Stop saying recapture

Recapture is what you do to a runaway horse. If that’s the word our industry uses for winning back a customer, it’s fair to ask why the customer ran in the first place. Listen to how lenders talk about their book: own the customer for life, protect the servicing asset, watch the recapture rate. Almost all of it is the language of control. Ownership comes with obligations too, and that’s the part we skip. It means calling a borrower before the escrow shortage letter lands, telling her she can drop PMI before she figures it out on her own and talking somebody out of a refi that doesn’t pencil even when you’d get paid on it. You can’t own a borrower. The best you can do is earn the next phone call. The illusion of customer retention Right now the industry is losing that call. Servicers closed out 2025 with their best refinance retention since 2014, according to ICE, and still lost two of every three borrowers who refinanced. That was the good quarter. Meanwhile, the MBA reports that independent lenders spent $11,094 to originate each loan last year and cleared $785 on it. At those margins, every borrower who walks is expensive. The comfortable explanation is rate, because nobody in th...