When word leaked out a few weeks ago that Bank of America had lost one of it top residential loan officers to a competitor, it had a message for the troops: we value your work and want to keep you.
The bank's top consumer sales executive Matthew Vernon stated for the record that the bank would even recruit from firms that were swiping some of its top LOs.
But last week the LO departures continued with the news that David Macke, who ranks first among all purchase money producers at the bank, is leaving for Wells Fargo.
Macke, who is based in Southern California, told National Mortgage News that he feels no ill will toward B of A, saying, “The bank treated me well.” His specialty entails working with builder reps. He declined to comment further. (Sources close to Vernon noted that Wells has been trying to recruit him for years.)
Officials familiar with Macke's production record say he is the bank's purchase money leader, ranks No. 3 nationwide in terms of UPB and No. 7 in units.
Meanwhile, officials who work at the bank add that Wells is on the verge of recruiting yet another top LO from B of A: a woman who ranks among its 10 highest volume producers nationwide. (At press time her identity could not be confirmed.)
Early in the fall Kevin Budde, an LO also based in Southern California, accepted a position with an up-and-coming Texas-based bank, PlainsCapital. He took five B of A employees with him and has been given the task of opening a new mortgage office in the affluent Laguna Niguel area.
In 2010 Budde was B of A's top producer nationally among purchase-money LOs working with Realtors, bringing in $140 million of product.
One of his complaints about the bank centered around its slow processing times, something the bank says it is trying to fix. “We're working hard to improve our processing times,” a bank spokesman said.
Meanwhile, it's anticipated that dozens of more LOs are looking to leave B of A in the coming months, following in the footsteps of dozens who have left since January.
One B of A manager told NMN, “Poor communication and poor leadership is the problem. Matt Vernon may have a good pitch but they are doing nothing to retain anyone as the real goal we believe is to shrink the sales staff another 40% and then change the business model to service only the 58 million clients B of A has.”
In a recent interview, Vernon stated that the bank's goal isn't to increase its mortgage market share among its peers, but to capture more of its banking customers as residential clients.
“That's the (market) share that we want to drive north,” Vernon said.
