Mortgage executives on the importance of cost-effective labor, borrower retention amid high rates

At last week’s Mortgage Bankers Association Annual Convention & Expo in Chicago, thousands of attendees sought advice on keeping their businesses running smoothly amid a mortgage rate environment that has kept potential borrowers sidelined. In interviews with HousingWire at the event, industry leaders offered steps to keep costs low and current borrowers engaged so that companies will be prepared for the inevitable pendulum swing back to lower rates. In previous housing cycles, the mortgage industry’s playbook involved deep staff cuts during a downturn, followed by massive hiring activity once interest rates cooled off and sales volumes returned. But Sam Mehta, the founder and CEO of Verity Global Solutions, thinks there’s a better way. His company works with mortgage originators and servicers, title companies and other parties on the outsourcing of work, with the goal of eliminating the large peaks and valleys in human staffing levels. Mehta described Verity as a business process outsourcing (BPO) firm that wraps automation around the capabilities of human employees. “We’re designed for variable costs of labor, to scale up and down very quickly. That’s what we exist for. We ha...