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MReport November 2020

TheMReport — News and strategies for the evolving mortgage marketplace.

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12 | M R EP O RT FEATURE writers" because so many lenders are eager to add these profession- als to their workforce. As a result, lenders have made finding under- writers to hire a major priority. "Candidly, one of our best resources is our own employees," Pohlmann said. "People know people who they've worked with in the past and can talk to them about coming to work for us. We also obviously have recruit- ers on staff and post on all of the job boards, and we also employ outside recruiters to try to bring people in. It's challenging—every- one is looking because there is so much business right now that the competition to bring in talent is strong." Adding to the hiring challenge is the need for quality workers to handle a quantity of work that comes with often-onerous regula- tory oversight. "We are in an environment where there's going to be greater scrutiny on manufacturing qual- ity," Pohlmann stated. "So, we have to be very careful about who we bring in, making sure that they are skilled and they know what they're doing—particularly given how busy all of us are in the industry right now." Over at Evolve Mortgage Services, the company has been able to find an underwriter supply to keep up with lending demand. In the early stages of the pandemic, Evolve was able to find an ample supply of underwriters, which enabled them to rapidly scale. "Then the pay scale for underwriters got crazy," Anselmo said. "Because we operate within our proprietary technology plat- form, we have been able to adapt and find additional efficiencies in productivity per underwriter." "We doubled the size of our underwriting team this year," Anselmo said. "Our company's business doubled this year through adding new clients and our existing clients volumes increasing, and that business has predominantly been in conform- ing traditional lending. We're enjoying the fruits of the current market, which has super-low interest rates, and we're help- ing many consumers better their financial profiles with lower payments through refinance. The housing market is very, very strong." Anselmo pointed to his company's in-house underwriter trainee program as a tool to keep up with hiring demands, and he is actively hiring mortgage profes- sionals from other sides of the industry for training. "If there is somebody who's processing or some other piece of the pipeline and really want to try their hand at becoming an underwriter, we put them in the underwriting trainee program," he said. Claudia Mobilia, SVP of Operations at Middletown, Rhode Island-headquartered Embrace Home Loans, noted that her company began hiring additional processors and closers in April, which she considered "a good foundation" for the expansion of the company's underwriting team. "As we moved further into the summer, we realized that we needed additional underwrit- ers," she recalled. "We wanted seasoned underwriters that could handle conventional or FHA loans. And then we also offered training for conventional under- writers so they could underwrite government loans. That has helped Embrace net more well- qualified underwriters." Mobilia added that her com- pany was also open to hiring mortgage professionals from other areas of the mortgage industry and then train them as under- writers. "Maybe there is somebody who's in processing or some other piece of the pipeline and they really want to try their hand at becoming an underwriter," she continued. "Embrace Home Loans put an underwriting trainee pro- gram in place, and 10 trainees— including five new hires and five internal promotions—are going through an underwriting protocol with our training department." . PHIL HALL is a former United Nations-based reporter for Fairchild Broadcast News, the author of nine books, the host of the award-winning SoundCloud podcast The Online Movie Show, co-host of the award-winning WAPJ-FM talk show Nutmeg Chatter, and a writer with credits in The New York Times, New York Daily News, Hartford Courant, Wired, The Hill's Congress Blog, and Profit Confidential. "We're enjoying the fruits of the current market, which has super-low interest rates, and we're helping many consumers better their financial profiles with lower payments through refinance. The housing market is very, very strong." —Paul Anselmo, CEO, Evolve Mortgage Services

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