Where do you live that it's "not rare" for the loan officer of a suburban bank originating mortgages to be making north of a quarter million dollars?
Its the same with real estate agents, a good one can be very wealthy. Some LOs hit annual comp > $1M, though that is rare. I found it pretty shocking when I first found this out.
Send me an email if you want to make the market more efficient, I'm working to build a modern mortgage bank :)