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'Loan Officers Crave Leadership' From The C-Suite

Jan 16, 2025
a woman shaking the hand of a recruiter
Staff Writer

Panelists at the New England Mortgage Expo discuss best practices for recruiting and retaining originators

More often than not, “happy accident” fairly characterizes the manner in which many mortgage professionals find themselves forging long-term careers in the mortgage industry.

Take Steven Milner, founder and CEO of US Mortgage Corporation, founded in 1994, began his mortgage career in the 1980s after leaving a job as a math teacher. Milner’s mortgage origin story — and ensuing success — is the foundation of his company’s holistic recruiting strategy

Steven Milner
Steven Milner, founder and CEO of US Mortgage Corporation

“My objective is simply to understand where they have been in their business and personal life,” Milner told attendees listening to an afternoon panel discussion at the New England Mortgage Expo examining best practices for hiring loan officers and production teams in today’s market.

Landing in mortgage lending and succeeding in mortgage lending are two different realities. While “happy accident” may explain how the majority of mortgage professionals get their start in the industry, it rarely explains a mortgage professional's long-term success.

“The producers, that’s really where the value of a mortgage company is,” said James Brody, senior partner at Garris Horn LLC, moderating the panel discussion. The value a lender's production team can also be that company's greatest risk, if that team leaves for a competitor.

Good fundamentals — and moving production numbers down the priority list — can not only help mortgage companies avoid recruitment risk, but also help them establish long-term relationships that protect lenders’ own top producers from being recruited, the panelists agreed.

LOs’ Desires For Leadership

“Loan officers are craving leadership,” says Eric Braun, head of growth at the Long Island, New York-based Interstate Home Loan Center Inc. He calls mortgage leadership “out of touch.” That’s not the case with Milner, who even as CEO is individually licensed in every U.S. state.

Braun explains that a lot of mortgage leadership in the c-suite today has never originated at all, or hasn’t originated in so long that they fail to understand the loan officer experience in 2025. He eschews what is perhaps the more traditional recruiting mindset.

“Production is not number one, that’s for sure,” Braun says. “Do they value what we bring to the table is more important,” he continues. “We don’t just want to bring somebody on for numbers. We want to bring somebody on whom we can foster a real relationship with.”

Eric Braun
Eric Braun, head of growth at Interstate Home Loan Center Inc.

Milner seconded that mindset, that relationship building begins during recruitment, not after hiring. “It’s very important to get candidates to meet with your managers and from there it becomes a courtship,” an “evolution” of a relationship.

“More importantly,” Milner adds, “I want to know personally, where do they want to go.” Without those insights, Milner wouldn’t know whether he can help that recruit get to where they want to.

By responding to loan officers’ desire for leadership, growing leadership through production teams happens organically when effective recruitment fills a lender’s ranks with originators who embrace the value proposition of the company, the panelists said.

Braun says that loan officers who don’t value that unique value propositions that unique lenders bring to the table, Braun says, feed the churn-and-burn model that erodes long-term growth.

“One of the things we heavily focus on, which loan officers are looking for, is support,” he explains. That support is two-fold, on both the loan level and business development.

Loan officers who receive the individualized support they seek will stay with a company that replaces a prescriptive approach to loan officer support with a descriptive approach, he believes, because loan officers desire a relationship with the team they’ll be working with.

Milner says that “we have seen and witnessed” recruits expressing a desire for leadership succession plans that clearly define the executive’s vision for the company, wishing to avoid transitioning to a company that will be sold or acquired in a year or two.

James Brody
James Brody, senior partner at Garris Horn LLP

The Risks Of Recruitment

Recruiting different types of producers requires different recruitment strategies. However, recruitment risk travels with any loan officer, branch, or production team that a mortgage lender might like to snag from a competitor.

“The first thing I do when I learn a branch has left a client of mine,” says Brody, “I’m taking a look at whether there’s anything they did at the company which shouldn’t have been done.”

Names, phone numbers, addresses can transfer with the loan officer because “you can’t control the relationship,” he explains. Anything that’s non-public consumer information is generally the property of the old employer, though. And if it leaves the office, that’s technically a data breach.

“When you see multiple branches or multiple people move at the same time, the likelihood is they’ve done something that they probably shouldn’t have done, in some way or another” through the recruitment process, Brody continues.

Establishing wrongdoing between the loan officers who left and the new employer who hired them is gleaned from the information or property has been improperly obtained, such as entire pipelines, trade secrets, or non-public consumer financial data, he said.

About the author
Staff Writer
Ryan Kingsley is a staff writer at NMP.
Published
Jan 16, 2025
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