The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) nominated Laura Escobar, president of Lennar Mortgage to serve as vice chair for the 2023 membership year.
Her term will begin in October, in which she will be sworn in at the association’s 109th annual convention in Nashville, Tennessee, the MBA said Wednesday.
Escobar’s background will ensure members’ “commitment to advancing homeownership and affordable rental housing opportunities nationwide,” said Kristy Fercho, 2022 MBA chair and executive vice president and head of home lending at Wells Fargo.
She brings 35 years of experience in the real estate finance industry, holding leadership positions at both bank-owned and independent mortgage companies.
Since 2018, Escobar has been president of Lennar Mortgage, a subsidiary of homebuilding giant Lennar Corporation. Lennar Mortgage’s network includes more than 1,100 workers across 20 states. She joined Lennar Mortgage in 2002 as branch manager, was promoted to senior vice president managing the eastern region two years later, and became executive vice president in charge of operations and production of the company’s builder division in 2016.
Escobar joins the MBA leadership as the mortgage industry faces a challenging market following two pandemic-fueled boom years. Mortgage origination volume for 2022 is expected to fall about 40% to $2.4 trillion in 2022 from $4.0 trillion in 2021, according to the MBA’s projections this month. The drop is mainly driven by refis, which are expected to fall 69% to 730 billion this year. In 2023, the MBA forecasts refis origination volume to fall further to 546 billion.
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Escobar serves on multiple advisory boards and committees within the MBA, including the current board of directors. Escobar is a director on the board of the MBA Opens Doors Foundation, which provides mortgage and rental payment assistance grants to families across the country.
Outside of the organization, she is on committees at Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals (NAHREP), and the National Association of Minority Mortgage Bankers of America (NAMMBA).
Escobar was selected as a HousingWire Woman of Influence in 2020.
