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76 tenure or lesser skill sets who are displaced." Relying on past experience, Coffey forecasts that the current trend is just another phase in the overall picture of employment. During her 30 years as an executive recruiter for the mortgage industry, Coffey said she has observed that displacements occur in waves. "ere will seem to be a lot of unemployed executives for awhile, and then that will level off," she said. "At times, you can't recruit a good senior servicing manager for almost any amount of money. en six months later, there will be several on the market." However, it's a different story when talking about servicing executives. Although the number of available jobs in operations seems to fluctuate, Coffey says that servicing is a consistent arm of the industry. "I don't see a lot of servicing people flooding the market right now," she explained. "We get our share of resumes, from servicing professionals, but overall, servicing seems to have a more stable track record with respect to employment." She predicts that the housing industry is poised for growth, stating her belief that "the market is stabilizing and has recovered from 2008 and 2009." She goes on to elaborate, saying "ings are not great, but they're not bad, either. I think the future looks good." CHANGE IS THE NEW NORMAL Adapting to change is the key for companies to survive in the housing industry, says Mike Hardwick, president of Churchill Mortgage in Brentwood, Tennessee, and the adaptability he speaks of includes increasing and decreasing personnel as necessary. "is is true for any business," he said. "ere will always be up and down periods, and you have to right-size your company to stay in business." He referred to the major downswing in the housing industry caused by the financial crisis in 2007 – 2012, followed by an increase in business for about a year and a half, fueled by consumers refinancing their homes. "is resulted in many jobs being created to take care of the increase in mortgage applications," he said. "However, as interest rates increased in the second quarter of last year, refinancing was reduced to almost nothing, and this is yet another cause of a reduction in the workforce at many companies." Hardwick contends that the statistics back up his premise. "e mortgage industry used to do $3 to $4 trillion in volume, but in 2013, it was reduced to only $1.8 trillion. is year, sales have continued to fall and predictions are that it will be only be $1.1 to 1.2 trillion in volume. is has been one of the factors that caused a tremendous move of talent completely out of the industry." However, despite the fluctuation of the mortgage and real estate markets, Hardwick said that his company is growing and has opened three new branches this year, making a total of 18 branches in 10 states. Hardwick's company has been hiring in many areas of the country, seeking out those with valuable skills who were laid off in the downturn. According to Hardwick, "Many changes in the market affected the size of our staffing. We went through four or five years of hiring, and then last year, due to the decrease in refinancing, we had to lay off some people." Despite this, the market is returning to a point where larger employee rosters are valuable again. In the near term, Hardwick can see stability in the cards. "I think interest rates will remain stable for the next 6 to 12 months, and I think our volumes will be fairly stable. Our goal is to prepare for a purchase-driven economy, and I think the outlook is fairly good." But he did have one caveat to add, addressing an issue with inadequate labor programs across the nation: "Until our government gets serious about creating new, good-paying jobs, people cannot buy homes, and that will make it hard for the mortgage and real estate industries to thrive." KEEPING AN OPEN MIND IS KEY When starting out in any industry, most employees make plans and have a desired trajectory that they believe will lead to a fulfilling career. But plans change, and sometimes it is necessary to maintain one or more fail-safes to fend off unforeseen circumstances. Ron Anderson, a former banker at Quicken Loans in Detroit, believes that it is best to be prepared for changes and to have a backup plan. "You have to understand that the real estate market is cyclical, and that there are bad times as well as good times," he explained. When his job of four years at Quicken Loans ended, "In our industry today, you're going to see a mass migration due to changes in company direction and mergers. Most organizations already have plans in place for layoffs when they take over other companies." –BILL CARR

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