Refi rally for TexasLending.com - Kansas City Business Journal:

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As many as 120 loan consultants, underwriters, accountint professionals, loan processors, loan closers and clerical positions payinhgbetween $30,000 to more than $100,000 a year will be said Kevin Miller, president, CEO and founder of TexasLending.com. The jobs will be addex beginning in August and will be phasecd in during the next six tonine months, he The company has 160 employees now, down from 180 at the peak of the Northn Texas housing boom two years ago. Low mortgage rates and Miller’s expectation of climbingh home sales are spurringthe company’s he said.
“We expect rates to be low for the next year and a then we expect home purchasing to be strong aftefr thatin Texas,” he said. The loca l housing market certainly has a lot of groundto New-home sales in the Dallas-Fort Worth area were down 40% for the firs four months of the year compared to the same period in and sales of pre-owned single-family homed were down 24% during that period, according to housing market analysty David Brown, director of the Dallas office of Metrostudy. There were 4,191 new-homer closings and 18,442 resales in the area throughy April, he said. Brown expectsw 2009 sales to trail year-agk numbers for the remainder ofthe year.
“We do expect to begin to see some modestt recovery in terms of transactions beginningin 2010, assuminb we see the nationa economy begin to turn around and we see the jobs picture beginj to improve,” he About 70% of TexasLending.com’s business todagy is refinancing, compared with 40% to 50% at this time last Miller said. TexasLending.com closes $60 milliom to $80 million in monthly loan volumse now, or about $850 million annually, Millerd said. With the additional employees, Miller’s goal is to reach $3 billio to $4 billion in annual loan volumee in the nextfive years, he said.
The company provides residential mortgage loansin Texas, Oklahoma, Michigan, Missouri and Colorado, servicing all of them from the Dallas For the week ending May 22, mortgage loan applicatio volume nationwide was up 28.5% comparer with the same week one year earlier, according to a weekly survey by the Mortgagd Bankers Association. Refinancings made up 69.3 % of the mortgage activity. Loan volume in Texae was $11.7 billion in the first quartefr ofthis year, down slightlyy from $12.4 billion in 2008, accordintg to the Texas Mortgage Bankers Association statistics.
Mortgage industryu employment in Texas fell by more thana 30% from 2007 to but has since said Scott Norman, vice president of the Texas Mortgage Bankers Norman said he’s heard anecdotally that the surge in refinancings is promptiny mortgage lenders to add employees, but he did not have specificx industry employment numbers. To make room for new TexasLending.com has signed a leas for 69,000 square feet in its existing location at 4100 Alpha Road inDallas — more than triple the size it currently occupies, said Ben Hautt with the commercial real estat e firm Stream Realty Partners LP.
Hautt recentl y left Stream’s Dallas office to launch the company’s office in Atlanta, wherw he is managing partner. TexasLending.comm will begin moving into its expanded space in after the completion of renovations that are nowunded way. After expanding, TexasLending.com will occupy all of the third, fourth and fifth floor and part of the firsg floor inthe 11-story building, Hautyt said. “It’s an expansion, and today that’sa not something you see a lot Hautt said. “They’re thriving in the currenft 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 Midwagy Road. The asking lease rate for the spacse isabout $16.50 per squared foot. Hautt and Stream Realty colleagues Ben Sumner and Chad Henningwsrepresented TexasLending.com in the lease, and Buddy Tompkins and Seth Thatcher of commerciap real estate firm GVA Cawley representeds the landlord. Hautt said TexasLending.com searchefd the market before deciding to expand within itsexistinv building.