June 15th, 2008 4:26 PM by Andrew Walter May CEO
This letter to the editor of the business section was posted in the local Raleigh paper (NewsandObserver) and can be seen on their website or page 2 of the business section dated June 15th, 2008.
Mortgage company saves green by operating online
I thoroughly enjoyed John Murawski's article on saving the environment while saving money ("Green saves green," Work&Money, June 1).
This e-mail message is to let you know what American Dream Residential (www.adrmortgage.com) is doing to help.
First, we take about 500 loan applications a year via the Internet. This saves about 80 pages of paper per loan application, or 40,000 pages of paper a year (times two -- there's always a copy package). That's about $16,000 in paper.
Second, we don't have to overnight 500 loan applications to our clients and investors, because we have an e-mail signature platform that is electronic. This saves us about $25 a loan (times two, one for the investor), or about $25,000. It also saves our client a similar amount, because the client doesn't have to send the package to us by overnight delivery ($37,500 total; ADR, client, investor).
Third, we don't have to maintain a large office for people to send all this paper around and receive it. And we store information electronically, saving about $12,000 a year in rent expense and saving on commuting costs.
So as a small Raleigh mortgage company, we're saving about $60,000 a year. We are also reducing our carbon footprint by not requiring commuting by our loan officers, all of whom work from home.
I want to thank you all for communicating what companies are doing.
Although we are small (about 20 loan officers), we want to do our part to make Earth a better place.
Andrew May, president, American Dream Residential
Raleigh