Short. I first got into Michael Lewis when I read his book Moneyball. I’m a San Francisco Bay Area native and Moneyball was written about the Oakland A’s baseball organization, and more specifically the General Manager Billy Beane. Moneyball wasn’t so much a book about baseball, but more about new ideas and a paradigm shift regarding the way baseball teams view and analyze individual players and their talent level. It also focused on how Billy Beane and his team developed a strategy to find players that didn’t fit into the typical mold that other GM’s sought after, therefore he was able to find talent on the cheap. I have a hard core love for the game of baseball and my dad brought me up as a San Francisco Giants fan so I was eager to learn more of the backroom dealings and analytical side of the game. I’m a mortgage broker and numbers interest me so that was kind of a bonus too. I say all of this to point out that Michael Lewis is cool and I like his writing style. I picked up The Big Short because it’s focuses on our financial crisis and the mortgage industry’s influence on what we’re experiencing now. The book speaks about investor’s who thought outside the box, and found a new way to profit on the mortgage boom by betting against it. These very smart individuals were swimming against the current and looked like fools to the outsider, but they stuck with their convictions and were ultimately proven right, becoming very rich as a result. The reason why I’m bringing this up is because there’s a lot of talk and a ton of regulation that’s come down on the small, individual broker out there because it’s easy to lay the blame on the independent that doesn’t have resources to defend himself against the media and our lawmakers. I’m not implying that the small guy is blameless because that’s obviously not true, but as I read The Big Short it became very apparent to me that the banking industry was making money so fast, and they were making so much of it that an insatiable appetite developed and the demand far outpaced the supply. Because of this demand a specific product, low to no qualification loans, became readily available to anybody who had the means to sell it. There were some in the industry who were barking about the pitfalls of these no doc/liar loans but there was too much money to be made to be bothered with small details like qualification. Here’s a question to my readers, if there are any, how much regulation is too much regulation? Should all mortgage salespeople be held to the same standards regardless of whether they work for a big bank or a small individual broker shop? More on this in a future post, but in the meantime let me know your opinion. Jesse Gonzalez, Broker DRE#01855372 NMLS#278103 @socobrokerJesse Gonzalez, Broker DRE#01855372 NMLS#278103