Layoffs started in 2007
App calls stop coming in to 90% of the company
Hiring Freeze
David Hall fired.
Fed cuts rates lowest in years.
More Layoffs
Opps people let go due to low demand
More layoffs
Troy office closed
A presidents club banker is let go because he questions leadership in his company after 10 years of service
An RVP is demoted back to banker due to worker confrontation twice in very little time. Not his first time touching a fellow co-worker
6-18-Mortgage applications lowest in 9 monts as interest rates rise on inflation and value of dollar fears continue to rise
6-19 400 people at Quicken Loans let go.
10 year yield closes at the highest since I started with the company over a year ago 4.21
July 1 a legend at the company (he once made 1 mil writing loans) will resign from the company.
First off I have worked in behind the scenes finance for years before coming to QL. Hell I was second in comand of over 160 million in automotive budgets while i was still in college. My contract ended and I pursued the family business after college and was bored and wanted some sales expierence. All I ever heard on the radio was David Hall and Rock Financial. Hell I was at the Palace when the pistons won in 04 and seen nothing but Rock Financial. So I interviewed with Rock and took the job. I hated mortgages thought they needed to be in the hands of professionals and thought they would train me to do just that. I graduated top of everyone else mostly because I was smarter than everyone in the room including the trainers. My degree was in finance and economics figuring out a mortgage rate is easy.
Upon graduation I walked onto the floor with 3 loans already in process and one closing just 9 days after graduation. 200k pmi buster with 1 pt green under rock pay yea it was good. Then we were forced onto quicken side. Heard stories about those phone nazis and how hard they had to close day in and day out. Because I was the last rock triaining class I closed nicely and very class. I got the hang of it rather quickly and earned the final free trip to puerto rico and had a blast.in the meantime i was always watching the news and seeing how housing was falling apart and qualifications becoming a little bit more strict. Soon i was asking my trainer why in the world were we hiring so many people when we had more than enough. She said some stupid answer and I laughed at her and told her that she was wrong and basic business will tell us that having a larger supply of a product than demand is a recipe for disaster.
Cut to July. I earned another reveune coin but was enjoying a trip to nashville, tn to see the loaners on the company's time and bill and had fun. Then when i returned home I seen a lot of people were up set with the meeting about how more letters were going out and how we need more effort. I laughed and started noticing more bullshit inspirational emails coming instead of other things.
I was on my way to sr. Banker in just 8 months with a nice 4 mil pipeline fulll of secure advantages and jumbo loans. Then one day everything was gone people were flipping out. I made only calls to my clients telling them I could no longer do their loan because no one would buy it after we closed it and then is when i realixzed we were no longer a direct lender but the nations largest mortgage broker with the best technology kids keeping the companies profit very high. I had it after that because I bitched all the time that our rates are higher than everyone elses and bitched to my Director of why aren't we able to see the real profit on this loan and how come no one ask questions about the spending around here and how come since i started i've only seen dan gilbert and the bozo with the ceo title once. Then it all came to me. I was in a place where the bankers were the joke but needed us to keep the company going. I left a couple of months later when my director decided to go back to banking. What a joke i strived to be a director and he was going backwards. I watched a lot of people sign those letters and told them they were stupid and they should not sign it and just work and if they're fired oh well you learned how to close.
I was looked upon in our region as a guy who understood it all. I emailed bill banfield and bob walters on questions about the markets and pushed them to detail their answers because I noticed from 1987 to the present housing had grown at an alarming rate and values had grown faster than people could really afford them. It was a bubble and I called them out on it and they actually agreed that we could see devaluation in housing. See when banks needed to improve their bottom line in the mid 90s they didn't have many answers. Housing was one. They started to lower qualifications and no money down was the norm. Then wall st. Stepped in and started buying and selling peoples lives like they were shares of Budweiser. Total joke and when money is being made people want more and more and prices get driven up and then you create the demand. The demand increases at an alarming rate and you need more people to take the phone calls. Thats where QL and brokers come in. Banks want money not the headache that comes with it. So they allowed more brokers to get their loans and they would buy them. The banks to them had little or no risk. They didn't have to pay for the infastructure or the salaries or the taxes. They just needed to pay an account rep to educate them on how to make more money. Now that the demand is gone banks are still here but they didn't have the massive layoffs that mortgage companies had. Today 6-19 Quicken Loans just let go of about 400 people. See a company is not invincible to markets. It's ecnonmics. Supply and demand. If Quicken Loans were the Pablo Escobar of mortgages they still would miss out of at least 20% of the market. Fact is their branding was done all wrong. I live in Austin, TX now and people have no idea who they are. Why would a company want to miss out on the fastest growing city in the United States? If soda consumption dropped 40% do you think coca cola would hire more people or lay off more people and build a better business plan to leverage their capital on another product. You have to think logically. Keep it simple.
See I understand all this and that is why I had president club bankers ask me what rates where going to do. I on many ocassions warned my team to lock loans as i seen rates could go higher and told many people before they left on other teams to lock your pipeline. As more and more loans were not closing you could see it all falling apart. They stopped hiring, no more trips to win. Very little promotions, directors weren't treating their bankers to drinks after work because they didn't have that extra money coming in. RVPS said the same thing over and over.
It was a joke. It's like when you best friend is an alcholic and you do nothing but you are the one person that can change his thinking instead of confronting the problem you tell him it's ok and it's gonna be great lets have another drink. Wake up. Why didn't dan or bozo own up and say yes we are going to let go of a lot of bankers and yes we will do it the right way. Because our business model that we built has blown up and we have no plan for what is happening. Quicken Loans thought they were different from banks because their structure and culture were different and that could weather the storm. But the fact is banks are captilists and they have boards and advisors look after thier company. Quicken Loans are not capitists they are socialism and i was working for the dicator and he was untoucable and didn't have to answer to anyone becasue he was the owner but lives were being wrecked day in and day out and the first thing you learn about ethics in business is you leaders of the company have fiduciary duties to uphold and they did not do those. We call that today napoleonism.
I left the first week of december and everyone said goodbye and i left graciously and certain presidents club bankers said it was a good decision to leave and i'll be able to help more people with my knowledge and passion. See i tried to transfer to capital markets and was turned down by farner on the only basis he could come up with. My sales weren't there. Well duh i have no passion for sales anymore i want to work where my true passion is. Analysis. My director, my regional trainer and rvp all allowed the transfer and i had letters from presidents club bankers expressing that i would be of great value to the company if i transfered to capital markets. Still no. That's when numbers and money lead and do not follow.
Since I left there was a miny refi boom but could not help the company. I learned alot from QL and still have my isms in my desk at home and look at them everyonce in a while and wish that the company would use them more today than when they made them up. They company had allstars leave the company that were so upset that they had to leave because they genuiley cared. A great friend of mine still works there and he busts his ass and I'm proud of him because he's good at what he does. If he were there 2 years earlier he would be making 150k instead of topping out at 50 and he prolly works more hours now than he would have to.
As for me I am glad i got the chance to work there when i did. I enjoyed the fruits of my labor and learned more about business through my questions and always looking for answers. I made a lot friends that grew as things went bad. I wouldn't change a thing actually because the culture has grown toxic and it was put there by the very people who swore to make it pure.
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