Area mortgage lenders association reoriented to help young homebuyers

While BRAC works to identify local employment opportunities for Capital Region graduates, the Greater Baton Rouge Mortgage Lenders Association says it wants to connect those same young people with residential growth that is sprouting in the area. “We’re going to try and reach out to a lot of young, local graduates and try and keep them here,” says Cristyn Hodges, the incoming 2013 president of the association. Hodges, a loan officer at Assurance Financial for nine years, says she wants to revamp the group by getting more young people involved in it and bringing together depository lenders and non-depository lenders in a collaborative working manner. “We have not done a good job of working together as a lending group,” says Hodges. The top mortgage originator at Assurance Financial says local lenders have not done enough to make lending easier for homebuyers as banks have tightened their lending restrictions over the past three years. Hodges says she plans to have influential leaders speak at the lenders association’s quarterly meetings about ways members can work together toward making the community more aware about the help it can get from the local association when seeking a mortgage. “You have to adapt to change,” Hodges says. —Adam Pearson