REQUIRED READING: On Jan. 31, the Nationwide Mortgage Licensing System and Registry began accepting federal registrations from residential mortgage loan originators employed by banks, savings associations, credit unions and Farm Credit System institutions. However, the registry came online at a time when the mortgage banking industry, along with the rest of the country, was – and still is – dealing with high unemployment rates.
According to federal data, mortgage employment reached a peak in October 2004, with approximately 535,400 people working within the various sectors of the industry. By September 2010, however, that number had been drastically cut to 246,400.
In recent months, the industry has seen a spike in layoffs. On May 9, Bank of America was laying off 1,500 loan processors and underwriters. In March, Wells Fargo announced that 1,900 employees in its home mortgage division were being laid off.
For Bill Kaage, senior vice president of Schaumburg, Ill.-based Contemporary Services Inc. – which maintains the MortgageCareer.com website – the job scene within mortgage banking is not very encouraging at the moment.
‘It is very slow,’ he says. ‘There are not a lot of opportunities for either temporary or permanent workers. There is a little bit of activity in loss mitigation and doing loan modifications.’
However, Kaage is hopeful that there will be a light at the end of the tunnel. ‘I'm cautiously optimistic,’ he says. ‘It could be a good year when everything comes back. It all depends on where rates go and what happens to the housing market.’
Dr. Peter Morici, professor at the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business, believes this will be a good year for people seeking jobs in mortgage banking and the wider financial services environment.
‘Unless we hit a bump in the road, I expect financial services to be a growth area this year,’ Morici says. ‘Lending is loosening, and Wall Street is doing great. Both regional banks and Wall Street should be hiring.’
And the winners are�
But who is going to succeed in the job hunt? According to Drew Waterhouse, managing director of Hammerhouse LLC, based in Mission Viejo, Calif., those who can hit the ground running stand a better chance of getting work.
‘There is definitely an opportunity for those with experience or who can carry a transferable book of business,’ he says. ‘Even if someone who is a certified public accountant, a financial planner or a Realtor – if they can transfer business, they will be in high demand.’
Waterhouse also believes that the new regulatory mandates for mortgage bankers – including the requirements surrounding the aforementioned registry for originators – will have no impact on serious job-seekers.
‘Those committed to the industry will have no issue with those regulations,’ he says. ‘It is an additional step in their work, but most mortgage bankers feel that it brings back a lot of what the industry has lost.’
However, Waterhouse is less optimistic for those seeking entry-level industry jobs without inside connections.
‘They will need to have a relationship with someone within the industry or apply for work in the retail channel with a depository and then work their way into loan originations,’ he says.
Waterhouse believes more opportunity will exist in residential lending – he cites the continuing consolidations within the commercial sector as limiting job opportunities there. Richard Greenwald, president of White Plains, N.Y.-based Concorde Personnel Inc., says servicers will also be in heavy demand.
‘We are going to go through a hard foreclosure cycle again,’ he says. ‘There will be a lot of opportunity on the workout side.’
Greenwald is preparing for a new uptick in mortgage banking employment by reconfiguring his company's MortgageJobs.com website. ‘I am contemplating this as becoming more of a site along the lines of Monster.com,’ he says.
But don't be surprised if the new jobs in mortgage banking fall outside of the full-time cycle. Kaage believes there will be a greater demand for temporary workers in the coming months.
‘The industry's temps tend to be long-term underwriters, processors and closers,’ he continues. ‘They can be on-site for as long as 12 months. Also, companies will probably tend to be cautious – they still don't know where the volume is going to be.’
