Many of us have gone through this straight forward or sometimes a frustrating routine in terms of applying for a mortgage at a bank or through a mortgage broker. The days of asking for a lot of information upfront to see if you even qualify for one are long gone.
Once your application is submitted, a mortgage underwriter scrutinizes if your application meets all the regulatory compliance requirements and makes a yes or no decision, and sends it to the loan committee.
How does one go about finding a mortgage underwriter from a TA perspective?
US has a mortgage underwriter association called NAMU that also gives access to professionals to obtain a certification called “Certified Mortgage Underwriter” (CMU) or “ Certified Master Mortgage Underwriter” (CMMU)
There is a directory search that you can explore but is limited to searches by name and a sample search does not bring any further information other than the full name, active membership date, the expiry date of membership, and sometimes a photograph of the individual.
While browsing the website, I came upon the salary guide for a mortgage underwriter.
Other options to explore:
You can also do a site search of Sydex like this site:sydex.net “mortgage underwriter” Boston
Linkedin groups are another useful avenue to look at:
NAMU has a Linkedin group with around 3,000 members and it can be queried easily as:
site:www.linkedin.com/in “national association of mortgage underwriters” “greater boston” (Google)
site:www.linkedin.com/in “national association of mortgage underwriters” “greater boston” (Bing provides a just little more results than Google)
America’s Mortgage Underwriters Group is pretty rich with close to 15,000 members and can be similarly queried as well.
site:www.linkedin.com/in “America’s Mortgage underwriters group” “greater boston”
In the US, there is another class of underwriters called “DE” underwriters” which has direct endorsement certification from HUD allowing an individual to underwrite and approve loans that are insured by the Federal Housing Administration.
A simple query like this site:instagram.com (“mortgage underwriter”) -jobs -posts -inurl:company -secrets can uncover many more leads.
From a Canadian Perspective:
Any mortgage underwriter in Canada would need to have a solid knowledge of updated policies of CMHC, Genworth (now called Sagen), and Canada Guaranty (mortgage insurance providers in the country) along with B20, AML, ATF.
Look up the Canadian Bankers Association members and Canadian Credit Union Association members (individual companies) and you can cherry-pick the companies you wish to source the mortgage underwriters from.
site:facebook.com “profile photo” “mortgage underwriter” toronto
Tripwires
Other than residential mortgage lending, Underwriting is a process used in multiple areas like insurance, reinsurance, auto loans, investment banking, etc. If you utilize just the keyword of underwriter, you would end up with a lot of irrelevant results.
I hope you found these tips helpful and that they will lead to successful searches if you are ever tasked with finding mortgage underwriters.