NAR challenges not alarming to everyone

Not all brokers are alarmed

While some of her counterparts are dismayed by the scrutiny, California-based broker Paige Hernandez (pictured), of Heritage MTG, takes a more philosophical stance: “This is business,” she told MPA succinctly. “Business is never fair.”

Beyond that, Hernandez said she welcomes the scrutiny resulting from the litigation, suggesting it was a healthy process to keep the system honest. “Our industry should be scrutinized, and a lot,” she said. “It keeps people honest and has the potential of bringing about a better way of doing business.”

In her long career in the mortgage industry – including having lived through the Great Recession of 2008 – Hernandez has worked in the fast-paced corporate world through to the family business where she works today.

She cut her teeth in the business in 2006 while working as a wholesale account executive for lender Impac Mortgage Holdings Inc. before embarking on a string of jobs at a veritable who’s who of wholesale lenders – Nation Direct Mortgage, Trust One Mortgage Corp., Stearns Lending LLC and others – before joining the family-run business her mother had launched.

She suggested that sense of community may help inform her stance on the scrutiny now being placed on long-held practices. While she sees nothing inherently wrong with the commission-sharing template, she noted the industry’s constant evolution could yield change.