The brokerage operating model has reached its limits

In my last piece for HousingWire, I argued that the mortgage industry has digitized individual steps while leaving people to connect fragmented systems and workflows. The wholesale channel makes this especially visible because the optionality that makes brokerage valuable also introduces more guidelines, systems and processes to navigate. This all points to a longstanding unresolved challenge for the brokerage model. Its ability to offer more lenders, products and pricing options is precisely what makes it valuable, but the operating structure underneath it has not necessarily evolved to manage that optionality efficiently at scale. Preserving that choice will require brokerages to organize work around the loan itself rather than the roles and handoffs inherited from the past. The cost of every handoff To understand this complexity, consider how many hands touch a file throughout the mortgage origination journey. You begin with the loan officer and the borrower, but after them, there may be a loan officer assistant, someone who handles disclosures, the processor, the underwriter and the closer. Each handoff creates another point where information and context need to move accurately...