While processing the data for this year’s Top Mortgage Lenders rankings, I was pleasantly surprised by the results of our Lender Sentiment survey. At the end of the submission form, we asked lenders a couple of questions to gauge their opinion of the market — and their responses were overwhelmingly optimistic.
Every single lender said they expected their business to perform the same or better in the next six months. Eighty-eight percent said they expect business to improve, 12% expect similar performance and zero lenders expected things to get worse. We also asked about hiring plans; 86% of lenders said they plan to hire or recruit in the next six months and 14% said hiring was a “maybe.” Again, every single lender said they expect to hire or at least consider hiring in the next six months.
It’s refreshing to see this optimism, especially since it was echoed in the Scotsman Guide Mortgage Originator Sentiment Survey (MOSS). More than 700 originators responded to the survey while submitting their production numbers for Top Originators, and only four expected their business to get worse in the next six months. Eighty-five percent said they expected things to get better.
Lenders still showed concern about the market, of course. When asked what the biggest challenges facing the mortgage industry are, 23% of lenders said housing inventory and another 23% said the economy. Housing prices and Federal Reserve policy were big concerns for about 15% of lenders. More niche concerns included homebuyer demand, regulations and recruiting.
Originations were down overall in 2023, and as expected the volumes in our rankings have decreased from last year — but not for everyone. Impressively, several lenders managed to increase their volume from last year’s rankings. Among them, CMG Financial increased its originations by $3.3 billion (and 6,868 units), LoanStream Mortgage increased its originations by $1.2 billion (3,473 units) and Kind Lending increased its originations by $1.8 billion (4,272 units). And here’s a lovely bit of perspective from the rankings archives: the volume of many of this year’s Top Mortgage Lenders exceeded their volumes from 2019, the last “normal” year — resulting in an overall positive trend line.
This data, paired with the optimism of our Sentiment Surveys, suggests that the rollercoaster the industry has been riding for the last four years may be coming to a stop. As rates stabilize and home prices moderate their growth, lenders are settling into a new normal.
This year’s Top Overall Lenders list is led by United Wholesale Mortgage (UWM), which closed $108.2 billion in loan volume and 294,481 units. In second is Pennymac, closing $99.4 billion and 307,038 units. AmeriHome Mortgage Co., CrossCountry Mortgage and Fairway Independent Mortgage Corp. round out the top five.
Among retail lenders, CrossCountry took the crown this year with $30.5 billion in retail volume — up from third place in last year’s rankings. UWM kept the top position among wholesale lenders, and Pennymac closed an almost identical amount of correspondent volume from last year’s rankings to retain its No. 1 spot. On the following pages, you’ll find the rest of these rankings, as well as our Top VA, FHA, and Non-QM lenders.
This year, we’ve included two new Top 5 rankings lists for niche products — Bank Statement and DSCR loans. While we’ve long ranked the top non-QM lenders, the non-qualified umbrella covers many niches, and we’re excited to pilot these exclusive new rankings with more granular data.
Overall, this year’s Top Mortgage Lenders closed 1.87 million loans worth $623 billion. Of those, 85% were purchase loans; that’s 1.6 million families achieving the American dream despite tough economic conditions and stubbornly high interest rates.
A little optimism is well-deserved and well-earned. I hope your business has had a promising start to 2024. Here at Scotsman Guide, we hope that the second half of this year will be prosperous for all our Top Mortgage Lenders — and for the originators that make all this possible. ●