Direct-to-consumer lender Wyndham Capital Mortgage proceeds with a new round of layoffs, according to a Worker Accommodation and Retraining Notice (WARNING) notice filed with the North Carolina Department of Commerce.
The company announced that it would lay off 48 employees effective August 1. Staff work either at the lender’s headquarters in Charlotte, NC or remotely and report to the location.
“Of those impacted employees, 38 work off-premises or hybrid (office and remote) in North Carolina and South Carolina, and 10 are fully remote employees living in other states outside of the Carolinas,” Angela Fumo, senior vice president of capital human resources, wrote in the WARN notification reviewed by HousingWire.
Founded in 2001 by Jeff Douglas, Wyndham has positioned itself as a fintech-focused mortgage lender with a proprietary software system that allows the company to close loans 20% faster than the national average.
The lender provides loans in 47 states and Washington, D.C., both conventional and ginnie mae-guaranteed loans. The company claims to have 350 employees and to have served 100,000 borrowers.
Last year, taking advantage of falling mortgage rates and a refi boom, Wyndham actively expanded, opening two hubs in Dallas and Phoenix, bringing its office count to five. The company also has launched a retail division in July 2021 and hired former Town executive Karen Mayfield in August to lead the national effort.
However, like other lenders with direct-to-consumer models, the company tends to be refi-heavy and relies on call centers for hospitality, struggling to find its place in a buying market so as rates rise and spreads begin to compress.
In January, Wyndham experienced a series of layoffs when pink slips arrived for 35 loan officers at its offices in Dallas, Charlotte, Salt Lake City, Kansas City and Phoenix.
Like Wyndham, other lenders cut jobs in the second half of 2021 and the first quarter of 2022 in view of rising mortgage rates and reduced refinancing volume. Purchase mortgage rates hit 5.23% this week – and some of those same lenders are making further cuts. As the market contracts, originators Interfirst Mortgage Co. and better.com are implementing their second and third rounds of layoffs, respectively.
These companies are part of a wider list of companies reducing their workforce, including Wells Fargo, Pennymac, Mr. Cooper, loanDeposit, Guaranteed rate, Fairway Independent mortgageand Motion mortgage.
