Mortgage Employment Levels Drop As Refinancing Slows Significantly

The number of mortgage brokers in the North Carolina Triad area has shrunk by 10 percent, and I would not be surprised if these numbers are  representative of the industry as a whole. There was a an unprecedented number of refinancing and new mortgages being written as interest rates fell to record lows from 2002 to 2004. Since then rate have risen and consequently mortgage applications have slowed down.

Since mortgage industry employment peaked in 2003, the number of mortgage brokers and lenders in the Piedmont Triad has dropped by 10 percent. There were 1,113 people employed in the industry in September 2005, down from a peak of 1,231 two years ago, according to the Employment Security Commission.

Experts say most of job losses likely came from small mortgage companies that did not have the resources to compete as the industry began to slow down following a sharp decrease in the number of refinancings.

“People have just gotten out of the business or downsized,” said Kate Crawford, branch manager of Corporate Investors Mortgage Group in Burlington and the secretary of the National Association of Mortgage Brokers. “We were in a huge growth mode for a while, and now we’re just getting back to normal.”

As the mortgage business boomed in recent years, more people entered the industry, some opening their own firms. The number of mortgage companies in North Carolina climbed from 674 in 2002 to 1,570 at the end of 2005. Triad specific data was not available. via MSNBC.com.