Mortgage and real estate battle for the top of the funnel

Like many mortgage professionals, Vipul Hapani can see the wave of industry consolidation forming on the horizon and knows it is only a matter of time before it reaches his shores.

As the broker-owner of Waxhaw, North Carolina-based Vema Mortgage—the third-largest “That’s the necessity side: shrinking margins, a market that is not as dynamic as we would hope it would be, elevated interest rates, constrained supply, and an overall lackluster buyer demand. Those are all components of a market that requires consolidation, innovation, a combination of those two, and if you don’t do one of those two things, then you’re probably unprofitable, and you’re probably going to die.” 

The consolidation on the real estate side, Hakalir added, showcases exactly what happens when bigger players try to figure out how to dominate market share: “If I am going to be only marginally profitable, then I better do a lot of volume.”

Implication for mortgage lenders 

But the consolidation of large real estate companies, driven largely by the financial advantages of scale, is likely to create headwinds for independent mortgage lenders, according to Brett Ludden, managing director of mortgage solutions at Milliman.

“Referrals from real estate relationships remain the primary source of purchase lead generation. As real estate agencies consolidate, those transactions are increasingly likely to steer leads away from lenders’ existing referral networks and toward entities affiliated with the real estate firms,” Ludden said. 

On the mortgage side, lenders are acquiring real estate portals specifically for their lead-generation power, according to Michael Linger, director of Houlihan Lokey‘s financial services group. These platforms often feature built-in real estate broker networks as a core part of their monetization model.

“There are firms whose bread and butter is in distributed retail, so they’re looking for ways through direct-to-consumer to jump up the funnel,” Linger said. “This is a way to get a consumer at the first inkling, when they’re starting to look for a transaction, which is particularly valuable in a purchase-heavy market. It’s been one of the natural market adaptations from people that don’t foresee in the near future – setting aside exigent circumstances – that there’s going to be a material rate decrease.”

This aggressive maneuvering naturally has the potential to create significant channel conflicts. For instance, Compass — which previously maintained several joint ventures with Rate — recently inked a major partnership with Rocket Mortgage and Rocket Pro.

“When you see the chess pieces moving around the board, at some point somebody’s chess piece is going to fall off the end when there’s a lot of movement, and I think that Rate is experiencing some of that with the JVs that they had in place with Compass,” Hakalir said. “Compass is clearly trying to make some big moves and position themselves for the long term, and I think that they’ve made the bet that Rocket is probably a better partner for that.”

Potential conflicts 

Another challenge stems from how portals position themselves in the ongoing listings debate. The real estate industry is increasingly fracturing into three distinct listing strategies.

• Private/off-MLS: Compass and Midwest Real Estate Data
• Public MLS listing: Zillow via its Listing Access Standards and Google displays MLS listings through partnerships with HouseCanary and California Regional MLS
• “Coming soon” listings: Zillow preview

Simultaneously, major legal battles are reshaping the landscape. Industry relationships 

So, how exactly does this macro-level consolidation affect ground-level industry relationships?

“If you are a local loan officer that has relationships on the ground with real estate agents, built a good following, and you know how to work your sphere of influence, how to market and take care of your customers, then you should still be fine, because relationships are what matter most in our business,” Hakalir said. 

Linger doesn’t believe lenders and loan officers operating outside these mega-ecosystems will be starved of business, simply because the overall housing market remains vast. However, those operating inside the ecosystem will undoubtedly need to adapt their approaches to a different kind of consumer lifecycle.

“The lead coming from the portal is an opportunity to build the relationship, but it’s more transactional at first … Instead of a hotter lead, it’s further up the funnel– you’re going to get a lot of people that are more in the anticipation phase versus the actual execution phase.”

Ultimately, Hapani added, the rise of these massive, vertically integrated ecosystems creates a distinct opportunity for independent brokers, allowing them to offer something the mega-platforms structurally cannot provide: an unbiased advocate for the borrower.

“Agents who were previously funneling buyers toward Zillow or Rocket Mortgage as a default may find themselves looking for mortgage partners they can actually control and trust and that’s where independent brokers come in,” Hapani said. “We can offer those agents something the big vertically integrated platforms can’t: flexibility, lender optionality and a relationship that isn’t pulling their client away from them.”