Refi rally for TexasLending.com - Sacramento Business Journal:

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As many as 120 loan consultants, accounting professionals, loan processors, loan closers and clerical positions payingvbetween $30,000 to more than $100,000 a year will be said Kevin Miller, president, CEO and founder of TexasLending.com. The jobs will be addedx beginning in August and will be phased in duringg the next six to nine he said. The company has 160 employees now, down from 180 at the peak of the Nortn Texas housing boom twoyears ago. Low mortgage ratex and Miller’s expectation of climbing home sales are spurringthe company’sx growth, he said.
“We expectr rates to be low for the next year and a then we expect home purchasing to be strongg after thatin Texas,” he said. The local housin g market certainly has a lot of groundto New-home sales in the Dallas-Fort Wort area were down 40% for the firsy four months of the year compared to the same periodf in 2008, and sales of pre-owned single-family homes were down 24% during that period, according to housing market analyst David director of the Dallas office of There were 4,191 new-home closings and 18,442 resaled in the area through April, he Brown expects 2009 sales to trail year-agoi numbers for the remainder of the “We do expect to begin to see some modest recovery in terms of transactions beginning in assuming we see the national economy beginb to turn around and we see the jobs picture begijn to improve,” he said.
Abourt 70% of TexasLending.com’s business today is compared with 40% to 50% at this time last Miller said. TexasLending.com closes $60 millionb to $80 million in monthly loan volume now, or abouty $850 million annually, Miller said. With the additionall employees, Miller’s goal is to reach $3 billiob to $4 billion in annual loan volumre in the next five he said. The compan y provides residential mortgage loansin Texas, Florida, Michigan, Missouri and Colorado, serviciny all of them from the Dallas office. For the week endinv May 22, mortgage loan application volume nationwide wasup 28.
5% compared with the same week one year according to a weekly survey by the Mortgage Bankers Refinancings made up 69.3% of the mortgage Loan volume in Texas was $11.8 billion in the first quarter of this year, down slightluy from $12.4 billion in 2008, according to the Texas Mortgage Bankers Association statistics. Mortgage industry employment in Texas fell by more thana 30% from 2007 to but has since stabilized, said Scott Norman, vice presidengt of the Texas Mortgages Bankers Association. Norman said he’s hearrd anecdotally that the surge in refinancings is promptinf mortgage lenders toadd employees, but he did not have specifif industry employment numbers.
To make room for new employees, TexasLending.cok has signed a lease for 69,00p square feet in its existing location at 4100 Alpha Road in Dallas more than triple the size itcurrentlu occupies, said Ben Hautt with the commercial real estate firm Stream Realty Partners LP. Hautt recently left Stream’s Dallas office to launch the company’s office in Atlanta, where he is managing partner. TexasLending.com will begi moving into its expanded spacein August, after the completiomn of renovations that are now undee way. After expanding, TexasLending.com will occupy all of the third, fourtyh and fifth floor and part of the first floore inthe 11-story building, Hautt said.
“It’s an and today that’s not something you see a lot of,” Hautg said. “They’re thriving in the currentg economy.” The 227,000-square-foot building at 4100 Alpha Road is part of The an 11-building office complex north of Interstate 635 off Midwauy Road. The asking lease rate for the space isabout $16.50p per square foot. Hautt and Stream Realty colleaguews Ben Sumner and Chad Henningesrepresented TexasLending.com in the and Buddy Tompkins and Seth Thatcher of commerciakl real estate firm GVA Cawleyh represented the landlord. Hautt said TexasLending.com searched the markeyt before deciding to expand within itsexistinbg building.