Should Mortgage Lenders Be Laying Off Their Pros in This Housing Market?

The never-ending wave of rising interest rates, and therefore pricier debt and consumer demand destruction, is turning buyers away from new home sales. Mortgage lenders are now laying off their pros in droves, hoping to weather the quagmire of a weak market. Is this short-term hemorrhage the right move? Origin Bank Sr. Mortgage Loan Officer and Mortgage Advisor at Theriot Mortgage Group, G.P. Theriot, thinks mortgage lenders and the larger home sales industry is stuck between a rock and a hard place.

G.P.’s Thoughts

“We’ve definitely seen a swing in the mortgage industry. Rates have gone up, loan applications have gone down significantly. A lot of these big mortgage companies are having to make tough decisions of, do we keep the full force of the operation side or do we have to start letting people go?

Because here’s the big question. We’re gonna see a big swing here when rates do start going down. And that’s the question, when will rates start going down? The word on the street is we could see rates starting going down as soon as the first quarter in 2023, or no later than the third quarter.

So it’s one of those questions of do you fight through the storm, be prepared? Because when those rates get back in the fives, we’re gonna have a lot of re-fi booms going on. It’s gonna build confidence back there for people getting back on the streets to buy homes. So it’s an interesting time and only time will tell of how will we be prepared either way.”