Career in Mortgage Industry

Mortgage Industry is one of the largest and stable industry providing employment across USA and South East Asia (through its back offices). This industry after 2008, is heavily regulated and has a vast range of jobs that graduates entering the corporate world can look forward to.

Figure: More and more technology companies are coming in Mortgage sector, thus opening new career opportunities for people in this sector. Image courtesy: CBInsights

Career options in Mortgage industry

A wide range of people works in mortgage industry. In the article, we will see different types of roles and career path in mortgage job sector.

Following are the key roles in mortgage industry

1. Underwriting Support
2. Cashiering
3. Investor Relations
4. Call Centre
5. Escrow and Taxation
6. Property Assessment
7. Capital Markets

A wide variety of skills such as knowledge about Originations, Credit/ Income verification, document assessment, Underwriting, Taxation, etc. are needed in order to work in such divisions within a mortgage company.

Underwriting Support

1. Understand the borrower’s credit statement to calculate deductions like debt, Credit Card payments, Alimony, so as to judge the credit worthiness of a borrower
2. Calculate total income from paystubs (W2) or from business, or income from securities, gifts, etc.
3. Find out: total monthly income – Total monthly deductions= Total Savings/ Decide if the total savings is enough for borrower to be able to pay back the mortgage as per amortization schedule.
4. Decide the eligibility of borrowers for various programs such as Veteran Affairs, HUD, USDA and apply the underwriting conditions or privileges
5. Raise red flag in case of Fraud, Money Laundering and perform due-diligence before the decision to close or adverse is made.

Cashiering

1. Daily review all incoming cash items for customer loans (i.e. lockbox, On-line banking, Western Union, etc). Prepare appropriate information for transmission to bank.
2. Create and post ACH payment batches for monthly and bi-weekly loan payments. Set up new ACH records on the system and maintenance any ACH changes.
3. Process payment reversals on return items. This includes checks, ACH payments, and electronic payments.
4. Review payoff funds received from customers, closing agents, attorneys, etc and verify they are certified and sufficient to pay off the loan. Post payoff according to prepared statement and/or work with closing company and/or customer service to clear shortages or errors.
5. Understand and comply with bank policy, laws, regulations, and the bank’s BSA/AML Program, as applicable to your job duties. This includes but is not limited to; complete compliance training and adhere to internal procedures and controls; report any known violations of compliance policy, laws, or regulations and report any suspicious customer and/or account activity.

Call Centre

This job has presence with every business unit having its own KPIs. For example, one BU could be responsible for alerting the customer about products available, another one could be responsible for sales, some other BU could be responsible for after sales support. Ability to converse in English or any other language such as Spanish, Mandarin, French, German, etc. There are generally 2 queues: Inbound and Outbound.

Some of the responsibilities are:

1. Provide customer resolution with First Time resolution (FTR) as the basic metric
2. Adhere to compliance/ regulations and inform the customer about products, choices available to borrower
3. Escalation as per hierarchy in case of non-resolution of customer query

Escrow and Taxation:

1. Complete escrow analysis statements for customers. Prepare all written documentation concerning customer requests as needed.
2. Research customer escrow analysis and payment history with large payment increases or decreases.
3. Assists call centre with customer escrow questions.
4. Interact with tax and insurance department to resolve escrow problems. Also interact with other mortgage servicing departments.
5. Mail surplus checks to customers as needed.
6. Cross train with mortgage tax and insurance departments.

Property Preservation

1. Utilize and evaluate Property Preservation reports to monitor process of Property Preservation area to ensure compliance with established guidelines and timelines.
2. Prepare and review weekly property maintenance and inspection reports to minimize risk and loss.
3. Review property condition and complete required occupancy status inspections, cash for keys negotiations, occupant eviction, property repairs and conveyance condition per investor/insurer/government.
4. Train new Property Preservation associates and monitor progress of associates during training process. Cross train in other areas of department.
5. Assist Collateral Adjuster in research of unfamiliar or unusual matters
6. Work closely with Default Support leadership team and other departments to resolve property condition, maintenance, and inspection issues promptly.
7. Assist Property Preservation Specialists in interpretation of investor guidelines to determine proper procedure. Monitor Property Preservation Department activities to ensure that all guidelines and timelines are being met.
8. Assist Property Preservation Specialists in research of unfamiliar or unusual investor guidelines, appropriate property preservation work, customer or 3rd party vendor questions, and disputes.

Investor Relations

The mortgage originator, sells the mortgages to investors for a profit. They may sell an individual mortgage, or a group of mortgages called a Pool. These pools are bought by investors like Government agencies (GNMA, FNMA, FHLMC), large banks (Wells Fargo, JPMC, US Bank, Bank of America, etc.) on the secondary market. The investor relations business unit basically helps:

1. Provide information on individual loans for a pool
2. Provide documentation for loans in a pool and resolve mistakes or missing documents
3. Assist in the capital raising process for the Company in coordination with the Executives.
4. Interface with investment bankers, the brokerage community and investors and be able to speak credibly about the investment process in order to develop investment opportunities

Capital Markets

1. Monitor production of risk reports, identifying & debugging issues during production, quality checks on holdings, prices & risk analytics, performing fund level & portfolio level checks to ensure risk is within acceptable levels.
2. Set up new securities that get issued in the market, on an ongoing basis make periodic updates on the existing securities for any data like corporate actions, time series data etc. the team equipped to setup over 70 different security types across different security groups like – Equities, Bonds, Mortgages, Derivatives (XTC / OTC both) and Cash instruments etc.
3. Identify post trade compliance breaches / violations, these are captured in the Dashboard. To conduct research & provide appropriate feedback for resolution / escalation

Career hierarchy in mortgage industry

Within Mortgage industry, the hierarchy for operations is pretty straight forward. It consists of Associates/ Analysts reporting to a Team Lead, who in turn reports to a Manager. The manager may report to a Senior Manager or Director. Generally, for every 12 Associates, there is 1 Team Lead. For every 3-4 Team Leads, there is a Manager. The starting salary for Associates may range from INR 350,000 – INR 600,000 per annum. A team lead could earn anywhere between INR 700,000—INR NR 1,000,000. A manager’s salary can start anywhere between INR 1,500,000 to INR 2,500,000.

End note

In this article, we have seen different roles, job requirement and career path in mortgage sector. If you need any clarification or modification, please get in touch with us.

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