Mortgage lender Mortgage Master continues to grow mortgage originations at a time when larger banks are exiting or decreasing their footprints in the space.
The firm’s growth plan seems to be playing itself out with CEO Paul Anastos announcing this week that Mortgage Master is opening a new operations center in Maitland, Fla., and expanding operations in Sea Girt, N.J., to keep up with home loan demand.
In addition, the company is expanding its corporate headquarters in Walpole, Mass., as the regional lender continues to establish itself as an East Coast-centric mortgage originator.
Originations for 2012 could hit as high as $7 billion, Mortgage Master suggests. That is up from $5.5 billion in 2011.
“A big part of (the increase in demand) is low interest rates,” Anastos pointed out. To keep up with business and loan demand, the company added over 120 employees in the past 12 months.
Anastos says regional lenders that focused on writing business the right way are still doing well and benefiting from the clean-up phase, which evened out the origination space.
He prides himself on his business never having to buy back a loan at a time when larger players in the market are constantly worried about repurchasing risk.
“It’s not the wild west of the Countrywide days where there were all of these products,” he told HousingWire. “You have people who really care about getting people into homes left. The people who survived all of those rougher days always cared about the consumer and are still making sure they provide for them.”
Anastos’ experience in the past seven months mirrors predictions made by Paul Miller with FBR Capital Markets in late 2011 when he suggested smaller originators may capture market share while big banks cut back on new lending in the face of servicing issues and repurchase risk.
