When it comes to attracting and retaining top loan originator talent in the era of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, it looks like independent shops may be the game to beat. One key issue now is whether depository institutions will step up to compete for the top talent in the mortgage space. “If we look back to 2008-2009, the brokers fled as quickly as they could to the independents, the depositories, just everywhere they could, to be able to operate and manage their business,” Drew Waterhouse, managing director of Hammerhouse LLC, said during an Inside Mortgage Finance webinar late last week. As the playing field has become more level with all the different regulations that have been brought to bear since then, “you see...