The reduction in staff results primarily from an exit from the wholesale mortgage brokerage business, which handled home mortgages originated through unaffiliated, outside brokers. Community Resource Mortgage will instead focus exclusively on direct-to-consumer lending through its offices and the bank’s branch offices throughout central South Carolina and the Pee Dee. The reduction in staff represents 40% of the mortgage division’s employees and 6% of the bank’s total number of employees.
Donna Childress, president of Community Resource Mortgage, said: The best and worst thing about the mortgage business is its cyclical nature. Given that fundamental, the keys to long term survival and prosperity for mortgage lenders are to respond quickly and decisively to changing circumstances and, secondly, to do whatever you do extremely well – we cannot be all things to all people.
