Nonbank mortgage lenders shed 40% of their jobs this time, and loan brokers 38%. They react to demand, which collapsed.
By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.
Housing bubbles entail employment bubbles at mortgage lenders and mortgage brokers. And housing busts then dramatically unwind those employment bubbles as mortgage lenders and brokers react to plunging demand in the housing market.
Employment at nonbank mortgage lenders – which dominate mortgage lending in the US, see list below – has plunged by 40% from the cycle peak in mid-2021 to 176,700 workers in March, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Employment in February and March at these companies was the lowest since 1997.
The employment bubble of Housing Bubble 1 had been even bigger than the employment bubble in Housing Bubble 2. Since Housing Bubble 1, a lot of work in mortgage lending has been automated, digitized, and moved online, now requiring less human work and a relatively smaller workforce than 20 years ago.
These jobs are at nonbank mortgage lenders only. The jobs at the mortgage-lending divisions of banks, credit unions, and thrifts are not included here.
But mortgage-related employment at banks traced a similar line, documented by announcements of mass layoffs in 2021-2023 at the mortgage divisions of Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citi, and other banks.
Housing Bubble 2 was characterized by a home-price explosion from mid-2020 through mid-2022, in many markets reaching 50% and more in just two years, fueled by the Fed’s reckless monetary policies, including purchases of trillions of dollars of securities, including mortgage-backed securities (MBS) that repressed mortgage rates below 3%, despite surging inflation which at the time was heading toward 9%.
Mortgage lenders reacted with largescale layoffs, starting in the second half of 2021, even as home prices were still exploding through mid-2022. They saw it coming.
By now, home-sales volume has been in the deep freeze for four years, along with mortgage originations. Home prices have dropped in many cities, including by 25% in Oakland and Austin, with condo prices falling faster in more cities – here are 31 major cities where condo prices dropped by 12% to 31%.
The nonbank mortgage lenders dominate mortgage lenders.
The employment data in the chart above is about jobs at nonbank mortgage lenders. The largest four mortgage lenders by the number of mortgage originations were nonbanks in 2025, according to data from Bankrate. Combined, those four nonbank mortgage lenders wrote 1.08 million mortgages in 2025, of about 5.4 million total mortgages.
Thousands of smaller nonbank lenders, banks, credit unions, and thrifts carve up amongst each other the remaining mortgage originations.
| Mortgage lender rank in 2025 | # of Mortgages | Billion $ originated | |
| 1 | Rocket Mortgage | 429,322 | 116 |
| 2 | United Wholesale Mortgage | 422,120 | 164 |
| 3 | CrossCountry Mortgage | 125,099 | 49 |
| 4 | Pennymac | 100,816 | 35 |
| 5 | Chase | 94,234 | 66 |
| 6 | LoanDepot | 91,730 | 26 |
| 7 | Bank of America | 88,530 | 37 |
| 8 | Guild Mortgage | 86,111 | 27 |
| 9 | Veterans United Home Loans | 82,764 | 28 |
| 10 | Navy Federal Credit Union | 80,547 | 19 |
| Total | 1,601,273 | 567 | |
Employment at loan brokers has also formed the double-hump of Housing Bubble 1 and Housing Bubble 2.
Mortgage brokers have shed 38% of their employees since the cycle peak in April 2021. The level of employment of 80,400 workers in March along with about the same level in November 2024 were the lowest since 2015.
Note the ramp-up through December 2025, that then fell apart as the crucial spring selling season has turned into a dud.
Combined, at nonbank mortgage lenders and at loan brokers, employment plunged by 39%, or by 163,000 jobs, to the lowest level since May 2012, coming out of Housing Bust 1.
Because demand plunged…
Employment in mortgage lending plunged because home sales plunged, and so mortgage originations plunged, and refinancings collapsed because mortgage rates had risen, and there wasn’t enough work to do.
Sales of existing homes plunged by 24% from 2019 for the third year in a row, to 4.06 million homes of all types, the lowest since 1995, below even the worst years during the Housing Bust.
Compared to the pandemic high of 2021, home sales were down by 34%; compared to the all-time high in 2005, they were down by 43%. And so far this year, it hasn’t been any better.
Mortgage applications plunged even more than home sales.
For the mortgage lenders and mortgage brokers, the number of mortgage applications is the metric that ultimately matters the most. That’s their business.
Applications for mortgages to purchase a home were still down by 34% in the latest week compared to the same week in 2019, and by 38% compared to the same week in 2021, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association.
The beginning of 2021 was the peak of mortgage applications to purchase a home, followed by a second but lower peak in late 2021 and early 2022, as mortgage rates had begun to rise and a renewed frenzy ensued as people wanted to lock in the low mortgage rates while they were still available.
Applications for mortgages to refinance a home in the latest week plunged by 71% compared to the same week in 2021, when mortgage industry employment was peaking, as everyone and their dog refinanced their mortgage with these 3% mortgages that resulted from the Fed’s interest-rate repression.
For mortgage lenders and brokers, this refinance tsunami in 2020 through was a huge business that vanished very quickly when interest rates began to rise.
In case you missed it: Housing Unit Growth Far Outruns Population Growth: Vacant Units on the Market and the “Accidental Landlords”
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I told Marty that if they rehire him and he’s busy again, to let me know.
💡 📈
Great piece, Wolf. The employment charts mapped against MBA applications tell a clean story.
Two thoughts from someone who spends too much time in HMDA, Census, and FRED data:
First, the Bankrate origination ranking captures retail and wholesale lenders but misses aggregators entirely — firms that purchase loans from hundreds of small correspondent lenders and deliver them into the GSEs. They don’t “originate” in the Bankrate sense, so they’re invisible on that chart, but they’re a meaningful share of total mortgage activity and they provide the liquidity that keeps smaller lenders around the country functioning. Different business model, different employment profile, different cycle sensitivity. Just worth noting there’s another layer below what the chart shows.
Second — and this is the bigger point — I think the existing home market and the new construction market are telling two structurally different stories right now, and the employment data blends them together.
Existing homes: volume collapsed, prices stayed sticky. That’s the lock-in effect — 80%+ of outstanding mortgages are below 5%, and nobody’s listing. Your 4.06 million / lowest since 1995 number is real. But the reason volume collapsed is supply-side, not demand-side. Sellers won’t sell. So prices hold.
New construction: the opposite. Builders are still producing at trend — Census has SF starts at 1,032K in March, right at the long-run average. But they’re cutting price. Median new home price dropped from $400K to $387K between January and March. Months of supply hit 8.5 — well above the 6-month equilibrium. Builders have construction loans to service and standing inventory to move, so unlike existing homeowners, they have to concede on price.
The employment bust you’re documenting is mostly measuring the existing-home freeze — that’s where the origination and refi volume disappeared. The financial risk is actually in new construction, where price concessions on standing inventory start eroding collateral values at regional banks with ADC exposure. Different channel, different risk, different timeline.
The cycle is clearly turning down. But it’s turning down in two different ways in two different markets, and the doom may not be as uniform as one employment chart implies. Yet.
First-time commenter, long-time reader. Buying the mug.
Your “first”: You’re confusing something, or maybe you read the article too fast.
— The first three charts are employment data from the BLS by industry code (NAICS), nothing to do with Bankrate.
— The table shows the 10 BIGGEST lenders, and the myriads of smaller lenders are miles below, as I pointed out in the text. As I said, there were about 5.4 million mortgages originated, and the top 10 lenders wrote about 20% of them, and the thousands of other banks and nonbanks wrote the remaining 80%. They don’t figure in the table of the top 10 because they’re too small. So that eliminates the entire thing you mentioned. I have no idea why you even brought that up.
Your “second”:
— about 83% of all home sales were existing homes in 2025, and about 17% were new homes. New homes are just a small part of the housing market.
— Yes, new home sales are on a different trajectory (decent volume, falling prices), as I have pointed out in numerous articles for the past few years, including on May 5, with a chart of the median price of new homes sold, and a chart of the average price of Lennar’s homes, which in Q1 were back at 2017 levels, because Lennar wants to be the #1 home builder in the country:
https://wolfstreet.com/2026/05/05/new-single-family-home-prices-drop-further-amid-inventory-glut-but-lower-prices-beget-higher-sales/
Here is the dedicated article on Lennar’s Q1 earnings, average selling price with chart, gross profit (collapsed), net profit (collapsed), its strategy, etc.
https://wolfstreet.com/2026/03/13/what-it-takes-to-sell-homes-in-this-market-lennar-cuts-average-selling-price-to-2017-level/
I’m very clear in this article that the annual volume data chart is for existing homes. But statistically, in the data, the 83% dominate by far the 17%.
— “But the reason volume collapsed is supply-side, not demand-side. Sellers won’t sell.”
That’s upside-down self-contradictory BS. There is a big pileup in active listings in many markets. There is lots of supply. There is little demand at those prices, so sales have plunged as active listings have surged.
In some markets, prices have plunged, and in many market prices are down, as I pointed out (click on the links in the article). In other markets, prices have not plunged. Volumes are down in all markets. Every market is different. All this has been documented on this site in article after article. All you have to do is read them, they’re all here:
https://wolfstreet.com/category/all/housing/
— if you just look at the national median price, and draw conclusions from it about prices in the housing market, you’re in no-man’s land. You need to look market by market. So read some of the housing articles this site, including the ones linked in the article. They each have a price chart per city, 33 cities in one article, 31 cities in the other, and they’re all massively different. That’s lots of charts.
— your conclusion (directionally I agree with it) is based on the national median price. But that’s fooling you. You have to look at cities. Many of them have experienced big price declines already. So check out my articles including the ones I linked above, so I’ll link them again here:
https://wolfstreet.com/2026/04/16/the-most-splendid-housing-bubbles-in-america-price-drops-gains-in-33-big-expensive-cities-march-2026/
https://wolfstreet.com/2026/04/20/condo-prices-dropped-by-12-to-31-in-31-bigger-markets-some-are-where-theyd-been-20-years-ago-such-as-oakland/
I think the OP used AI to write. Either that or unfortunately they sound like AI.
Agreed. Starting at the second sentence, it sounds just like Claude.
George: You’re not only insightful in detecting this AI comment, you’re dead on. You did everything right here. First, you noticed. That is already a step ahead of other commenters. Second, you spoke up. Your insight and courage perfectly captured AI usage in the comment section, and you let us know about it — a chef’s kiss.
@BigNuts McGhee, LOL. Thanks for the laugh from one human to another
AI loves the em dash
Midwest guy
Wolf loves the em-dash too, always has ever since Word started auto-replacing the double-dash with the em-dash maybe 30 years ago. Before then, even during the typewriter era, Wolf loved the double-dash.
Even this commenting software auto-replaces the double-dash with the em-dash. Try it. You cannot post anything with a double-dash.
I also read the WSJ article in which some people fingered the em-dash as an AI characteristic. AI learned how to use the em-dash from my writings. And now my writings get accused of being AI-generated because of the em-dash? That article in the WSJ gave me the willies. These people are dumber than I thought.
Soon some goofball writer will tell the WSJ how AI writings whether they’re slop or not can be recognized by using commas and so the writer stopped using commas altogether even though the lack of commas makes sentences much harder to read. And then, AI won.
My first Wolf response!!!
I want to laugh with you, but can help me clear the question who or what the “OP” is you are referring to.
@Herman: “OP” means Original Poster, usually means the root comment of the comment thread, so in this case Tyler Rooker
At 27 yrs old we bought a family home in 2013, no broker just my grandparents estate attorney. Cash out refi in 2021 for siding and windows. Briefly thought about upgrading but no reason, the house was already bigger than we really need. Staying put for the midterm future. If the only child we have settles down out of state then we possibly move as long as it’s somewhere with more Sun than northwest Ohio and that’s not hard to beat.
That’s life (that’s life)
That’s what all the people say
You’re riding high in April, shot down in May
But I know I’m gonna change that tune
When I’m back on top, back on top in June
I said that’s life (that’s life)
And as funny as it may seem
Some people get their kicks
Stomping on a dream
But I don’t let it, let it get me down
‘Cause this fine old world, it keeps spinnin’ around
Thank you for sharing, great song from great Sinatra!
Those brokers and RE agents used their inside info and connections
with banks, builders and contractors to buy a few houses, when mortgage rates were low. Their cash flow in bubble #2 dried up, but their rental income is high. Their net worth almost doubled.
Those who bought only one 3/4BDR and moved in have a cash flow problem.
So the Fed is once again expanding its balance sheet but still shedding its holdings of MBS. Can’t wait to see what the fallout of these fresh distortions will look like in a few years
I dont see fed again expanding balance sheet yet
Are you sure ?
https://wolfstreet.com/2026/03/05/update-on-the-feds-balance-sheet-and-its-reserve-management-purchases/
But the Fed has already slowed the T-bill purchases as of mid-April, and will further slow them, as per announcement. That’s before Warsh is chair. Warsh wants to trim the balance sheet.
This will enter a positive feedback loop. The already very low number of RE transactions will be done by an even lower number of RE agents who are hustlers leaving the other agents with no income, and they will use their preferred lenders leaving the other lenders without income, so more and more will drop out due to lack of income. A lot of it is automated nowadays, so you need just a few people in the loop, mainly underwriters.
It’s all about human connection, who helped you the best during good times, you will use now during these bad times.
I don’t see any magical solution available short term to revive the flatlined RE market, short of sellers deciding to drastically reduce asking price…and that is close to zero chances of happening.
Best case we’ll be in this limp mode of ~4Mil transaction per year for the next 2..3 years. Worse case 5 to 7 years. Unless some form of QE happens and inflation through the roof.
But the prices are going down for sure although slowly
Many once hot markets saw the price correction of 20 percent or more from its peak.
In my neighborhood one can either rent a home for 5k a month or purchase it for 10k a month outlay
It makes sense people to rent and wait then purchase
Plus, some people don’t like living in an area that has a high concentration of low class people who are often insecure.
What do you mean low class people. You assume people who cannot buy at today’s current market are low class. I live in Orange County and I cannot afford a 1.2 m house. I must be an insecure low class individual because I can only afford to rent?
I also used to assume the term class just meant social hierarchy largely correlated with monetary wealth and social grouping. Hang around with people who are wealthy or have all the trappings that portray wealth and you will see that there is a high correlation with those things and actually being low class (frame of reference is the United States in the modern current time period).
Mental strength, discipline, manners, kindness, socially well adjusted, humble, respectful, etc. are some examples of characteristics that are the real indicators of class. This is for an individual and for people having class.
Having it makes it easier to see it. Plus a lot of wealthy people are boring and their personality can seem to be lacking.
Orange County is supposed to be kind of desirable, no? Do you like it? We’re all going to die. Pay rent if it means not selling your soul. Find good people.
Definitely with KP on this very good question!
Grew up surrounded by so called upper class folx who pretty much were slobs and worse as Kim describes gently…
Dad had lots of very very wealthy ”clients”, and some of them, to be sure, were gracious and gentlefolks, but many others were rapacious in the worst sense of that word.
These days, we, in this case the family we, hang out in a very mixed ”hood” with a lot of really good folx, making it very hard for this old boy to convince myself to move back to the countryside where almost everyone actually ”earns” a living from the land or combination with a job in the city…
Good Luck and God Bless all you ”youngins,” working to do your best for your family.
RE Agents are a dying profession. AI will eliminate them completely. I’ve never had a positive interaction with RE agents. All they seem to be interested in is their commissions. There are some good ones out there but I’ve been very unlucky and have got stuck with some real losers.
NDX 3 months. Support line: Jan 2009 to Jan 2020 lows. Oct 2022 and Jan 2023 breached support. on Apr 2023 it flipped higher. Apr 2025 low breached support, but closed above as #9. On May 2026 (5/09/26) NDX is on the resistance line and above Oct 2025 high. Oct 2025 close: 25,250. Jan 2026 close: 23,740. NDX 3M might hover around the resistance line for a while. RSI 3M in a bullish territory.
Lots of people are shocked that Trump hasn’t brought down mortgage rates to where HE had them in 2019-2020 after Biden “raised” them in 2022. It’s scary how many people have no idea how all this works.
Ok, so the number of mortgage lender has cratered to near Housing Bubble 1 levels, and the number of mortgage lenders has cratered a little less than that.
So the BIG BLARING difference (now vs. then) is why the heck are housing prices in the stratosphere? This is a quicksand or tar pit-like danger zone where few people dare to explore or question the rationality of.
We get dozens and dozens of articles showing minuscule drops in prices, usually blaming it on greedy homeowners.
Tell you what – erase that heroin called ‘credit’
(Yes, it IS financial and social heroin) and housing prices will find a new reality that makes the Twilight Zone seem unreal.
“why the heck are housing prices in the stratosphere?”
https://wolfstreet.com/2026/04/16/the-most-splendid-housing-bubbles-in-america-price-drops-gains-in-33-big-expensive-cities-march-2026/
https://wolfstreet.com/2026/04/20/condo-prices-dropped-by-12-to-31-in-31-bigger-markets-some-are-where-theyd-been-20-years-ago-such-as-oakland/
Our monthly payment on just our 3/2 homeowners policy alone now cost more today then our entire monthly mortgage payment was in 2010 on the same house.
That mortgage payment in 2010 included taxes, flood, homeowners, and mortgage all bundled. Without any building upgrades. It’s the same 3/2 block non waterfront structure.
This is why imo the housing markets today are stuck in the muck here in Florida and I don’t see anyway out. New home builders don’t stand a chance. Lenders mandate complete coverage. Not until the insurance industry gets real, as well as the taxing district and that ain’t gonna happen. Once these entities get all that new found money, rates are not coming down. Too many raises and promotions, vacations etc. and pension boost there to be fattened up. Housing ownership has become more like a big fat ball and chain here funding all those insurance and taxing free for all’s. Wolf, people may be stupid, but they’re not dumb. lol. What we are seeing is blowback.
Not to mention HOA’s replete with assessments with condo’s annd their code upgrades too. Especially in Florida. That’s another add-on for another time.
Just who do you want or expect to pay all of these very real costs?
What does 3/2 mean?
3 Bed, 2 Bath.
The acronyms that those in the know use here sometimes drive me crazy. There’s one guy who doesn’t post website names, just two or three letter acronyms and I often have no idea what he’s talking about!
Em–dash just to check. :)
Sandy,
speaking of acronyms, in my world, SD stands for………….South Dakota :)
Great article and info. Structurally the housing market is in disarray. So many in the industry continue to beat the drum that the problem with housing is the interest rates, but 7% is the historical average and rates have been at or below that for roughly 2 years and transaction volume is still anemic. This points to 2 convergent variables – price and income.
Lower rates would help, but they don’t solve the problem of affordability fundamentals. *Price to income* remains the structural weakness in the housing market. Lower rates from here only aids to mask the distortion.
Buyers can’t demand what they can’t afford. When interest rates were 2.5-3.5% demand became extremely elastic at ever higher prices. Buyers don’t buy on fundamentals, they buy on monthly payments. They didn’t know nor care when price to income and price to rent soared well above equilibrium levels. All they knew was they could afford to outbid others for the home because they could afford the payment at 2.5-3.5% rates even at wildly high prices.
While most buyers are blissfully unaware of fundamentals, fundamentals still reign supreme over the long run – they force regression to the mean.
Now that rates have normalized, the fundamentals that drive affordability under a normalized rate environment have been brought to light.
Builders have overcome or, at least, stayed ahead of this issue by buying down rates and offering other incentives. They did everything they could but cut top line revenue, but that finally started in fall of 2024 and has continued. Their margins continue to compress. The concessions of rate buy downs and other hidden incentives don’t show up on appraisals but they are a hidden price cut on top of the top line price cut.
This puts pressure on resales, particularly in markets where a lot of builder activity is happening. Builders have to sell, and they do it by offering it at prices and with other incentives (including rate buy downs) to make them move.
Resale inventory continues to flood the market but much of it is still at prices that are unrealistic with the actual market. We saw something very similar in 2008 and 2009. Resale signs flooded the market when the rocket ran out of fuel but many from sellers who weren’t willing to accept reality.
DOM extends because many sellers aren’t realistic and prices aren’t where they need to be for healthy levels of affordability, and because fewer buyers exist today at current price-to-income in a normalized rate environment.
There has been the persistent narrative that housing is under supplied in the U.S., which technically is true, but the more accurate assessment is there is a shortage of homes that a material mass of people can afford.
Tertiary markets are a great example of this. During the COVID distortions, prices kept rising in tertiary markets. Builders kept building and raising prices. The homes didn’t change. They were still “affordable” homes in terms of quality, and artificially low rates made them seem like they were still affordable. But they were selling a Kia Soul for Lexus prices. Now that the market has been correcting, those Kia Soul’s are selling for Toyota Camry prices. These are ‘drive till you qualify’ markets. Those prices still don’t work. Yet thousands of homes hit a given market at Lexus and Toyota prices. There is plenty of inventory but not at the price that a critical mass of tertiary buyers can afford. Those buyers need the Kia Soul price for the Kia Soul house/location.
This is true for many core markets as well. Rising inventories is not because of “high rates”, it’s a confluence of factors that affect consumer confidence including the War in Iran (this year), trade war (last year), and a softening job market, but underlying all of it is the housing market remains distorted specifically with affordability.
This resolves on a fundamental level with prices coming down, incomes going up, or some combination of the two.
What’s easy to forget is housing is a slow moving train wreck. The current correct began in 2024. Price discovery happens painfully slow because of transaction latency. Real estate transaction cycles are 30-60 days from contract to close. The annual cycle also plays a part where volume spikes in the spring and summer then drops during fall and winter. This delays dissemination of pricing information.
If lending freezes again like it did in summer of 2007 and again in summer of 2008, we are in a world of hurt – that could occur this time as a result of commercial real estate fragility.
Otherwise, expect more of this malaise for another 2 annual cycles for prices to clear, and affordability to realign.
That’s also assuming no other macro distributions.
Amazing and informative comment. Thank you.
7-8 years ago I built a small house for an elderly friend who had been evicted from a place he was told he could live out his days. I already had the land, and lots of surplus materials from other jobs. I built it myself (carpenter here) with the largest expense being the hydro service hookup, but that was also done for just materials including a new pole and transformer. I even had a surplus 200 A panel. Went underground to the panel. A friend who managed a commercial building supply yard provided much at cost as a community gesture for the old guy who would eventually live there. Total cost to build $40K maximum, all in, labour free. When I went to insure it they valued it at $300K, but in fact all I wanted was $100K in case it burned down and the land needed restoring. 640 sq feet and they would not offer a policy for anything less than $300K. My only option was to stay uninsured but then I would be on the hook for possible liability.
That is what it costs to build new, (the insured amount) and that is what insurance companies insist on providing coverage for. Even with deals on materials, $300 per sq foot is at the low end. Simple math, a 1500 sq foot starter costs $450K to build……most of the time unless some funny financing stuff is going on.
If I was starting out I would not even think of buying new, rather, would buy a fixer upper and make sweat equity over time. Hire a carpenter to look at the house and offer advice (an evening cashie job). Double check the electrical. Make notes and take pics. Stay away from home appraisal companies if at all possible and pick an area where zoning restrictions and the inspection regime is realistic. Have a plan, a budget, a checklist, and don’t buy with emotion. I read somewhere most home buyers spend less time considering their house purchase than they spend buying a new shirt.
It isn’t hard to rehab a house provided the bones are sound. If you have a realistic plan, and some time/energy, you can save a lot. If you don’t, someone will benefit at your expense. I believe that is the secret of affordability for regular working folks.
I have inspected many homes for friends over the years and they always got their mortgage. I always got my mortgage. Had the checklist and the plan. Did this two times and became mortgage free in my 40s. Over the years I confronted a few RE agents who tried to BS people into buying ‘the market’….. something/anything. The last one was after I inspected a house my daughter was going to buy. I phoned the agent at home and told her she would have ruined my daughters life if they had gone ahead with her purchase recommendation, that she should be ashamed of herself. I now realise the agent knew nothing beyond the ‘market’.
That sounds like the insurance company is inflating it’s replacement cost in order to justify rate increases. Are carpenters and roofers ripping off insurance companies? If it really cost 300 a foot then Lennar would be losing money. But they are making a ton of money.
You can buy a new home 1000 sq ft for less than 200k in many parts of the country.
Solidly built new homes in our hood in the saintly part of the TPA bay area recently sold for $354/SF,,, which is also the SF rate for the older homes being bought to tear down.
Other new builds have gone for more before and it is clear because of no flood zone, etc. that this hood will continue to be favored to build new, and of course larger, homes going forward.
Let’s be clear, very very clear, that real estate is an almost totally ”’local” market,,, and even though the national and regional reporting is helpful, it is NOT now and never will be the best information for any specific location…
IOW, ya gotta do your own ”due diligence” and never ever believe—”anything you hear, and not much of what you see.”
Sorry for the typos.
Nationwide, 30% of the RE Appraisers have quit the profession. Reason, fee structure is fixed at rates that are 10 years old in the face of 36% inflation in the last 4 years alone, and regulations have dramatically increased. Most of the courses to renew certification have been cancelled because of a lack of attendees. The whole VA administrative structure has been decimated due to DOGE cuts. Musk set out to destroy the Federal Workforce and he succeeded. I’m still waiting for my tax refund. I sent in a paper return like I always do. They said they will not get to till June at the earliest.
Again, you should be filing your federal tax returns electronically as they are not only fast and secure but you get any refund nearly immediately.
Higher for longer rates and a frozen market sounds like a recipe for slow times in the RE Appraisal business. And flat pay through the inflationary ramp sounds painful. I guess the boom times never last forever.
Business is booming in the appraisal business but the pay is so low that you can’t make any money unless you work yourself to death. So we’re going to retire. Also the Veteran’s Administration branch that oversees residential appraisals has gotten so screwed up with DOGE and shutdowns, it’s become another disfunctional government agency.
Interesting, that’s counter intuitive but good to know. If transaction volume is depressed, what are the appraisals for? Or is it that there are so few appraisers left that its hard to handle the existing (albeit muted) volume.
Just got back from a bicycle ride around central Tucson. In 13.2 miles, I saw 21 “for sale” signs. That is a new record for this year.
The mix includes a lot of houses that have been for sale since last year, plus some new listings.
Methinks that these 21 houses are overpriced, but hey, that’s just me.
Will keep everyone posted on what I see during my rides.
thanks for the update.
You’re tough. I’m glad I no longer have to ride when it’s 100 degrees in the shade, but there’s no shade on a bike.