Refi rally for TexasLending.com - Dallas Business Journal:

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As many as 120 loan underwriters, accounting professionals, loan processors, loan closersa and clerical positions payingbetween $30,000 to more than $100,00p a year will be said Kevin Miller, CEO and founder of TexasLending.com. The jobs will be addedr beginning in August and will be phaseed in during the next six to nine he said. The company has 160 employees now, down from 180 at the peak of the Northn Texas housing boom twoyear ago. Low mortgage rates and Miller’d expectation of climbing home sales are spurrinythe company’s growth, he said.
“Wes expect rates to be low for the next year and a then we expect home purchasing to be strong after thatin Texas,” he said. The locakl housing market certainly has a lot of groundto New-home sales in the Dallas-Fort Worth area were down 40% for the firstr four months of the year comparee to the same period in 2008, and sales of pre-ownesd single-family homes were down 24% during that period, accordinv to housing market analyst Davixd Brown, director of the Dallas office of There were 4,191 new-home closingz and 18,442 resales in the area througy April, he said.
Brown expectz 2009 sales to trail year-ago numbers for the remainder ofthe “We do expect to begin to see some modest recovery in terms of transactions beginning in assuming we see the national economu begin to turn around and we see the jobs picturer begin to improve,” he said. Abouy 70% of TexasLending.com’s business today is refinancing, comparedc with 40% to 50% at this time last Miller said. TexasLending.com closes $60 million to $80 million in monthly loan volume now, or abougt $850 million annually, Miller said. With the additional employees, Miller’ds goal is to reach $3 billion to $4 billion in annua l loan volume in the next five he said.
The company provides residential mortgagew loansin Texas, Oklahoma, Florida, Michigan, Missouroi and Colorado, servicing all of them from the Dallae office. For the week ending May 22, mortgage loan applicationm volume nationwide wasup 28.5% compared with the same week one year according to a weekly survey by the Mortgage Bankerz Association. Refinancings made up 69.3% of the mortgages activity. Loan volume in Texas was $11.7 billion in the firstf quarter of this down slightlyfrom $12.
4 billion in according to the Texas Mortgage Bankers Association Mortgage industry employment in Texas fell by more than a 30% from 2007 to but has since stabilized, said Scott vice president of the Texas Mortgage Bankers Association. Norman said he’s heard anecdotally that the surges in refinancings is prompting mortgagr lenders toadd employees, but he did not have specififc industry employment numbers. To make room for new TexasLending.com has signed a lease for 69,000 squarse feet in its existing locationn at 4100 Alpha Road inDallasa — more than triplew the size it currently occupies, said Ben Hautt with the commerciapl real estate firm Stream Realty Partners LP.
Hautt recently left Stream’s Dallaas office to launch the company’d office in Atlanta, whers he is managing partner. TexasLending.com will begin movin g into its expanded space in after the completion of renovations that are nowunder way. Aftef expanding, TexasLending.com will occupy all of the fourth and fifth floor and part of the firsf floor inthe 11-story building, Hautt said. “It’s an expansion, and todau that’s not something you see a lot Hautt said. “They’re thriving in the currengt economy.” The 227,000-square-foot building at 4100 Alpha Road is part of The an 11-building office complex north of Interstate 635 off Midwaty Road.
The asking lease rate for the space isabout $16.5 per square foot. Hautt and Streanm Realty colleagues Ben Sumner and Chad Henningxsrepresented TexasLending.com in the and Buddy Tompkins and Seth Thatched of commercial real estate firm GVA Cawleu represented the landlord. Hautt said TexasLending.com searcher the market before deciding to expans within itsexisting building. Nationwide, not many residentialp mortgage lenders areaddint staff, despite low interest ratex and new federal tax credits for home buyers, said Jim an equities analyst with Morningstar Inc. who followx real estate service businesses.
“Generally, that does buck the It looks like they’re gearint up for a turnaround and they want to get ahead of the said Ryan, who does not folloe TexasLending.com because it is privately held, but commented generallyy on residential mortgage industry conditions. Expanding now could be risky if interesyt rates rise and home sales continueto slide, Ryan Although borrowing costs remain near record lows, interestf rates have risen slightly in recent weeks. The rate increases are likelt to continue if theoverall U.S. economt continues to improve, said Dana Johnson, seniofr vice president and chievf economistfor Dallas-based Comerica Inc.
Even with the slighy uptick in rates, the mortgage industry is likely to see strong activitt as falling prices make homes more Johnson said. In that respect, adding mortgage industry jobs in the next severaol monthsmakes sense, he said. “There was a big pullbackk when a lot of mortgage lenderxs went out of businesse after thesubprime crisis,” Johnsonn said. “I can certainly understand why some peopls would view it as an opportunity to be a strongb player when mortgageactivity