"This isn't going to last forever"
The US mortgage industry is facing a lot of problems. Interest rates are rising, home prices keep soaring, and fewer people are buying homes. On top of that, economic uncertainty has resulted in waves of mortgage layoffs in recent months.
Navigating the current mortgage landscape may be tricky, but Jodi Hall, president of Nationwide Mortgage Bankers, believes these challenges are more temporary than long-term. In an interview with MPA, Hall offers advice on how to survive a shrinking mortgage market.
“I believe they need to find new ways to attract clients and be able to take calculated risk,” she said in the latest edition of MPA TV. “This isn’t going to last forever. Having many seasoned veterans in the mortgage industry on our leadership team, we talked about what about tomorrow? It isn’t going to last forever, but you have to be willing to create a sustainable organization.”
Hall said one of the ways they prepare for the future is by creating a sustainable model of purchase-focused lending business.
“We did the refinance business when it came to us, but we’ve always been a purchase-focused organization, and that’s what sustains companies in a rising rate environment because people are going to continue to buy homes,” Hall said. “What we’re challenged with today, with the increased interest rates and compression and margin, is doing loans more efficiently and also offering a wider product range so that we can gain more market share by offering a number of products to our clients and referral partners so that we can help them in a unique lending environment where they need to have different resources available and be creative in the way that we can help borrowers get the financing that they need and have the ability to win the bids when they do have the homes available.
“I think it’s a very strategic risk-taking that has to take place. I also continue to look at ways to be more efficient and to use technology so that we can do more production. We have taken the change in the market as it really is a benefit to us. We have been recruiting heavily. We believe that we have created a very sustainable business model, and we have been able to attract recruits and bring on new production from branches across the United States, even hiring nearly 100 employees in May when many other lenders were laying people off. So, we’re going to be creative with offering additional products, but we’re also recruiting and showing individuals that we have a sustainable business model, and we attract them to join us.”
Hall shares more executive insights in the new MPA TV episode, which you can watch here for free.
