Switching Mortgage Companies? How to Keep Your Website, Reviews and Clients

When a loan officer switches mortgage companies, your NMLS ID goes with you, but anything built on your old company's website usually stays behind. The loan officers who keep their pipeline through a move are the ones who already own their domain, website, reviews and contact list before they give notice.

Moves are common. One industry hiring report counted 266 loan originators changing employers in a single week this summer. If you might be one of them in the next few years, here's how to protect what you've built.

What goes with you and what stays

Usually goes with you

• Your NMLS ID. Your unique ID stays the same for your whole career. When you change employers, your sponsorship moves to the new company, not your number.
• A domain registered in your name, and a website hosted on an account you control.
• Social profiles and reviews tied to you personally, not to a company account.
• Your reputation with agents and past clients. They remember your name, not your employer's.

Usually stays behind

• Your profile page on the company website, and its URL.
• Leads that came in through company forms or company-owned tools.
• Reviews posted to company-owned listings.
• Your CRM data, if your employment agreement says the company owns the database.

Before you give notice

1. Read your employment agreement. Look for non-solicitation, database ownership and marketing clauses. If anything is unclear, ask an employment attorney before you move.
2. Check who owns your domain. Log in to your registrar. If the domain is in your company's name or a vendor's, get it transferred into your own account while you still can.
3. Check where your site is hosted. A site built on your company's platform will go dark when your access ends.
4. Save what you're allowed to keep. Your personal contact list, your bio, your headshots, and copies of your reviews.
5. Line up your new site content. Draft the updated company name, NMLS details and licensed states so you can switch everything the day you start.

The week you move

Update NMLS first

Your old company ends the relationship, your new company requests sponsorship, and you accept it in NMLS. NMLS notes that your license status may be affected until your new employer submits the sponsorship request. Don't take applications until your new sponsorship is approved, since that would count as unlicensed activity.

Update every disclosure on your website

On every page, swap in:

• Your new company name and company NMLS ID
• Your licensed states, if they changed
• Your new application link and logo
• The Equal Housing statement your new company uses

The details on your site should match your NMLS Consumer Access record exactly. Then send the updated site to your new company's compliance team for approval before you promote it.

Update everywhere else

• Google Business Profile, if you have one
• LinkedIn headline and experience
• Email signature
• Social media bios
• Directory listings like Zillow

Telling past clients and agents

Only reach out after you've left, and only in ways your agreement allows. Keep it short: you've moved, here's how to reach you, nothing else changes about how you work.

Agents check your new affiliation on NMLS Consumer Access before they refer, so make sure it's current. The easiest thing you can give them is one link that never changes: your own website.

Pros and cons: your own website vs the company profile page

Your own website

• Pros: survives every move, builds search rankings on your own name, and lets you control your message and lead capture.
• Cons: costs money, needs company approval, and you have to update the disclosures each time you move.

Company profile page

• Pros: free, already approved, and nothing to maintain.
• Cons: disappears when you leave, looks like every other loan officer's page, and does little for search rankings on your name.

Bottom line

Build the site before you need it. If your website lives on a domain you own, switching companies means updating a few lines of disclosure, not rebuilding your online presence from scratch while your pipeline goes cold.

NA Web Services builds loan officer websites on your own domain, so they move when you do. We build it free, you approve it, then it's $79 a month with no contract. Get your free site preview or see how our loan officer websites work.