Fairway Lands a $1B Lender's Production Team

My kids are off for Veterans Day & tearing up the house like maniacs, so let’s skip the preamble. 

In today’s edition, I’ve got details of an M&A deal involving Fairway & Mortgage Solutions Financial, a roughly $1B lender. Plus, a modest proposal to crowdsource the purchase of Anthony Hsieh’s CA mansion, a $1.2M Windy City clawback for Movement, BioSig frustrations, Better’s human-lite approach & more.

Well, that didn't take long. On Monday, I reported that Colorado-based Mortgage Solutions Financial, a roughly $1B lender founded by Roy Clennan in the mid-90s (btw, best era?), was looking for a new home for its production team.

On Tuesday, CEO Rob Clennan confirmed the company is winding down its mortgage origination operations by year-end. But the Mortgage Solutions name isn't going away —> Clennan & his sales team are joining Fairway, where they'll operate as a division under the MSF brand.

"The narrative that Mortgage Solutions Financial has 'ceased originations' is false," Clennan wrote on LinkedIn.

Mortgage Scoop Insiders - scroll to the bottom to read the full story. If you’re not already paid Mortgage Scoop Insider, here’s a 10% discount.

Since I launched this newsletter over a year ago, the single most common request I’ve gotten (besides “who’s your source?”) is: can you plz start a podcast?

I am aware that the mortgage industry isn't exactly suffering from a shortage of podcasts. Some are great. Some are… pretty 💩 if I’m honest. So we took our time building The Mortgage Scoop Podcast. We wanted to produce something that's super-fun to listen to, packed w/ insights & is quite different from the trillions of other mortgage podcasts fighting for your attention.

So here’s what we’ve been cooking: a 30-minute weekly breakdown of the most interesting things being whispered about in mortgage. Unfiltered commentary, w/ scoops & insights you can’t get anywhere else. And we’re respectful of your time!

I’ll be co-hosting w/ Jeremy Dean, a mortgage broker & title company owner who’s been on the front lines for decades. I bring the reporting & Jeremy brings the operator’s take on what it actually means for your business.

We’re launching soon & I want to hear from you - what would you like us to cover? We’ll be on Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube & wherever else you get your podcasts (Yoto Player for all the toddler parents out there???). 

Interested in sponsoring? Plz reach me at [email protected].

Should title insurers be worried about the Trump housing EO? Doesn’t sound like it. Per NMN’s Brad Finkelstein, the earnings calls at The Big Four suggested meh, whatevs. 

“All the executive order did was direct [Bill Pulte] to think about things,” said Fidelity National's Mike Nolan. “So what comes out of that, we just don't know yet."

"I would also just say anecdotally, I still do not have anyone in our world here at the FNF family of companies really telling me they're losing orders to the waiver program," Nolan added.

If someone wants to buy Anthony Hsieh’s Newport Beach estate, they probably won’t be able to finance it via loanDepot. Hsieh, who paid $61M for the compound in ‘20, is asking $125M(!) for the property. (FWIW, as of this morning loanDepot’s current market cap is $123M.) 

I gotta say, it’s a really sweet house. 

So here’s a modest proposal: If we could just get 50,000 mortgage pros to chip in, we could collectively buy it for just $2,500 a person. If the crowd financed it like normal buyers, w/ 20% down & a $100M loan for the rest, each person would put in just $500 at closing. Seems doable!

I acknowledge that it miiiight be tricky getting 49,999 co-borrowers through underwriting on a 1003, but I think it’s worth a try. Besides, Crystal Cove HOA dues of $2,500 a month come to about 5 cents per person. Practically free!

As for what we’d do w/ it? Maybe Pacaso would pay advertising rights to rename it? And as a timeshare play, w/ 6 bedrooms there are about 2,190 bedroom-nights a year. Split among 50,000 owners, each person gets one night roughly every 23 years. Booking the whole house works out to one turn every 137 years or so. Who’s in?

Maybe the one thing pretty much every LO agrees on is that BioSig suuuuucks. Check out the image in this Reddit post haha

“I bet it rejects it two sign ins from now,” quipped Jen De Groot. “BioSig is the reason I am not renewing my MLO license this year,” added Marc Duflos.

“I hate the bio Id,” Randina Sullivan said. “I have more issues & anxiety around filling this out every year. I found where you can request another option but they literally want all your medical records and a letter from your physician detailing why you need a different format. Thanks but no thanks.”

If you need help w/ BioSig, LockedIn Learning’s LaDonna Lockard is happy to assist…

What really happened behind Mortgage Solutions Financial's move to Fairway? I've got more details, including a response from leadership. Plus, Movement Mortgage wants $1.2M back from two former LOs, & Better's Vishal Garg has a rather blunt message about jobs being replaced by AI: They're never coming back.

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