First National Bank of Layton (FNB) announced it has hired Joe Hansler as its National Reverse Mortgage Manager. Hansler, who was with Seattle Mortgage and Bank of America before joining FNB, said his initial focus will be to grow the bank’s retail volume by bringing on the country’s top brokers and loan officers, but he also has big plans for the future.
“Long term I think we would look at becoming a Ginnie Mae issuer and moving into the correspondent lending space. Considering we use our own capital and do not rely on warehouse lines, we’d be at an advantage against most of today’s correspondent lenders,” said Hansler, adding that until retail business is where they want it to be, it wouldn’t make sense to rush into the HECM Mortgage-Backed Securities trading space, considering its current level.
As for taking on his new position, Hansler said the timing couldn’t have been better.
“It’s exciting to join a bank that is already one of the top reverse mortgage lenders in the country, as we already have a great operations team in place and command the best pricing in the market,” he said.
In the first quarter of 2011, FNB has already endorsed more reverse mortgages than it did in all of 2010, with 67 loans in March alone, according to data from ReverseBase.
“We’d like to keep up with that pace into 2012,” said Hansler. “In recent months, we’ve brought on two of the top brokers in the country as production centers, along with a group of high producing loan officers. They are thriving with our 50-state lending platform, improved pricing and operations support. With that added volume, you should see our endorsement numbers grow substantially in the coming months while we continue to aggressively build an elite team of production centers and loan officers,” said Hansler, who added that FNB already has more than 40 originators.
FNB is currently a top-20 reverse mortgage lender, but as Hansler said, “This is just the beginning, and we won’t be content until we’re a top-five lender.”
Written by Alyssa Gerace
