LoanDepot announced the launch of a new wholesale lending channel designed to serve mortgage brokers, marking an expansion of its multichannel origination strategy. The move marks a shift in strategy since company founder Anthony Hsieh returned as CEO following the departure of Frank Martell in June 2025. LoanDepot had exited the wholesale channel in 2022 during Martell’s tenure.
The new loanDepot wholesale division will be led by President of Partnership Lending Dan Peña. Matt Mancasola has returned to the company as part of the expansion and will serve as vice president of wholesale lending.
Newfi Lending announced the expansion of its non-qualified mortgage (non-QM) asset depletion and utilization programs to permit the use of cryptocurrency for loan qualification. The updated guidelines allow borrowers to use up to 25% of the current value of bitcoin and ethereum held in a Coinbase account for income calculations on asset depletion and asset utilization programs, as well as up to 50% of the current value of cryptocurrency-focused mutual funds or exchange-traded funds.
Rocket Companies and Compass International Holdings have formed a three-year strategic alliance to integrate home search, real estate professionals and financing into a unified platform. The partnership will add over 500,000 Compass listings to the Redfin platform while providing Compass clients with preferred pricing and embedded financing options through Rocket Mortgage.
Newrez has launched Newrez TitlePass within its wholesale channel, offering mortgage brokers a streamlined digital closing experience designed to reduce title insurance costs for eligible refinance borrowers. Available exclusively through Newrez’s affiliated title company, Avenue 365, the program waives the lender’s title insurance requirement on qualifying conventional rate-and-term refinances with up to an 80% loan-to-value ratio.
Digital mortgage company Better announced a partnership with OpenAI to launch the industry’s first conversational credit decision engine integrated directly within ChatGPT. The new tool allows prospective homebuyers to evaluate their credit readiness and explore loan options through natural language interactions, aiming to simplify and accelerate the initial stages of the mortgage process.
Private real estate lender Kiavi announced the closing of a $350 million rated securitization of residential transition loans that the company says was oversubscribed by more than five times due to strong institutional demand. The deal features a two-year revolving period designed to create up to $1.2 billion in additional funding capacity, providing the AI-powered platform with expanded liquidity.
FICO’s consumer division, myFICO, launched a new mortgage score simulator designed to help consumers evaluate their credit health before applying for a home loan. Available to myFICO Premier subscribers, the tool allows users to test how everyday financial decisions — such as paying down debt or opening new credit lines — might impact the specific FICO Score versions most widely used in U.S. mortgage lending.
Optimal Blue unveiled a forecasting tool powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning — as well as nine additional solutions — at the 2026 Optimal Blue Summit. The new solutions equip mortgage capital markets professionals with advanced predictive analytics to more accurately project volume, manage pipeline risk and optimize secondary market execution.
Friday Harbor announced the launch of Income and Asset Sandbox, a dynamic pre-underwriting tool that allows lending teams to test different income and asset scenarios in real time. Operating within the company’s existing AI platform, the new feature instantly recalculates qualifying income against specific product guidelines and investor requirements, helping loan officers accurately structure complex deals earlier in the origination process.
Dark Matter Technologies announced a new capability on its developer platform that enables lenders to securely deploy AI agents within the Empower loan origination system. Utilizing an open-source standard for AI applications, the integration creates a managed gateway that enforces strict data permissions and audit trails, allowing employees to safely query loan data and automate workflows without introducing compliance risks.
Class Valuation announced it has become one of the first appraisal management companies to receive access to Fannie Mae’s proprietary appraisal risk assessment tool, Collateral Underwriter. The shared integration allows lenders and appraisal firms to work from a common set of insights, revealing potential valuation risks earlier in the mortgage process to reduce revision cycles and unnecessary delays.
Sagent announced that Land Home Financial Services will deploy its cloud-native Dara platform to power the lender’s core, consumer and default operations. The full-suite implementation is intended to modernize the community-focused lender’s servicing ecosystem through unified workflows, real-time data and support for complex specialty servicing operations.
Imperial Fund Asset Management and AD Mortgage announced the closing of a $602.7 million non-QM securitization, in a deal designated ADMT 2026-NQM2. The firms said the transaction reflects the continued development of their securitization platform and gives investors access to a diversified pool of mortgage-backed securities.
Dwight Capital announced the acquisition of Midland States Bank’s mortgage servicing rights portfolio, expanding the firm’s total servicing platform to more than $15 billion. The transaction increases the commercial real estate lender’s scale and strengthens its operational capacity within the secondary mortgage market.
