Brian Moynihan, Chief Executive Officer
Yes, it does that and the plus side is that you would have ability to push the numbers down faster the economy continues to improve and the market continues to improve and the opportunities for borrowers and time passes, frankly. The flip side of that though, is in the states that — in the areas where the process is slow, sort of boiling the beaker and what is left is in the really slow areas and so we’ve sort of caught up in the states where our progress goes through a reasonable fashion and we’re still have the laggards in places that the process is traditionally oriented. So I think you’re absolutely right. There is a buyer that get better at it and get lower as it starts improving. But against that you get to the some of the rocks they are hard to move because the process is so slow. Secondly, if you remember we had — we took up on 58,000 employees in that business and there is a lag to getting the real estate cost out and letting of buildings and all the stuff we had that is still until we got to be little careful getting ahead ourselves. I think will come down first facility then come out second and so we are working hard on that. So, you’re right that once you see the improve — the phase-in improvement continues almost normally or even normally better than past. But, there obviously — there is just somethings that work against you in terms of that is much harder and then secondly there is lag for the hard cost over and above people cost.
Eric Wasserstrom, Guggenheim Securities
Wonderful. Thanks very much.
Operator
We can take our next question from Guy Moszkowski with Autonomous Research. Please go ahead.
Guy Moszkowski, Autonomous Research
Good morning.
Brian Moynihan, Chief Executive Officer
Good morning.
Bruce Thompson, Chief Financial Officer
Good morning Guy.
Guy Moszkowski, Autonomous Research
I just want to go back to the net interest margin discussion a little bit. I thought that I heard you say in the prepared comments that there had been a shift in the balance of the asset sensitivity to more of a balance between long-term versus short-term rates. I was wondering if that is strictly a function of the FAS 91 issue in a falling long-rate environment, or is there something more structural that you’ve been doing with the portfolio that has caused that to happen?
Bruce Thompson, Chief Financial Officer
It’s the FAS 91, Guy you are absolutely correct.
Guy Moszkowski, Autonomous Research
Okay. Then if we can just take a look at that one historically for a second, obviously over time that has caused quite a lot more volatility in your NIMs than it has for a lot of the peer group. I seem to remember that for regional banks, say, that have often had the same issue, there is a difference, I guess, in the way they accrue versus doing the constant resets that you do. And I was wondering why you do it in the way that you do, which seems to create more volatility.
Brian Moynihan, Chief Executive Officer
We probably wondered the same thing this quarter. All kidding aside, if you go back, you are right, there are two ways that you can do this. That the first is the way that we do it which is you have the premium, you look at the average life of the premium in each quarter, you reset it and basically retroactively make that adjustment from when it started and that was the determination that we have made a number of years ago. But you’re right. The other way that has allowed and provided for under GAAP is that you just basically adjust as you grow and take it through the P&L as you go and you can do it either of two ways and we obviously do it the way that we do.
