Liberty Mortgage picks up eight Brown and Wagner employees

Several loan officers previously employed by Brown and Wagner Mortgage Inc. are now employees of Liberty Mortgage, a division of Springfield-based Liberty Bank.

Liberty Mortgage President Michael Frerking said the bank's residential lending arm recently hired six loan officers and two support staff members from Brown and Wagner, which has ceased operations. Co-owners Bruce Brown and Steve Wagner, who co-founded the brokerage in 2000, are among the officers who transferred to Liberty Mortgage, Frerking said.

"I believe that Bruce and Steve saw the tremendous opportunity to join a larger, well-established regional bank that offers more products, better rates and resources that will enable them to grow their business as loan officers in this ever changing and challenging market for mortgage loans," Frerking said in an e-mail.

Brown and Wagner obtained an $800,000 U.S. Small Business Administration loan through Liberty Bank in 2007, according to Springfield Business Journal research.

According to Brown and Wagner's Web site, the now-defunct business employed a total of nine loan officers, not counting the owners, who could not be reached for comment.

With the addition of Brown and Wagner's employees, Liberty Mortgage now has 15 loan officers plus four processors, said Frerking, who noted that the refinancing frenzy is creating plenty of work for the merged staff. Liberty Mortgage also is anticipating more loan volume from new purchases as home sales in the Springfield market pick up following a dismal start in 2009.

Recent data from the Greater Springfield Board of Realtors showed the average home sale price for the first quarter of this year was $133,000, up 2.3 percent from fourth-quarter 2008. On the whole, however, home sales were down 11 percent during the same period.

For the time being, Brown and Wagner staff members retained by Liberty Mortgage are still working out of the former Brown and Wagner office suite at 1525 E. Republic Road in Kensington Place business condos. Frerking said those employees would eventually move to Liberty's branch at 4625 S. National Ave.See SBJ's June 8 issue for more about how smaller mortgage brokers are responding to industrywide challenges.