Wells Fargo is in the process of selling a hefty book of MSRs in a direct deal, sources said. The roughly $40B UPB Ginnie servicing book runs across three pools, contains 300K-plus loans & has a 7.5% delinquency rate. It’s among the largest offerings to hit the market in recent years.

The winning bidder is rumored to have paid a multiple in the low 5s on the portfolio, a source told The Scoop. Wells Fargo did not immediately return a request for comment.

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There are only a handful of companies that can make such a deal. “Whoever bought it, they probably are looking at it for a second-lien HELOC play,” said one capital markets source. “Because you can originate that stuff at 98 or 100 & sell it into securitizations for 109.”

A different source at a depository bank said some players have been “way overpaying” to acquire MSRs of late. 

“They are assuming they will refinance more than 50%, if they don’t do something close to that they can’t make money in this stuff,” he said. “We think they are overpaying so we have sold stuff we would normally keep.”

Wells Fargo has been aggressively unloading its servicing book since the ‘23 announcement that it would exit correspondent lending. Per SEC filings, the MSR portfolio was valued at $5.7B at the end of ‘25, about half the value in Dec. ‘22.

It’s been a couple tough weeks at Lower. The IMB has lost its Midwest regional group (Homeside, Gerber) to Atlantic Coast Mortgage, which includes Dave Hendrickson, Andy Stewart, Nick Gallagher, Dan Stich & Lauren Walton. Sources also said that Mike Fitzpatrick in South Carolina (dba Legendary Mortgage) also left for ACM, as did Alexis Vining’s Maryland branch & Travis Lloyd’s in Wilmington, NC.

Production-wise, an estimated $1B has walked out the door. ACM didn’t offer any significant signing bonuses to join, but can offer an attractive corporate margin, sources said. It wasn’t immediately clear if the various DBAs will move to Virginia-based ACM.

It’s a big coup for a shop that doesn’t traditionally make a lot of noise on the recruiting circuit. ACM also picked up regional lender Tidewater Mortgage in the fall & appears to be ambitiously growing. ACM did not respond to requests for comment, nor did Lower’s Dan Snyder. 

Insiders at Lower said the losses represent more than just production. “Nick & Stich have been there practically since the beginning,” said one. “Nick worked with [co-owner] Mike Baynes at Chase. He was Dan’s guy. I never thought Lauren Walton would leave, either.”

It’s worth noting that most of the Thrive team that was acquired in the ‘24 merger has since left the company.

There remain positive signs of growth at Lower. RETR stats show that Lower increased production in ‘25 & Snyder previously told The Scoop that Lower had some of its best months as a company in Q4 ‘25. 

The lender—backed by Accel Partners, SoFi & Huntington Bank—expects to integrate real estate marketplace Movoto later this year while building out its call center to capitalize on refis. The tech overhaul remains a work in progress as well.

Clayton Collins has always been clear about his ambition w/ HousingWire: He is attempting to build the “Bloomberg of Housing.” HW has augmented the journalism & events arms w/ several data acquisitions over the past 5 years, including RealTrends (agent/brokerage data) & Altos (housing market data). 

At its Economic Summit on Tuesday, Collins debuted a new market intelligence platform, dubbed “HousingWire Intelligence.” The dashboard marries market intel w/ journalism & analytics into a single experience. Sources told The Scoop that HW has partnered w/ InGenius for mortgage data. It’s a good pickup for InGenius, which is in a very crowded vendor space that includes MMI, RETR, iEmergent, Modex, ModelMatch.

Collins didn’t return my text on Wednesday.

Disclosure: I ran HousingWire’s newsroom from Aug. ‘20 to July ‘25.

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