Retail growth spurt

Mortgage Banking, May, 2002 by Charlyne H. McWilliams

"We have a strategy of adding sales managers who are known as leaders in their market and [who] are beacons to attract other top producers successfully," he says. Given this approach, Hale says that Countrywide Home Loans does not plan to change its compensation package this year.

Countrywide Home Loans had a retail volume of $68.9 billion at the end of its fiscal year 2001. Hale says the company expects to see some reduction in retail volume for 2002 based on the decrease in refinance business, but he declined to offer a projection of the company's volume.

Instead, Hale says Countrywide Home Loans is positioning itself to increase its market share and, like other lenders, grow in 2002.

"Our growth in our sales force is helping growth in our volume," Hale says, pointing to February 2002 being a record month in the company's recent history for the new-construction purchase volume, which will more than replace the decrease in the refinance market.

The lender has been deploying its new sales force using different strategies, including increasing the number of people in branches and those working from home and remote locations.

In addition to the company's retail branch network, Countrywide Home Loans has correspondent, wholesale and consumer market--including Internet sales--divisions. Hale says the channels "remotely and occasionally" have some channel conflict, which has been based on its recruiting efforts. He explains that some of the people who came to work for Countrywide Home Loans may have worked for other companies that did business with its wholesale division. However, this is not common.

"The reality is that [the channels] are not feeding off of each other," Hale says. "Instead, we're more focused on gaining market share from our competitors."

Hale says that Countrywide Home Loans did not move to centralized operations or hiring a lot of sales staff in one particular area. Instead, it has been able to rely on its flexible platform and technology to provide steady growth across the country.

Charlyne H. McWilliams is a freelance writer based in Silver Spring, Maryland, who has been reporting on the mortgage industry since 1997. She can be reached at cmcwilliams@rapiddsl.net.