Manager, Real Estate Secured Lending Acquisition

The Manager, Real Estate Secured Lending Acquisition supports the development, enhancement, and execution of acquisition strategies that drive high‑quality growth across the Real Estate Secured Lending (RESL) portfolio. This role combines hands‑on analytical work, credit judgment, and cross‑functional collaboration to strengthen underwriting effectiveness, improve customer experience, and maintain growth within the bank’s risk appetite.

Working closely with Product, Risk, Analytics, Technology, and Operations partners, the Manager helps translate credit and collateral insights into executable strategy components, contributes to decision‑logic development, monitors performance of new originations, and supports continuous improvement of acquisition tools, models, and processes.

Key Responsibilities

Acquisition Strategy Support & Execution

• Contribute to the design and implementation of end‑to‑end acquisition strategies, including underwriting criteria, pricing logic, risk segmentation, treatment rules, and automation pathways.

• Assist in building and refining decision‑engine logic (decision trees, rule sets, optimization parameters) to differentiate risk and streamline approval‑to‑funding workflows.

• Support strategy enhancements that consider emerging trends such as interest‑rate shifts, housing market dynamics, competitor actions, regulatory updates, and customer demand patterns.

Credit & Collateral Risk Integration

• Apply secured‑lending risk tools—including credit scores, automated valuation models (AVMs), collateral risk tiers, and early‑warning indicators—into acquisition decision paths under guidance from senior strategy leaders.

• Evaluate borrower and collateral risk trade‑offs to ensure strategies maintain alignment with credit policy, housing‑market conditions, and portfolio objectives.

Analytical Insights & Optimization

• Conduct analyses to identify opportunities to improve risk differentiation, funnel efficiency, pricing effectiveness, and booking quality.

• Support development of enhanced segmentation approaches, underwriting logic improvements, and automation opportunities that improve approval quality and customer experience.

• Prepare analytical summaries and recommendations to support strategy refresh cycles.

Champion–Challenger Testing

• Support structured test‑and‑learn initiatives for alternative offers, underwriting pathways, automation logic, documentation requirements, and referral triggers.

• Measure impacts on approval rates, booked yield, funding quality, customer experience, and early performance of new originations.

• Document test design, tracking, results, and recommendations for scale‑up.

Technology, Deployment & Operational Partnership

• Partner with Technology and Analytics teams to convert strategy designs into deployable decision rules, ensuring accuracy, feasibility, and alignment with governance standards.

• Participate in system testing (UAT), validation, and change‑management activities to ensure strategy changes deploy smoothly.

• Support operational process mapping and documentation to enable effective implementation across underwriting and fulfillment teams.

Portfolio Monitoring of New Originations

• Monitor acquisition funnel metrics—application mix, approval quality, funding ratios, turnaround times, documentation exceptions, collateral trends, and competitive dynamics.

• Identify performance deviations and surface insights that support near‑term strategy refinements.

• Prepare regular reporting packages for senior leaders summarizing funnel performance and market shifts.

Governance, Compliance & Policy Alignment

• Ensure acquisition strategies and changes comply with credit policy, mortgage regulatory requirements, risk‑rating standards, consumer‑protection guidelines, and model‑governance principles.

• Maintain high‑quality documentation, including strategy logic, metric definitions, test materials, and change‑control artifacts.

• Support audit, model‑validation, and regulatory review activities as required.

Qualifications & Experience

Required

• 3 to 5+ years of experience in Real Estate Secured Lending, mortgage underwriting, credit strategy, originations, or acquisition‑focused risk management.

• Strong foundational understanding of mortgage underwriting principles, borrower risk assessment, collateral valuation, and secured‑lending regulatory frameworks.

• Experience using or interpreting models such as credit scores, AVMs, pricing/segmentation models, or early‑warning indicators.

• Working proficiency with decision engines, rule‑based decisioning, or decision‑tree platforms (e.g., SAS, FICO, or equivalent).

• Demonstrated ability to conduct analytics and translate insights into strategy recommendations or operational improvements.

• Strong communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to work effectively across Product, Risk, Technology, and Operations.

Preferred

• Experience supporting strategy execution, rule development, or system deployment within a mortgage/secured‑lending context.

• Exposure to test‑and‑learn frameworks or champion–challenger experimentation.

• Familiarity with MIS, funnel analytics, credit decisioning systems, or originations platforms.