Click n’ Close has named mortgage industry veteran Blake Priest director of whole loan trading, adding an experienced pricing and hedging executive as the lender builds out its secondary-market operation.
Priest will lead Click n’ Close’s scratch-and-dent purchasing, providing correspondent sellers with another outlet for loans that fall outside traditional investor guidelines. He will also oversee lead sourcing and pricing assessments, monitor hedging performance, and participate in secondary distribution, the company said.
The appointment follows Click n’ Close’s May engagement of mortgage banking veteran Christy Soukhamneut and Launch Point Advisory Group to expand its whole loan trading division.
That initiative was designed to broaden the company’s institutional and correspondent investor network and create additional execution opportunities across its government and specialty loan programs. Priest’s appointment adds day-to-day pricing, hedging, and purchasing oversight to that broader expansion.
“Blake’s experience leading a mandatory hedging model through a high-volume, multi-branch operation is exactly the discipline our correspondent partners expect from a counterparty,” Click n’ Close founder and CEO Jeff Bode said. “His ability to build strong partnerships while driving accountability and process improvement will further enhance the reliability and performance our lending partners depend on.”
Priest joins Click n’ Close after two years as a residential mortgage lender at Pinnacle Bank in Fort Worth, Texas. He previously served as president of retail lending at Open Mortgage, where he managed multistate loan production and a staff of 75.
Before joining Open Mortgage, Priest spent two decades at NTFN Inc., including nearly 10 years as company president. He oversaw operations, sales, investor relations, and the company’s mandatory hedging model, managing approximately 250 employees across more than 40 branches. NTFN produced between $1 billion and $2 billion in mortgage volume in most years during his tenure, according to Click n’ Close.
Priest earlier served as NTFN’s regional director of North American Lending, helping move the company from a best-efforts pricing model to mandatory hedging. He also worked as a branch manager overseeing pricing and the secondary desk and as an account executive serving mortgage brokers in the Dallas and Houston markets.
“I’ve spent my career managing the hedging and pricing discipline that keeps a correspondent desk reliable for its partners, and that’s the kind of desk I want to build here,” Priest said. “My focus is giving our correspondent partners consistent execution and pricing they can count on.”
Click n’ Close operates retail, wholesale, and correspondent channels. Its correspondent platform includes government and specialty products such as FHA, VA, USDA, One-Time Close construction, and Section 184 loans, supported by direct investor relationships and in-house servicing.
