National mortgage lender adding more than 300 jobs in Cary after getting NC incentives

National mortgage lender PennyMac Financial Services will add 322 new jobs in Cary, after the state approved an incentive package for the company on Tuesday.

PennyMac will create the jobs in Cary by 2022, the N.C. Department of Commerce said.

To land the jobs, the state is giving the financial services company a Job Development Investment Grant worth around $1.9 million, a sum the company will only receive if it meets hiring targets set by the state.

The job expansion comes as the California-based company grows averse to creating new jobs in its home state, according to the Commerce Department.

Seeking cheaper markets to hire in

PennyMac, in order to cut costs on labor and other expenses, began searching last year for cheaper markets to hire in.

That led to the company exploring options in Tampa, Florida; Plano, Texas; and Phoenix, before ultimately choosing North Carolina.

PennyMac was already receiving incentives from those other states for opening offices in those cities. In fact, the company’s largest office outside of California is in Texas, where it employs 1,500 people.

Comparatively, the company’s existing presence in North Carolina is paltry, with around 42 people working from home in the state.

The Cary jobs will have a minimum average wage of $64,567. The positions will focus on mortgage fulfillment, and some of them will have a technology focus.

“What initially attracted PennyMac to this region was the diversity and talent that the city has to offer,” PennyMac President Doug Jones said in a statement. “We look forward to establishing a workforce in North Carolina that broadens our national footprint, brings new jobs to the community, and helps us reach our goal of becoming the industry’s best in customer service.”

PennyMac is expected to invest $4.3 million in the Cary office. The company plans to take on 35,000 square feet of space in the town.

Large mortgage aggregator

Founded in 2008, PennyMac is the largest mortgage aggregator in the country. Aggregators purchase loans originated by smaller institutions, and PennyMac purchased nearly $50 billion in loans last year, according to HousingWire.

PennyMac was started by former Countrywide Financial President Stanford Kurland and other Countrywide executives, The Wall Street Journal previously reported.

Countrywide was at one point the largest mortgage lender in the country, but was hit hard by defaults during the subprime mortgage crisis, The Los Angeles Times reported. Countrywide was eventually bought by Charlotte-based Bank of America in 2008, though that decision ended up haunting the bank. Its losses related to the transaction tallied more than $40 billion, NPR reported.

Kurland, who died this week from COVID-19 complications, founded the company after leaving Countrywide in 2006, setting the firm up to buy distressed mortgages and restructure them.

Later on, the company began originating its own mortgages and aggregating ones from smaller lenders.

This is the second mortgage lender that has received incentives from the state in the past month.

In December, Intercontinental Capital Group said it would add 500 jobs in Charlotte. In return, ICG could receive as much as $7.7 million in incentives from the state.

This story was originally published January 26, 2021 at 11:26 AM with the headline "National mortgage lender adding more than 300 jobs in Cary after getting NC incentives."