Leadership at C2 Financial is looking to reclaim a top wholesale ranking by strengthening its infrastructure, leveraging artificial intelligence, recruiting and mentoring the next generation of loan officers, and expanding from 42 states to nationwide coverage.
In 2021, C2 was ranked No. 1 on Inman’s top 10 list of independent mortgage brokers to gain market share, which used data from the Association of Independent Mortgage Experts (AIME)’s broker rankings. AIME did not respond to HousingWire‘s request about whether it still publishes rankings.
In a conversation with HousingWire, C2 Financial CEO David Temko and Perri Garner, its head of marketing, shared that the company wants that top ranking back. In addition, Temko and Garner shared what the company’s production gap looks like and what it will realistically take to reclaim the top spot.
Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Sarah Wolak: Walk me through C2’s intentions to reclaim its top ranking. How did C2 drop from the top?
David Temko: C2 Financial is one of the largest and longest-standing mortgage brokers in the nation. We were No. 1 through 2021. And I think that there’s obviously been a lot of competition — and that’s great. It allows us to all sharpen our knives to be better at what we do.
In that process, some have taken what we’ve done and maybe gotten a little bit better than us on a few things. But now it’s an opportunity for us to really pick up where we left off and take that just so our experienced loan officers can get better and we can continue to attract more great loan officers that are in the market.
I think there’s been a rapid expansion during the peak refinance years, and we chose to really strengthen our infrastructure and invest in experienced loan officers … so that really preserved our durability. Now, we’re really ready to scale from a better position of strength, and that involves attracting folks who are going to have a longer runway to be successful on our platform.
All in all, we have a few billion in volume to catch up on to be back to what we were in the rankings.
Wolak: Can you talk about what the road map looks like in terms of recruiting these people and getting some top talent to C2?
Temko: I think it’s really tapping into our knowledge base and using our long-standing loan officers as mentors for new people. That would give us a new generation of loan officers coming into C2 to tap into a deep knowledge pool and mentorship, as well as us having the infrastructure and the tools to support them from a training perspective and teaching them to generate more business earlier on.
Wolak: As you undergo an infrastructure-first rebuild, can you share what specifically that means in terms of fixing what was not so efficient inside of your systems? What measurables are you targeting for improvement?
Perri Garner: Everyone looks at rankings in different ways, whether it’s production, number of units, by state, etc. And in terms of how we got to our current ranking, there was a huge push from some of our competitors over those refinance years. I think that C2 was kind of the first to innovate and the first to align with some of these large brokers, and that gave us many advantages. It gave us extreme pricing advantages and infrastructure advantages because we had a system that nobody else had.
Now we’re looking at a market where some of our competitors were able to grow really quickly, which is great for them. But a lot of those things in terms of compensation models, pricing, etc., those things are all kind of table stakes across the board — like, none of it’s really that differentiated. Everybody offers a flat-fee model. Everybody offers competitive pricing in the wholesale channel.
So we’ve spent the last couple of years keeping in mind who the loan officer of tomorrow is, and what their wants and needs will be. For us, it’s really about taking the tools we have, expanding them and optimizing them with AI, and also figuring out how we integrate them into the workflows that loan officers use every day.
Wolak: What does this year’s AI road map look like for C2? What do you have currently and what are you hoping to implement or refine?
Garner: For us, it really started with being able to leverage all of the data that we have internally and make it more accessible for our loan officers. We have a tool called our scenario board, which has always been available to our loan officers. If they have a tricky deal, or they don’t know where to take a certain loan, they can easily pop into the C2 platform, they can post some details about that scenario and, within minutes, they can have solutions in terms of where those loans can go.
The original state of that was very human-driven in terms of AES chiming in, and loan officers chiming in to give anecdotal feedback of where those loans could be placed. Now we’re looking at how to take all the data that we have from that. How do we use AI to deliver those solutions within an instant, versus having to wait for human responses?
The other thing is also just making marketing resources more available. So now, within our platform, a loan officer can easily go in and request marketing tools directly from the platform.
Wolak: What will success look like for each of you and C2 as a whole at year’s end?
Garner: C2 is a company that’s about legacy. We’re the longest-standing brokerage in the industry, and what that means is that we help loan officers build careers that endure market cycles.
I think that’s particularly important for the loan officers that are currently in this industry, but also the next generation, because nobody wants to enter a career field where they’re going to be out of a job when rates hike. We want to help loan officers build long-lasting careers so that, regardless of the rate, they have the solutions, they have the tools and they have the infrastructure that they need to perform at the highest level. What does that North Star look like? It’s a platform for all stages of the loan officer’s career, from when they enter as a young mortgage professional, to when they’re growing that career, and then further into the legacy that they’re building.
We are an entrepreneurial platform. We allow loan officers to join C2 and build their own business. They’re putting their time in, they’re reaping the benefits of that. We’re providing the infrastructure, the compliance support, the licensing and the back-end admin that supports their business. And that’s a legacy that they can leave to their family, they can lead to a successor, and they can leverage for retirement and beyond.
Temko: I’m passionate about homeownership, and if our loan officers can continue to deliver the power of more people owning a home across the nation, that’s really what is a driver for me. We did 10,000 loans and $5.5 billion in loan volume last year. My goal is to grow that, and to grow that by attracting more great loan officers to the company and making sure that the loan officers that we have are growing every day.
It’s about growth for me. We’re in 42 states, we’re going to be pushing into all 50, and that’s because I believe that what we deliver at C2 is more powerful than anything else they’re going to be able to get. We have more options at our fingertips to deliver better pricing, better products and better service that enable people who otherwise might not feel they could own a home to buy a home, or people who own a home to buy another home as their family grows.
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