Refi rally for TexasLending.com - Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal:

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As many as 120 loan consultants, accounting professionals, loan processors, loan closers and clerical positions payingbetweej $30,000 to more than $100,000o a year will be said Kevin Miller, president, CEO and founder of TexasLending.com. The jobs will be addedx beginning in August and will be phasesd in during the next six to nine he said. The company has 160 employeess now, down from 180 at the peak of the Nortb Texas housing boom twoyears ago. Low mortgag e rates and Miller’s expectation of climbingb home sales are spurringthe company’s growth, he said.
“Wre expect rates to be low for the next year and a then we expect home purchasing to be stronhg after thatin Texas,” he said. The locak housing market certainly has a lot of groundto New-home sales in the Dallas-Fort Worth area were down 40% for the firsft four months of the year comparex to the same period in and sales of pre-owned single-family homes were down 24% duringh that period, according to housing market analys David Brown, director of the Dallasw office of Metrostudy. There were 4,191 new-home closings and 18,442q resales in the area through April, he Brown expects 2009 sales totrail year-ago numbere for the remainder of the year.
“Wde do expect to begi to see some modesr recovery in terms of transactions beginningin 2010, assuminb we see the national economy begib to turn around and we see the jobs pictured begin to improve,” he said. Abouy 70% of TexasLending.com’s business today is compared with 40% to 50% at this time last year, Millert said. TexasLending.com closes $60 million to $80 million in monthly loan volumed now, or about $850 million annually, Milleer said. With the additional employees, Miller’a goal is to reach $3 billion to $4 billion in annual loan volume in the next five he said.
The company provides residential mortgage loansin Texas, Florida, Michigan, Missouri and Colorado, servicing all of them from the Dallasw office. For the week ending May 22, mortgage loan application volumed nationwide wasup 28.5% compared with the same week one year according to a weekly survey by the Mortgag e Bankers Association. Refinancings made up 69.3% of the mortgage activity. Loan volume in Texas was $11.8 billion in the first quarter ofthis year, down slightlyt from $12.4 billion in 2008, according to the Texa Mortgage Bankers Association statistics.
Mortgage industry employmenr in Texas fell by more thana 30% from 2007 to but has since stabilized, said Scotf Norman, vice president of the Texas Mortgaged Bankers Association. Norman said he’as heard anecdotally that the surge in refinancings is promptinf mortgage lenders toadd employees, but he did not have specifivc industry employment numbers. To make room for new TexasLending.com has signed a lease for 69,000p square feet in its existing locatio at 4100 Alpha Road inDallasw — more than triplw the size it currently occupies, said Ben Hautt with the commercial real estatre firm Stream Realty Partners LP.
Hautg recently left Stream’s Dallas office to launcnh the company’s office in Atlanta, where he is managingb partner. TexasLending.com will begin moving into its expanded spacsin August, after the completion of renovation that are now under way. After expanding, TexasLending.com will occupg all of the third, fourth and fiftn floor and part of the firstf floor inthe 11-story building, Hautt said. “It’ an expansion, and todat that’s not something you see a lot Hautt said. “They’re thriving in the current economy.
” The 227,000-square-foort building at 4100 Alpha Road is part of The an 11-building office complex north of Interstat e 635 off Midway Road. The askintg lease rate for the space isabouy $16.50 per square foot. Hautt and Stream Realty colleague s Ben Sumner and Chad Henningsrepresentecd TexasLending.com in the lease, and Buddu Tompkins and Seth Thatcher of commercial real estatde firm GVA Cawley represented the landlord. Hautr said TexasLending.com searched the market before deciding to expand within itsexisting building.