THE LEAD
The mortgage back office of 2028 has fewer people, lower costs, higher margins, and one French bulldog who is somehow the most powerful figure in the building.
Meet Lumen Lending.
Walk into their headquarters on a Tuesday. First you have to find it. It's 4,000 square feet above a coffee shop, not the 40,000 they used to lease. The space is sleek, quiet, and mostly empty. Twelve desks, four people using them. The rest are home, because the work follows them there now, and the office is mainly a place to grab good coffee, see a human face, and check in.
Walk the floor. There's no row of processors hammering at a system older than they are. No underwriter buried under conditions a machine already cleared at 2am. Comparing the income on a paystub to the same number on a bank statement to the same number on a tax return used to be somebody's entire career. Now the software reads all three and clears the file while everyone sleeps. The people still here handle the exceptions, the judgment calls, the borrower who needs a human. That's the job now.
In the corner, on the only chair with a guaranteed occupant, sits Beans.
Beans is a French bulldog. His title is Chief Vibes Officer. He contributes nothing measurable, snores through every standup, and is, in the most literal sense, a biological weapon. He has emptied a closing room mid-signing. He has bitten the CEO. Everyone is obsessed with him. He is by a wide margin the least efficient thing in the building, and management made peace with that years ago.
So how did Lumen get here?
They stopped paying rent to the past.
For 20 years this industry ran its back office on tech that was old when flip phones were new. Want to change one workflow? That used to be a $40,000 change order, a six-week timeline, and a consultant on a flight. At Lumen it's someone clicking a toggle on a Tuesday. Want to add a vendor? The old platform treated every integration like a hostage negotiation and billed like one. Lumen does it in an afternoon.
And the price to simply stay on the old thing climbed every year, like a toll booth charging more for a road that never gets repaved.
The 2028 back office isn't bigger. It's smaller, faster, cheaper, run by fewer people doing better work on tools that finally respect them.
CHART OF THE DAY
The mortgage industry spent the last four years talking about rates. The bigger story may be that we've lost roughly half the people.
SELLING SMART
I'm running the same growth play with 12 to 15 clients right now. Recruiting LOs, landing lenders, selling software, doesn't matter. It works every time.
Why? Because everyone else is still doing this:
Work for me. Talk to me. Sell to me. "Just circling back."
Delete. Delete. Delete. Delete. Block.
That's every producing LO's inbox & text, all week. So when a small IMB in North Carolina told me they couldn't recruit because nobody had ever heard of them, I told them that's not the problem. The problem is the only time an LO hears from any lender is when somebody wants something from them.
We did the opposite. Here's the basic playbook I am running with this company and several others right now. And it works.
Step 1: Built a list of about 7,000 NC loan officers and scrubbed it against public production data. Cleaned the list using NeverBounce. $8M+ funded in the last 12 months, no more than 20% portfolio business. Real producers.
Step 2: Launched a newsletter that sells absolutely nothing and that is strategically ultra value-rich for NC loan professionals. NC rate updates. The week's real mortgage and housing news. Which NC markets are appreciating and which are quietly rolling over. A boojie Zillow home of the week, because every LO in America is nosy. Lead story is always something LOs actually argue about: rates, the Fed, FICO vs VantageScore. The only company fingerprint is a team photo at the bottom and a couple of quiet links. No comp grids. No "we're hiring!" Nothing to delete.
Step 3: Waited. 8 editions in 4 weeks. 43% cumulative open rate! LOs will read anything that respects their time and doesn't ask them for something.
Step 4: Pulled all 8 delivery reports into AI last week and asked for two lists. Anyone who clicked a company link: 96 people. Anyone who opened 5 of 8 editions or the last 3 straight: 955 people.
The 96 got a three-sentence email from Brooke, who runs recruiting there. No "I noticed you clicked" (nothing kills a warm lead faster than telling someone you're watching them). Just: we're doing some great things in NC, if you ever want to hear how our LOs are thriving, it's 10 minutes one day in June. Copy, paste, change the first name 95x. (3/min, 30 min time investment)
17 replies. 14 conversations. FOURTEEN CONVERSATIONS!
Quick, easy and lazy never works in sales. Long game.
I WOULD LIKE TO LIVE: A RETRACTION
OFFICIAL RETRACTION & STATEMENT OF DEEP REMORSE
Onward & Upward Consulting
To Director Pulte, Acting Director of National Intelligence:
It has come to my attention that I am still alive. I would like to keep it that way. Per advice of counsel, and a man named Marv who is always in the room with me now, I submit the following retractions.
The 14-Part Virtual Pulte Hologram Series. I regret the hologram. All fourteen parts. Even the algorithm was begging me to stop at the end. The hologram was a patriot.
The posterboards. I mocked the Director for presenting national housing policy on posterboard like a kid at a third-grade science fair. I was wrong to focus on the posterboard. The posterboard was not the embarrassing part. The ideas were far more embrassing and they deserved more coverage, and for that I apologize.
Which brings me to the 50-year mortgage. I called it "more sizzle than steak." I was wrong. A 50-year fixed is a beautiful gift to our grandchildren, who will inherit both the home and the payment. Visionary.
The Bessent incident. I implied the Treasury Secretary attempted to throw hands with the Director. I retract this. No punch was thrown. And if one was, it missed, which only proves the Director's superior reflexes and overall combat readiness.
The Jesus meme. I mocked the Director for talking the President into the Jesus post. But it came down within hours, and you have to understand what that means. Years of tweets that ended careers, started feuds, and moved markets, all left up, proudly, forever. Out of a lifetime of posts nobody could talk him out of, the Director's is the one that got pulled. Incredible work.
The five criminal referrals. I kept a running scoreboard noting five referrals and zero convictions. I now understand zero convictions is not a losing record. It is an undefeated season. 5-0 on staying free. A perfect game.
Getting removed from the Pulte family board. I mocked the Director for being voted off the company bearing his own name by his own blood relatives. This was deeply unfair. Being fired by your family is a normal thing that builds the kind of character you want in a man with access to satellites.
The "accomplished nothing" series. I wrote, factually, that the Director had accomplished nothing in his career. I would like to amend "nothing" to "everything," effective immediately and retroactively.
In closing: I have always been the Director's biggest supporter. Best housing finance mind of this or any generation. If you are reading this, Director, and I know that you are, I'd love to grab coffee. My location is, regrettably, easy to find.
Long may he serve.
THE POWER OF THE NETWORK
The top 5 mortgage lenders now do roughly 25 percent of all originations in the US. The top 25 do half.
That trend is not slowing. It is accelerating.
The version of the question I hear every week is some flavor of: how do I compete with a 20 billion dollar lender when I am running a 400 million dollar shop, and how do I do it without losing the thing that makes us actually good at this?
The honest answer is that you cannot beat them alone. You can however beat them together.
That is the entire premise of The Mortgage Collaborative. Sharing vendor pricing. Swapping notes on what is actually working. Providing each other warm intros when a peer take is more valuable than a Google search.
Shoot me a note if you’d like to learn more about TMC. I can provide an overview of the full suite of member benefits in 5-10 minutes.
Next conference - Austin TX in September!!!
TILL REFI DO US PART
BREAKING: Off Heels Of Yoga Pants Launch, Rate Launches Dating App For Their 11,200 Vice Presidents
CHICAGO, IL - One week after the RateFit yoga pants debut, Rate Founder & CEO Victor Ciardelli today unveiled RateMate, a dating application that auto-matches Rate's 11,200-person workforce with the company's 800,000-name borrower database.
All 11,200 Rate employees (100 percent of whom are Vice Presidents level or higher) are auto-onboarded. Profile photos are pulled from the corporate retreat where everyone wore matching RateFit performance hoodies. The matching algorithm pairs employees with borrowers based on what one source called "uncomfortably specific overlap."
"They are pairing LOs who scored above 90 on the internal Hustle Quotient with borrowers whose tax returns include a Schedule C for 'lifestyle consulting,'" said a current Rate VP who requested anonymity. A second algorithm pairs LOs who post their own podcast clips with borrowers who described their job as 'founder, multiple verticals.'
In a surprise partnership, VantageScore will offer complimentary credit scoring to any matched couple whose combined FICO falls below 1,240. Both parties under 620 will be auto-scored at a guaranteed 740+ within minutes. "We do not believe in barriers," a VantageScore spokesperson said.
Also announced, a "RateFit Couples Yoga" module pairs in-person dates with mandatory matching yoga pants. The cool-down ends with a partner-assisted backbend during which the couple signs their closing disclosure on each other's lower back. The instructor is also a notary. The instructor is also a Rate Vice President. The instructor is also currently dating someone they met on the platform.
And in what the company called "a structured benefit," couples whose RateMate relationships end in divorce will be auto-enrolled in a suite of follow-on services. Each party receives a complimentary cash-out refinance to buy out the other party, a new origination, a new credit pull, and a brand-new VantageScore. "We are with you for life," a Rate spokesperson said. "And also through your second life."
Swipe right, then initial here.
LINKS THAT DON’T SUCK
MARK YOUR CALENDAR
Jun 11 - FIFA World Cup kicks off (USA, Canada, Mexico -- 48 teams)
Jun 14-16 - Ohio MBA Annual Conference (Columbus OH)
Jun 21 - Father's Day
Jun 16-17 - FOMC Meeting (rate decision, press conference)
Jun 18-21 - US Open Golf (Shinnecock Hills)
Jun 19 - Juneteenth (federal holiday, markets closed)
Jun 21 - Father's Day
Jun 22 - NBA Draft
Jun 29 - Wimbledon begins
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.” ― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
THE OHIO MORTGAGE BANKERS ASSOCIATION (OMBA)
The OMBA Podcast Network = underrated if you like mortgage content
Reg is OPEN for our 2026 Annual Conference!
THE MORTGAGE COLLABORATIVE
Want to learn more about the benefits of membership in TMC? Reach out to Heidi Belnay at [email protected]! Or me by replying to this email!
THE CARDBOARD JUNGLE
LOADED sports card break lineup for this coming Friday! Get your sports at thecardboardjungle.com!
We are one of eBay’s biggest and most highly rated sellers of sports card singles! Check out our eBay store here and pick up one of your favorite players rookie cards!
Until the next one,
Swerb
[email protected]