At twenty years of age, the will reigns; at thirty the wit; at forty the judgment. - Benjamin Franklin

UWM has officially turned 40, and Mat Ishbia—who celebrated his 46th birthday on Tuesday—is feeling generous.

The wholesale giant is offering brokers a 40 bps pricing incentive on all new conventional & government locks through Feb. 27. The special can be stacked w/ up to 40 “Control Your Price” bps. Not everyone gets a slice of cake 🎂, though: LOs must have achieved Pro Elite status in December or January to qualify in February.

UWM is arguably the most controversial mortgage lender in America, but credit where it’s due: what the Ishbia family has built over four decades is remarkable. Few lenders had the conviction to double down on the broker channel during the bleak, post-crisis years. That bet reshaped the industry.

(🙏 If you like what you’re reading, tell a fellow mortgage junkie to sign up here.)

There are fair criticisms of UWM’s bare-knuckled tactics, but the wholesaler has managed to scale w/ unmatched efficiency & expects to do $280B in volume by ‘28.

A key advantage is UWM’s insistence on keeping technology in-house. The lender also isn’t afraid to rip out processes that others wouldn’t dare touch. In doing so, UWM has created a workflow/system that brokers are addicted to (for better & for worse) & they know how to use leverage to outmuscle competition (RIP Homepoint 🪦). They’re a very impressive operator.

UWM has largely ‘won’ the post-Covid cycle, but the pieces on the board have moved considerably in just the last year. Rivals are spending billions on top-of-funnel & servicing. One in particular could dominate if everything goes according to plan.

The question at 40—the period of judgment—is whether UWM’s investments in partnerships, in-house tech & servicing will be enough to remain No. 1. What do you think?

If you’ve been reading The Scoop, you already know what you’re getting: real reporting, deep sourcing, & stories nobody else in mortgage media is touching. We’ve exposed shady lender tactics, examined ICE’s hate-love relationship w/ mortgage, broken dozens of tech stories, dug into UWM’s correspondent play, Rocket’s retail strategy & much more… Insiders get the full Monday/Wednesday/Friday edition—scoops, analysis, sourcing, & context you will not find anywhere else—plus early access to new features.

If you rely on The Scoop to stay sharp, informed, & ahead, this is your chance to support independent, scoop-driven mortgage journalism. Insiders pay $275 a year ($22 a month). Sign up for a 2-week free trial today. We also do group discounts.

Your plucky little lending shop should be more like Rocket, UWM, or even Bayview. That’s the advice from the Mortgage McKinseys at Stratmor Group. 

In a Tuesday webinar, Garth Graham rattled off some startling statistics: 

*There are only about 80K LOs doing meaningful business today, down from about 150K during the peak of Mortgage Madness. The top 30% of LOs do over 80% of the business.

*The number of IMBs that do at least $1B a year has been halved since the peak.

All of this is to say that the transaction-only model is very fragile. When all of your earnings come from a single closing, volatility becomes existential, he said.

The best way to survive is to have more touch points & be able to compete off-cycle. It changes how you staff, invest & manage risk. 

The logical progression for a maturing industry like mortgage is more vertical integration, said Amanda Gibson, a former Mr. Cooper exec who’s now at Stratmor. Some are originators combined w/ servicers, some are adding top-of-funnel capabilities. The goal is to create a sustainable model that lasts through any economic cycle.

“The key takeaway is you don’t have to beat Rocket. But you should start thinking like Rocket or UWM or Bayview,” said Gibson. “Even at a smaller scale, you can apply some of these strategies in M&A. There’s partnerships as options, you can get access to top-of-funnel, you can partner with servicing, do selective retention of servicing, partner with technology platforms. All sorts of tools are available.”

Servicing is a differentiator. Even small lenders can start retaining servicing with a co-issue. There are also MSR partnerships where you can participate in the economics even if you aren’t the sole owner, Gibson said. “These big companies are thinking about it for a reason — it’s a viable way for longevity. We can’t make a borrower do anything but you give yourself more opportunities when you participate in all of the lifecycle.”

Under-the-radar mortgage tech firm HomeVision has received a “small, minority investment” from mega-lender NewRez. The lender & vendor have been working together since ‘21 & so far as I can tell, this is the first time Baron Silverstein & Co have taken a direct stake in a tech partner. 

I think this is a very interesting deal for the industry. 

Become a Mortgage Scoop Insider for exclusive insights into the NewRez-HomeVision deal & the AI underwriting space. Plus, we’ve got new details on rising credit reporting costs & a scoop on the next leader at TrustEngine.