Lower continues to make moves designed to support its expansion efforts, hiring former Waterstone Mortgage regional vice president Dustin Owen as its new divisional sales leader and senior vice president of growth.
Owen, who is based in the Orlando area, spent the past 16 years at Waterstone, most recently as its vice president of Eastern division sales. In joining Lower, he will report to chief production officer Randell Gillespie to execute plans for “transforming the modern mortgage experience for consumers and industry professionals,“ according to a company statement.
Owen is the founder and host of “The Loan Officer Podcast,” which tallied more than 1 million downloads in 2022. He helped to grow Waterstone’s presence in the Southeast from five employees and $40 million per year in production volume to more than 100 employees with annual originations topping $1 billion.
In an interview with HousingWire, Owen said he’ll be doing something similar but on an even bigger scale. He’ll be tasked with recruiting regional and branch managers to produce $2 billion in annual production volume, and he’s not bringing over his team from Waterstone.
“I spent 16 years at one company. It was going to take something special for me to leave,” he said. “Waterstone is boutique and elite at what they do. But when I look at the future of mortgage lending, I do believe our industry is going the way of the banking industry. There will be the top 10 and then everybody else.”
Owen said Lower’s combination of ambition, its capitalization level (which includes $100 million in venture capital funding), technology platform and heavily engaged founders could help propel it from $7 billion a year to $70 billion a year in the next five years. The lender hopes to marry online and offline lead generation to boost its volume.
“We are dedicated to our vision to becoming a top five lender in the nation — a large part of which is focused on adding key team members like Dustin to our growing team,“ Lower CEO Dan Snyder said in a statement. “Professionals like him are the ones who will build the future of mortgage. His energy and influence are so infectious and that was apparent from the first meeting.“
“We are continuing to build our legacy by adding great people to the Lower platform,“ Gillespie added. “Dustin’s personal brand for exceptional professionalism and leadership is a perfect fit for the Lower vision as the future of home lending.”
The Columbus, Ohio-based digital multichannel lender made a splash at the end of June when it hired former CrossCountry Mortgage executive Craig Montgomery as its chief strategy officer. It’s also brought in Amir Syed, a former Rate SVP of residential lending, as head of growth.
That move followed a pair of acquisitions late last year as Texas-based Thrive Mortgage merged with Lower in December and Denver-based Universal Lending merged in November. Snyder previously told HousingWire that Lower plans to remain active in the mergers-and-acquisitions space and is willing to pay a premium to acquire the right company.
Owen said that Lower is planning to execute a national rebranding campaign.
Editor’s note: This story was updated to correctly identify Dustin Owen’s previous role at Waterstone Mortgage.
