Adapting to new market = Survival

The real estate market has changed dramatically over the past year, even over the past few months. Flexible lending programs are gone, values are down, qualified borrowers are harder to find and an overabundance of mortgage brokers/lenders result in less deals are closed per mortgage company. Monthly expenses have not become less, however, and owners are faced with same expenses, one of them being maintaining support staff in-house. Where as before, it was important to keep Processing personnel in-house, many owners are realizing that this may not longer be the case in a slow market. Cutting cost and realigning such expense to focus on profit producing practices such as marketing and recruiting LO’s, will make the difference between a mortgage company’s success or prompt failure.

It has become a true competition for businesses to survive, survival of the fittest in particular for mortgage industry business owners. The truth is that only a few, well-adapted broker/lending operations will survive this year. Only those that accept change will be able to ride the storm, and in turn, will have a fantastic advantage once the market turns around.

The key questions are: What strategy to consider? What cost-saving actions is your competition taking? What will be your next move?