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Barry Habib is exploring strategic options for Highway, according to preliminary marketing materials reviewed by The Mortgage Scoop.
“We are open for discussions,” he told The Scoop Sunday.
At the moment, Habib, who founded the mortgage intel platform in ‘12 & is on the board at Fannie Mae, said “nothing official” is happening. But he is “always open to going to market.”
The Scoop obtained a two-page “confidential overview” of the company that Habib said had been shared w/ prospective suitors. Such materials are typically prepared when a firm is prepping for a full or partial sale.
In today’s edition, we’ll share what a potential investor would be getting w/ Highway.
What's On Tap - May 4
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Life is a Highway 🛣 (Cont.)
Highway, which includes MBS Highway & real estate data & marketing platform List Reports (acquired in ‘22), has an owned monthly recurring revenue (MRR) of $2.63M, $7M in trailing 12 months EBITDA, boasts 20 of the top 25 mortgage lenders, has 26K LOs on the platform, near-zero churn, & 1M+ customers, per the materials.
They highlight a variety of growth opportunities for an investor: cross-selling and upselling LOs, an early/stage AI assistant (Miles), agent monetization (500K agents are largely unmonetized), proprietary data monetization, a growing consumer platform, & even expansion into new verticals. Subscribers of Highway pay $199 monthly or $1,999 annually.
In ‘20, Habib raised an undisclosed sum in an investment round led by PE firm Integrity Growth Partners. PE firms often eye exits in a 5-year timeframe.
Habib, a Mar-a-Lago member, was appointed to Fannie Mae’s board in July ‘25. FHFA Director Bill Pulte in the fall asked Habib to present him options on reduced LLPAs, though no action has been taken & the proposal was “targeted.”
Arguably the industry’s most prominent forecaster & pundit, Habib still regularly appears on cable news outlets & on the mortgage conference circuit despite a cancer diagnosis.
Habib has won the Pulsenomics Crystal Ball award 4 times for publishing the most accurate industry forecast.
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Top 20 Servicers Tighten Their Grip ✊
At the end of Q1 ‘26, the UPB of one-to-four family agency mortgages rose to $8.8 trillion, a 0.3% increase from Q4 ‘25. The top 20 servicers manage 76.6% of the agency mortgage servicing market as of Q1 ‘26, up from 75.2% in Q4 ‘25.
Rocket Mortgage was the largest servicer with approximately 13.3% of the agency servicing market, followed by Lakeview Loan Servicing at 9.8% and Pennymac at 7.1%. Other leading servicers included Freedom Mortgage, JPMorgan Chase, Newrez, Wells Fargo, and Onslow Bay Financial.
Compared to Q1 ‘25, CrossCountry Mortgage share saw the largest market share increase (up 1.0 percentage points to 2.1%), while Wells Fargo saw the largest market share decrease (down 0.9 percentage points to 4.0%). Nonbank servicers, as a group, now represent 66.7% of the agency servicing market, up from 64.6% a year earlier, reflecting their continued dominance in new originations and bulk MSR acquisitions.
In terms of portfolio growth, of all servicers with more than $1 billion serviced in Q1 ‘26, Bungalow Funding had the largest portfolio growth over the past 12 months (660% to $22.8 billion) followed by SoFi (252% to $7.1 billion) and AD Mortgage (178% to $3.8 billion).
Of those same $1 billion+ servicers, CMG Mortgage had the largest Ginnie Mae portfolio growth over the past 12 months (664% to $7.8 billion) followed by Rate (128% to $4.8 billion) and Amerihome (70% to $17.9 billion).
Source: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Ginnie Mae MBS Data Disclosure
TWO Says No to UWM (Again) 😤
The board at Two Harbors maintains that CrossCountry Mortgage’s bid remains the superior offer, despite UWM’s most recent solicitation.
Per a statement released this morning, TWO argues the $11.30-per-share all-cash transaction over UWM's $12-per-share bid as it delivers "certain value" compared to an "uncertain & conditional" proposal.
The third unnamed bidder remains a mystery, but appears to also be out of the running. (FWIW: I’m still working to confirm the identity of the mystery bidder. I’m close!)
Two’s board argued that UWM's $1.3B in "committed" bridge financing from Mizuho Bank isn't a certainty & also expressed concern about UWM's capital position. Citing Fitch, Two's board said corporate leverage is up and there's been an annual "capital drain" of roughly $535M over the past 3 years.
UWM’s earnings are slated for Wednesday, so we’ll have a full breakdown in that edition.
Quickies 😮💨
The best hiring spots for new grads are largely in the South - Birmingham, Alabama; Tampa, Florida; and Raleigh, North Carolina, the WSJ reported.
Mortgage debt is rising fastest in Alaska, Delaware & Maine, per Realtor.com. That’s unexpected!
President Trump this weekend vaguely brought up the possibility of releasing the twins from conservatorship. But BofA’s head of agency research Jeana Curro said there’s no Mark Calabria-like figure running point this time, lowering the possibility of an exit.
Blend on Monday announced the launch of Autopilot MCP, a server built on Model Context Protocol, “the emerging open standard for AI agent connectivity, that gives authorized agents secure, programmatic access to the full Blend platform.” Recall that we reported a few months back that Encompass appeared to be going that direction as well w/ its AI initiatives. Blend CEO Nima Ghamsari has been busy of late; he’s also in charge of a digital mortgage lender called Athena. Here’s the scoop on that.
We’ll be doing a feature on Pylon soon. If you’ve worked w/ them, plz reach out to me at [email protected].
ARMChair Critics 🔖
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