Less than a month after Wyndham Capital Mortgage said it planned to pink slip more than 40 employees, the consumer direct lender conducted another round of layoffs.
Wyndham notified “a number of employees” about the layoffs Thursday, including those working in the Charlotte, North Carolina headquarters, and employees who work remotely, according to a layoff notification letter sent to a former employee via email. Employment will be terminated effective Sept. 1.
“This one felt different because they laid off all the top producers,” said an employee who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “If you’re trying to grow, you wouldn’t be laying off those employees.”
A manager who wasn’t affected by the layoff said more than 50 positions were eliminated, a number HousingWire was unable to independently confirm. Wyndham did not respond to requests for comment and no Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) was filed with the North Carolina Department of Commerce.
Affected positions include processors, closing managers and coordinators and priority purchase specialists who were with Wyndham for at least one year to more than six years, according to LinkedIn posts from former employees.
The higher rate mortgage environment forced the lender to issue at least two rounds of pink slips to employees this year, but an additional round of layoffs in less than a month caught one of the affected workers off guard.
“After the last (layoff round), the owner got on a call with everybody and said he felt like that was the last one and we were in a good position. So this was kind of a shock to me,” said an employee affected by Thursday’s layoffs.
In early June, Wyndham filed a WARN notice with the North Carolina Department of Commerce saying it would lay off 48 employees beginning Aug. 1. A total of 38 workers who lost their jobs worked out of the North Carolina headquarters or hybrid in North Carolina and South Carolina, and 10 were fully remote employees.
Earlier this year, the lender also issued pink slips for nearly three dozen loan officers at its offices in Dallas; Charlotte, North Carolina; Salt Lake City; Kansas City, Kansas; and Phoenix. While confirming those earlier layoffs, Wyndham CEO and founder Jeff Douglas said the company is “well-positioned and continues making investments to compete in a purchase market.”
Founded in 2001, Douglas positioned the company as a fintech-focused mortgage lender, and actively expanded during the refi boom. The company opened two hubs in Dallas and Phoenix and operated from a total of five offices. It also launched a retail division in July 2021 and hired former Citi executive Karen Mayfield in August to lead the national effort.
However, one former employee said those hired during the refi boom were laid off as mortgage rates started climbing.
“When the refi boom happened, they hired so many outside processors for the refinances and they laid off all those people. They knew that was going to happen,” according to the former employee.
Wyndham claims its proprietary software system allows the company to close loans 20% faster than the national average. The lender originates in 47 states and Washington, D.C., both conventional and Ginnie Mae-backed loans. The company says it has funded more than 20,000 loans, representing several billion dollars in loan volume.
Other nonbank lenders, Pennymac, Mr. Cooper, loanDepot, Guaranteed Rate, Fairway Independent Mortgage, Interfirst Mortgage Co., Movement Mortgage, New Rez/Caliber, First Guaranty Mortgage Corporation and Better.com, all have conducted at least one round of workforce reductions this year, and additional staff eliminations are expected to continue as volume falls.
