Inside Pennymac’s Texas expansion and its push for top mortgage talent

Pennymac cut the ribbon on a new facility in Carrollton, Texas, on Friday, which will become the company’s largest corporate office, eventually housing more than 1,800 employees. The move consolidates two offices in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex while also giving the company room to grow. Pennymac is taking full advantage of the bigger space, actively hiring for more than 200 roles right now.

Pennymac Chairman and CEO David Spector sat down with HousingWire to talk about the company’s growth and how he’s attracting top mortgage talent. Spector also explains how Pennymac decided to become the first-of-its-kind Official Mortgage Supporter of Team USA and the LA28 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Top mortgage talent

Sarah Wheeler: When it comes to mortgage talent, we’re in an interesting space where the industry as a whole has shed so many jobs. So the people who are left would seem to be the most desirable talent. How did this factor into opening this office and why is the Dallas/Fort Worth area specifically good for mortgage talent?

David Spector: The industry went through a really unfortunate shedding process post-COVID. And now the industry — post the COVID consolidation of just right sizing — is now going through its own consolidation. And I think there’s a lot of mortgage talent that’s going to come out of that consolidation so the ability to attract that talent while we’re in growth mode is really front and center of my mind.

From a company perspective, we have done a phenomenal job in terms of positioning ourselves to continue to grow while others are distracted. We’re the No. 1 correspondent aggregator and we’re going to continue to be that and we’re growing in broker — we’ll be at 10% market share by the end of 2026 and so that’s going to require us growing the organization from a talent standpoint.

We need to start growing and nurturing the next generation of mortgage talent. And there’s no doubt that the Dallas area is a great place to attract talent from across the country. It’s in a business-friendly state and the ability to live off of the salary that we pay here is a little bit easier than Southern California. And so we are looking to hire young talent and they can grow with the company.

In addition to hiring people, we’re investing a lot in AI and technology, but we need people for that as well. On the servicing side, our servicing portfolio is over $750 billion, and that’s only going to continue to grow. We’re going to have servicing people in the Dallas Fort Worth area and in Southern California and so we’ll have two main servicing centers, which is really important.

And then our Consumer Direct channel, which does over $2 billion a month in originations, really coming out of our own servicing portfolio, having our call center teams here as well and growing that in this area is really exciting to me.

The servicing advantage

SW: It seems that servicers have such an advantage over everybody else, because you know your customer so well, and they are right there — you can, talk to them.

DS: You’re spot-on with the advantage we have as a servicer. But I would also say that we are really unique in the industry in the fact that we developed our own proprietary servicing technology, and out of that, we’ve been able to drive down our servicing costs by 50% while giving borrowers agency.

What’s really important is that the borrower has the ability to self-serve. When borrowers are in distress, they are able to get to what they need within our servicing center in a respectful, quick fashion. That is what the real competitive advantage is for us, and then out of that, you become a trusted advisor.

Keeping humans in the loop

SW: You talked about AI and the talent you need for that. How does that inform your perspective on hiring?  

DS: We’re not coming to work every day to just hold steady state. We have an investor base that has given us capital, that wants to continue to get the mid-teen returns that we’ve been delivering them. And AI is going to allow us to do more over the next five to 10 years.

We just introduced a new loan origination software with a company called Vesta, and we had to work quickly to adapt that technology to our system. And that’s, to me, a great use case of how you find modern technology that you can quickly adapt, that you bring onto your platform to better serve your customers. But you still need people to do that, and you need mortgage talent.

I can never have enough mortgage talent in the company. Even when we were reducing headcount, we hired some key people, and so that’s really important to us. AI and technology are going to allow us to grow faster, safer and most importantly, it’s going to be a better customer experience.

SW: What does Pennymac provide that’s important to top mortgage talent?

DS: It starts with the culture. As a company we’ve always first and foremost prided ourselves on being accountable, reliable and ethical. We talk about “Greatness lives here” and I don’t think about that as greatness versus the competition. I view that as bringing out the greatness in ourselves — constantly challenging ourselves — and being a part of something great.

That also ties into our partnership with the Olympics and the Paralympics — we are the official mortgage supporter of the 2026 and 2028 U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Teams, and proud supporter of Team USA and the LA28 Games. And the partnership has just been tremendous.

Being connected with something as elite as the Olympics is something that really connects with me because Pennymac is known for being the best at mortgage. The partnership is a great way to help the brand and as we’re growing in our production divisions, it’s really meaningful. It reflects Pennymac’s values and mission, while championing excellence, respect and unity — aligning with our dedication to exceptional customer service and industry leadership.

David Spector will be a featured speaker at HousingWire’s The Gathering on April 27-30.