The loan originators winning purchase business in 2026 are not waiting for the Federal Reserve to hand them a better market.
They are finding homeowners who feel trapped by low mortgage rates, solving financing problems that keep offers from competing, and building relationships that generate business long after closing, according to three originators featured Tuesday during National Mortgage Professional’s Ignite webinar, “Winning The Purchase Market In 2026.”
JP Dennis of C2 Financial, Lucas Adams of Kalani Capital, and SD Capital Funding founder Samir Dedhia described notably different approaches to originating purchase loans. But each strategy was built around the same premise: Purchase business must be created, not merely captured.
Dennis and Adams alone originated a combined $120.7 million across 208 units in 2025. Dennis produced $70.8 million across 104 units, while Adams originated $49.9 million across the same number of units, despite operating from a town in Alaska with a population of approximately 6,700 residents.
For Dennis, one of the largest opportunities lies among existing homeowners who want to move but believe their current mortgage makes that impossible.
“People are feeling stuck, and they just don’t know what’s possible,” Dennis said.
Turning ‘Stuck’ Homeowners Into Buyers
Dennis has built a portion of his business around what he calls “buy-before-you-sell strategies,” a term he prefers because the solution does not always require a specialized loan program.
At the underwriting level, the challenge typically involves qualifying with two mortgage payments or accessing enough equity for the next down payment. The larger problem is convincing homeowners with low rates that moving remains financially possible.
That includes growing families needing more space, older homeowners hoping to downsize and borrowers unable to compete while making an offer contingent on selling their current home.
In one transaction Dennis described, a family offered $2.5 million for a home contingent on selling its existing property. After the offer was rejected, Dennis helped the family qualify to make a noncontingent offer of $2.4 million, which the seller accepted.
Another family approached Dennis expecting to remain in its current home for another two or three years. After reviewing its options, the family was preapproved and under contract within approximately 30 days.
“When we help our clients get unstuck, when we show them what is possible with these programs, it gives us more deals, it gives the agent more deals, and we’re solving a huge problem for our clients,” Dennis said.
Dennis said the strategy can help real estate agents secure both the sale of a client’s current home and the subsequent purchase. It can also help listing agents salvage offers that otherwise might be rejected because of a home-sale contingency.
“Get the twofer — get that purchase and listing,” Dennis said of the pitch to agents. “I can help you get those two paychecks faster.”
One agent sent an email about the strategy to approximately 50 former clients who had purchased homes four to seven years earlier, Dennis said. The outreach produced about 15 conversations and three transactions within six months.
“Unlock your database,” Dennis advised. “You’ve sold houses to these people in the past, and they’re having these questions.”
Depending on the borrower, the solution could involve traditional financing, bridge financing, a guaranteed backup contract or a subsequent mortgage recast after the departing residence sells.
Dennis identified Flyhomes as one of his primary partners in the space. He said its guaranteed backup contract can allow an underwriter to exclude the departing residence from the borrower’s debt-to-income calculation, depending on the loan and underwriting requirements.
The larger the problem an originator solves, Dennis argued, the greater the opportunity to build a lasting referral relationship.
“Happy clients refer more happy clients,” he said.
That relationship also gives the originator a stronger response when the borrower finds a marginally lower rate elsewhere.
“You’ll have an advisor for life working with us, making these decisions not only now,” Dennis said.
The Advantage Of Being Unmistakably Local
Adams has taken a community-first approach to originating across Alaska, where borrowers and referral partners can be separated by hours of driving.
NEXA Mortgage gives Adams access to hundreds of wholesale lenders, but he said most of his business is driven by referrals, community involvement and local visibility rather than purchased leads or paid social media advertising.
Adams sponsors local athletic teams and community events and distributes branded clothing at a pace he estimated at 150 to 200 hoodies per month. His branding appears on two local high school baseball fields, and he once completed a roughly 15-hour round trip simply to attend a borrower’s closing.
“This is the community that raised me and my family, so now it’s our turn to give back,” Adams said.
That local presence helps the originator establish credibility with borrowers who may live hours away or never meet him in person. Adams said a recommendation from someone the borrower already trusts can carry more weight than online advertising or review totals.
“A personal referral from someone you know is exponentially more trustworthy,” Adams said. “I don’t care how many Google reviews you have, how many TikToks you’ve posted or how many loans you’ve closed.”
Local knowledge also has practical value during the loan process. Adams pointed to national lenders that request documentation or property conditions that do not apply in Alaska, including certificates of occupancy for certain smaller properties or termite inspections in areas where termites are not a concern.
“We don’t have termite inspections because, guess what, we don’t have termites when it’s negative 40,” Adams said.
His familiarity with individual neighborhoods, seasonal rental demand, military relocations and Alaska’s housing constraints provides another advantage over lenders competing primarily on price.
Adams also uses locally relevant social media content to extend that recognition. One humorous video built around Alaska’s lack of Chick-fil-A locations generated more than 1 million views across three platforms, he said. Because the post tagged the mortgage business, its page received approximately 65,000 views.
“We’ve seen engagement on the business page go up over 700%,” Adams said.
When expanding into a new area, Adams joins community Facebook groups and, when permitted, shares local property listings with proper attribution. If a prospective buyer responds, he verifies the property’s availability and works to prequalify the buyer before connecting that person with the listing agent.
“You are sending them a prequalified buyer,” Adams said. “If that house is not the perfect one for them, now they have a prequalified buyer with papers in hand to go look at other homes.”
The strategy reflects his broader approach to competing for purchase business: provide practical value before asking for another transaction.
“Just have a servant mindset,” Adams said. “Serve, serve, serve your clients. They will serve you better.”
Rebuilding Around Relationships
Dedhia recently reopened SD Capital Funding with Jason Doshi, his former mortgage-company partner, after the previous iteration of the company was acquired by The Real Brokerage.
A former Ernst & Young auditor who entered the mortgage industry in 2004, Dedhia said the new venture is allowing him to return to working directly with borrowers and real estate partners.
“I wanted to focus back on what I loved doing the most, which was serving our clients and working with our clients,” Dedhia said.
The revived company is investing in AI for marketing, client outreach and back-office efficiency. But Dedhia said its guiding principle remains decidedly human: Understand what the client or referral partner is trying to accomplish before proposing a solution.
“The biggest driver of a bad experience is being very transactional,” he said.
Dedhia compared building a real estate-agent relationship to going on a first date. An originator should not expect an immediate commitment but should listen, identify the other person’s problems and demonstrate value over time.
“If you go with the mindset of helping others, inherently what happens is everything starts to grow,” Dedhia said.
The same applies to past clients. Dedhia said originators should record personal information about borrowers — including their interests and important family details — so future outreach does not consist solely of attempts to generate another transaction.
“We have to humanize the real estate transaction,” he said. “Long-term relationships are how you create a constant funnel of clients coming back wanting to work with you.”
AI Should Support The Relationship
All three originators said they are using artificial intelligence, although none viewed it as a substitute for an originator’s judgment or personal involvement.
Dennis uses ChatGPT to prepare for conversations with prospective referral partners and identify information that can make meetings more productive.
Adams uses AI for prospecting, database analysis and generative engine optimization, or GEO. His goal is to make himself more visible when consumers ask AI platforms to recommend a local mortgage professional.
Dedhia said SD Capital is using AI agents to reconnect with former clients and identify those ready for a conversation with a loan originator. The agents are not being asked to solve financing problems or replace the licensed professional.
“They’re not the ones that are problem-solving and making the final decision and having the final conversation,” Dedhia said. “They’re just there to warm up clients to reconnect with us.”
Dedhia estimated that 80% to 90% of a typical mortgage transaction follows a repeatable process, leaving considerable room for automation. Eliminating the human connection, however, would undermine the value an originator is supposed to provide.
“At the end of the day, humans are buying homes,” he said. “We don’t want clients or any of our referral partners to feel like this is a robotic process.”
Moving The Conversation Beyond Rate
The panelists acknowledged that rate shopping remains unavoidable, particularly when consumers are routinely instructed to search for the lowest available mortgage rate.
Adams said service remains one of the most effective ways to distinguish an originator, including answering calls outside traditional business hours, helping military families navigate relocations and remaining available after closing.
Dennis similarly challenges borrowers to consider whether the advice and accessibility they received are worth surrendering for a marginally lower monthly payment elsewhere.
Dedhia said the originator’s job is to explain that borrowers are choosing among mortgage strategies, not purchasing an interest rate in isolation.
“We don’t sell interest rates here. We sell mortgage options,” he said. “Depending on what your situation is, there are 10 to 20 different options that may work best for you.”
That value proposition begins during the first conversation — not when an originator attempts to rescue a loan from a competing quote, the panelists said.
In a purchase market constrained by affordability, inventory and homeowners reluctant to surrender low rates, their message was straightforward: Originators cannot control the market, but they can become better at uncovering and solving the problems hidden inside it.
The event was moderated by NMP Managing Editor Czarinna Andres and sponsored by MaxClass. The discussion was part of NMP Ignite, a live digital-event series that brings mortgage professionals together for tactical conversations about production, technology, leadership, and the changing lending market. Mortgage professionals can view the upcoming schedule and register for future sessions at NMPIgnite.com.
