Equity Prime Mortgage (EPM) wants to help convert 4,000 retail loan officers over the next year into loan originators with its new website: BEABLVR.com.
“There’s nothing super special about it. It’s not this propriety engine that’s going to beam people up mid-conversation. It’s as simple as having honest, timely information about the realities of current day, current market, sharing insight, sharing statistics, sharing information about what many of these folks either already know but are just too afraid to take that step or maybe things that weren’t quite clear and put them in a position to make the most informed choice,” EPM Partner and Chief Investment Officer Philip Mancuso said in an interview with NMP. “What’s best for you, your referral partners, and your borrowers?”
The website is meant to help recruit new brokers who may or may not do business with EPM.
Statistics from the NMLS shows retail loan officers switching to wholesale at an increasing rate, and in 2022 over 20,000 loan officers joined the wholesale channel. Mancuso said this continues the trend, which shows that wholesale is beating retail when it comes to pricing for borrowers and brokers.
“It’s really about a critical moment in time for housing in our opinion, not just our industry, but for housing, our economy. And trying to be true to ourselves, you know it’s about if you build a better mousetrap, they’ll build a path to your door. How do we, no strings attached, try to create a better process, a better product?” Mancuso said. “We believe that that’s the broker channel.”
EPM is a licensed mortgage lender with operations extending across the United States and over 500 employees. It recently shed its retail division and went fully wholesale earlier this year.
Mancuso said real estate agents are pushing their buyers to the broker channel.
“The difference between today and 2008, when the brokers got the bad rap for the financial crisis, was it was true that many lenders held their best products, their best prices in retail only. Brokers were arguably at a disadvantage at that moment in time. That is no longer the case,” Mancuso said. “They are hearing more and more that Realtors don’t want to do business with lenders. That the flexibility, the product, the expediency, the price is all there with the broker part of our industry.”
Mancuso said the market is “ripe and fertile” to move more retail loan officers over to wholesale.
He said the layers of expense and fees associated with retail are no longer sustainable.
