Is the mortgage industry a dying career?

This seems like a job that could be completely automated.

I just bought a house this past month. There's a bunch of hoops you have to jump through providing all of the right documents to get approved for your mortgage and to get the best rate. Without the mortgage dude telling me what documents I had to scrounge together it would have been even more annoying. And then they also help get your insurance squared away and your house appraisal and a bunch of stuff. By the time the mortgage dude's job is fully automated a ton of other jobs will have been automated first. And I'm a software developer, there would be a lot of moving parts to successfully automate that process, and it would still be tougher to prove someone wasn't supplying crap forged documents to get approved for something they shouldn't be approved for.

They will farm it out to India or the Phillipines. Everything is done electronically. You scan stuff and send it to them. They make a packet and send it back. It's a dying career.

Several friends do this and they make bank.

Don't listen to doomsayers who sit in an office all day.

Hustle, really hustle and you can do fine.

I can't say anything about the mortgage industry, but I'm not far from Columbus. Around here Walmart is offering $16 an hour to stock shelves. The Waffle joint is paying $15.50 to wash dishes.

I'm not saying work at Walmart or a restaurant, but surely you can do better than what you make now.

If you liked coding, learn robotics. Very high in demand here. Don't really need a degree, just need competance

If you want to talk about the mortgage business, reach out directly. Been in it 8 years and if you’re in a good market and aren’t afraid to work, you can do very well.

how do I do DMs? I'd love to chat with you.

Not afraid of hard work.

Most who train here for 5k to 26.2 are hard workers!

Thank you for the robotics tip. I've looked into learning data mining, Python and R (data science), etc. I'm a newb and will admit it.

But at age 37, with a college degree, I know I can do better than $18.29/hr. (38k salary actually).

That said, I'm VERY grateful to have a job during the pandemic, so I am still feeling blessed in a sense because of that. 38k > 0k!

jecht,

You were making just $53,000 as a developer? I don't understand that at all.

If money is an issue (and it appears to be), then of the things you've mentioned you've done, coding is for sure the most lucrative. You were definitely paid on the cheap side there, brother.

You could be a manager at a fast food place and make more than the $38,000 or maybe even the $53,000 you were making.

Go back to coding...or do something with computers. IT person, whatever.

If you know what you are doing and go the independent broker route, you can make bank, especially now with rates where they are. If you go the loan officer working for someone else (bank, Quicken Loans, etc) you will starve. Also, if you are not self motivated or lazy you will starve, although with the current interest rate situation, even the stupidest loan officers are making money.

tldr but let me get this straight: there are jobs that pay less than $100k a year?

Join the Army....

I make 70k a year, of which about 1/3rd isn't taxable. free healthcare, decent pension, etc

Alan

Just to give you an idea. In robotics, a newbie with basic skills who is a little sketch would start out at 60k. Someone with experience and a proven track record would be 90- 125k. This is in bfe Ohio. Columbus is probably different/more.

I don't know; the MLOs at our company do well (we are an actual mortgage company). Unless you mean if they are with Chase or a big bank, etc.

Flagpole wrote:

Go back to coding...or do something with computers. IT person, whatever.

Agreed. Long term, this career path will pay the most and have the most demand.

Mortgage industry has a ton of competition and is very cyclical.

I worked for a tech consulting firm. The name is known as Indenture.

They were paying Level 13 interns 34k, Level 12s at 47k and Level 11 (where I was hired in as) at 53k.

After I left they bumped everyone up a bit, so Level 11s were making 70k. I left in August 2020 to get my current job and then in November they bumped everyone up to 70k at my Level.

I looked into that at age 18 but I am partially blind in my right eye and they wouldn't take me. I would have done that instead of college, honestly.

Went to KSU for journalism but at the time I felt journalism, while not paying much, would have at least gotten me a middle-class career. Then the industry changed. The professors made great $ and told us we'd have a good job in journalism. The paper I was in for 8 years was run well but it was very hard to advance and I didn't want to job-hop.

jecht wrote:

After I left they bumped everyone up a bit, so Level 11s were making 70k. I left in August 2020 to get my current job and then in November they bumped everyone up to 70k at my Level.

You got laid off last year "due to Covid" and then 3 months later they gave everyone a 32% raise? You sure you lost your job for business reasons?

Yes, that is true. They laid a bunch of us off that summer, at least in the Columbus office.

I just found out from my co-worker a few weeks ago they gave everyone raises in the fall.

It is what it is.

Someone upthread mentioned that fast food managers make more. That is correct. Panda Express in Polaris is looking for a manager and will pay 60k a year. However nobody will take it b/c it's fast food and the hours are crappy. I would but I don't have fast food manager experience.