Synergy One's CEO on the Draper & Kramer branches that spurned NAF

February 13, 2024 4:00 AM

Synergy One Lending's strategy for 2024 is to grow its market share.

So when the opportunity appeared to absorb 11 former Draper and Kramer Mortgage branches that did not want to make the transition to New American Funding, Synergy One jumped at the opportunity to take them in. NAF announced on Feb. 1 that it bought the operations and staff from Chicago-based Draper and Kramer Mortgage, which according to its website has 60 branch locations and 450 employees nationally.

The branches joining Synergy One are currently being onboarded, but the process has been fairly easy because of a "similar tech stack and culture," CEO Steve Majerus told National Mortgage News.

"We're trying to be very sensitive to our new teammates, who weren't looking to make a move to begin with," said Majerus. "Getting them onboard and onto our systems has been a full-court-press by all of our support teams to make sure that the experience is as effective and less turbulent as possible."

Incorporating these branches has expanded Synergy One's footprint into Ohio, Alabama, Texas, and Louisiana. As of Feb. 9, Synergy has a little over 200 sponsored loan officers, per the National Mortgage Licensing System.

Majerus says this is just the first phase of the mortgage shop's plans to grow.

"We think that we can grow in an outsized way relative to the rest of the market," he added.

National Mortgage news caught up with Majerus to discuss how the 11 branches came over, how this expansion benefits Synergy One and what its future plans are for expansion.

How did the deal to onboard 11 former Draper and Kramer branches come to fruition?

Personal connections resulted in the initial introduction to us.

Once we got that introduction, given that it was very time sensitive for them to have to make decisions, we were able to really rally around the opportunity to talk to Lorna Davis, [former senior vice president of business development at Draper and Kramer], who was the leader of that group that eventually came over. We've onboarded those 11 branches, trying to be very, very sensitive to our new teammates, since in their last company they weren't looking to make a move.

I think that the fact that Aaron Nemec, our president, and Eric Colby, our head of growth, were able to connect with Lorna so quickly and be able to coalesce around what was important to be successful in the business today, really was the catalyst for us to be able to bring this to fruition quickly.

There is an alignment of culture around a combination of technology and people, which are important components for a unique value proposition in the marketplace.

Markets like these are very hard on people. When a company exits the business like that, in a completely unexpected way, it can really make people feel very squishy about their prospects for the future. But we're very fortunate that we were able to connect with them when they did when we did and, and put this together for everybody.

How many former Draper and Kramer employees come over? How does this union benefit Synergy One?

We have somewhere between 65 and 70 new teammates that have joined us. Part of what was attractive about this opportunity, besides all of the great talent, was the geographic footprint in which they operate was very complementary to ours. We had no existing footprint in those markets. These groups are located in Ohio, Alabama, Texas, and Louisiana….we have a footprint in Texas, but the other states are new for us and growing our presence in Texas was attractive for us as well.

As we assess other opportunities [growing our reach] is something that we'll be looking for. We're very open to adding footprint and talent, whether that be recruiting opportunities, which is a big initiative of ours as we've pivoted to 2024. And whether it be talent acquisition, like we're able to do with Lorna and her team, or company acquisitions. We're certainly open to either way, but growth is certainly one of our top priorities going into the year.

What are you looking at in the mortgage market right now that's making you feel confident that this is the time to hire more folks and to expand your footprint as a company?

We had thought a couple of months ago that as a company we weathered a majority of the storm that came our way as a result of the interest rate cycle over the last couple of years, and that we're close enough to the end of that, so we saw a path this year, and going forward, that it was time for us to be much more aggressive.

Given our liquidity and balance sheet, we thought that while the market has consolidated in so many ways, over the past couple of years, that we had gotten our cost structure in line, so that we can now start to leverage those changes, and attract additional talent. We think that we can grow in an outsized way relative to the rest of the market.

Where are you looking to expand the company’s footprint?

If you look at our existing footprint, it is mostly Rockies and the West. We don't cover everything in terms of the opportunities in that area, but that's where we've been historically. We do think that in the Southeast, and up the eastern seaboard, as well as other parts in the Midwest, which is our first foray into that area with the Draper and Kramer team. We think there's a substantial amount of opportunity in all of those markets that I highlighted, that we'll certainly be looking at.