Real estate agents love it when loan officers give them referrals. That’s not always easy. Is giving a real estate agent a book on becoming a productive and well-respected real estate agent a RESPA violation? How about an all-expense paid trip? Attorney Brian Levy points out in his latest Mortgage Musings (chock full of Rolling Stone song references) how it matters whether the “thing of value” is offered in return for referrals or is just ordinary business promotional activity. LOs know that working with real estate agents is a numbers game. (How many loan officers contact the listing agent when a property goes on the market to ask for a referral?) Did you know that on any given day there are about 61,000 people in airplanes above the United States? (I think that number is light.) I mention this because Heathrow Airport in London is taking the unconventional step of capping the daily number of passengers at 100,000 per day for the rest of the summer. Heathrow was handling 110,000 to 125,000 departing passengers a day but the airport’s seen a dip in the ability to correctly manage resources and function. Since June, airlines flying out of Heathrow have cancelled 559 flights within seven days of departure, up 299 percent from the same period of 2019. Reminds me of the days in 2020 when lenders would ratchet their pricing higher to slow their business. Ah, those were the days! (Today’s podcast is available here and I went on to talk to Robbie about the current focus of capital markets’ staff. This week’s podcast is sponsored by SimpleNexus, an nCino company and award-winning developer of mobile-first technology for the modern mortgage lender.)