The biggest difference between lenders and real estate agents, is that a real estate agent is limited to doing business in the place where they live, while a lender is not.  Real estate agents can be licensed in more than one area, but logistically it is very difficult to travel back and forth from state-to-state to complete sales.  A real estate agent's job requires them to handle business in person, while a lender's can handle all of their business via phone, email and fax. 

Lenders are not required to live in the place where they are licensed. In most cases, as long as the broker is licensed in a specific state, all of their loan officers can complete loans in that state.  One major transformation occurring in the mortgage trade right now, is that states are requiring that each loan officer get their individual license in a state. This cuts way down on out-of-staters working loans, which, in theory, should cut down on fraud.  Loan agents are not happy about this, but after the meltdown, things became a lot more consumer-centric and far less bank-centric