Anonymous wrote:Forgot to mention here's how else I gamed this:
2 points on a loan was technically "closing costs". I negotiated with the bank to give me 2 points off the mortgage at a slightly worse then market rate (ie no points = 4%, 2 points = 3.75%, I got 3.8%) - in return for 0 closing costs.
I also negotiated with the real estate person because the company usually wants to charge the agent a fee for "brokering" the introduction - thus instead of (say 3%) as a buyers agent the buyers agent gets 1% and the company pays closing costs. I told my broker this so if he wanted to work with me he'd have to accept that rate - instead he offered me 1% of his commission and I negotiated with the company to pay closing costs anyway since I found the realtor. Bottom line is I got $12k out of the realtor and kept the closing costs too,
Better hope your company doesn't find out about any of it - you essentially stole from your company. I know someone who did a similar side negotiation with his broker- he was relo as well. He told a few people in the company his little secret but made the mistake of pissing them off later on down the line....so all 5 of the people he told his little secret went to corporate compliance and he was fired 6 weeks later. Compliance investigated and found out it was true. He was a VP FWIW.