Editor’s Note: The Mortgage Mix is RISMedia’s biweekly highlight reel of need-to-know mortgage-industry happenings. Watch for it every other Friday afternoon.
- Rocket, parent company of Rocket Mortgage, has seen a bump in the road to its planned acquisition of brokerage, portal giant and mortgage originator Redfin. Bruce Miller, an investor at Redfin, is suing to block the acquisition, arguing that Redfin investors had been misled and that Goldman Sachs—an advisor on the deal—has a potential conflict of interest. Law firm Halper Sadeh, which specializes in assisting defrauded investors, has also launched a separate investigation into the acquisition deal.
- Ahead of the planned acquisition of Redfin and its simultaneous pending acquisition of mortgage lender Mr. Cooper, Rocket has taken on debt via a $1.15 billion revolving credit agreement. The deal could increase to $2.25 billion pending whether the Mr. Cooper acquisition goes through.
- Mortgage rates ticked down slightly in the last week of April and have remained flat—hovering around the mid-6% range—since. At its May 8 meeting, the Federal Reserve chose to leave interest rates unchanged, meaning there will be no change in interest rates to pull mortgage rates up or down. Realtor.com®’s Senior Economic Research Analyst Hannah Jones recently reiterated that 3% mortgage rates are unlikely to happen again soon.
- Mortgage rates falling from 7% has contributed to a more buyer-friendly market in 2025—the current state of rates has seen positive movement on mortgage applications, per the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA).
- United Wholesale Mortgage (UWM), the largest mortgage originator in the U.S., posted a 17% annual increase in mortgage originations during the quarter (up to $32.4 billion), according to UWM’s latest earnings report. However, the company simultaneously posted a quarterly net loss of $247 million. Despite that, UWM CEO Mat Ishbia maintained a positive outlook: “In both Q4 of 2024 and Q1 of 2025, we once again proved our ability to quickly adapt and scale in response to rate changes, a direct result of the investments and groundwork we’ve laid over the past three years,” he said during the earnings call.
- In other company news, in April, UWM announced it was ending its partnership with Mr. Cooper—due to the latter’s pending acquisition by Rocket—and will bring its mortgage services in-house. The company has chosen ICE Mortgage Technology’s MSP loan servicing system as its primary platform.
- ICE’s May 2025 Mortgage Monitor report has found that first-time homebuyers accounted for a record share of agency purchase lending in Q1 2025. Buyers under age 35 accounted for more than half of financed home purchases during this period. This has been attributed to current interest rates making repeat buyers disinclined to reenter the market. “While first-time homebuyers continue to face affordability headwinds, they don’t have the same disincentive to transact as many repeat buyers, who remain locked in the golden handcuffs of relatively low monthly payments on their existing homes,” said Andy Walden, head of mortgage and housing market research for ICE.
- Earlier in April, U.S. congressional representatives reintroduced the Homebuyers Privacy Protection Act. The legislation would ban the practice of trigger leads, wherein credit reporting agencies sell consumers’ information to third parties after a credit inquiry (such as applying for a mortgage). Legislation addressing trigger leads was previously attached to an omnibus defense bill at the end of 2024 as an amendment, but was removed before Senate passage. The banning of trigger leads is supported by the MBA. MBA President Bob Broeksmit said in a public statement that: “MBA has worked closely with industry stakeholders and a large, bipartisan group of lawmakers in the House and Senate to push for action that ends the abusive use of mortgage credit leads.
- NEXA Mortgage is suing a former company director. The director, who developed loan officer training materials for NEXA, has been accused of stealing proprietary information and poaching employees.
- Carrington Mortgage Services has announced a partnership with Talk’uments, a multi-language digital platform that helps bridge language divides between borrowers and lenders. The Talk’uments tools, now integrated into Carrington’s loan origination platform, displays essential mortgage documents and disclosures in the borrower’s language of choice.
- Rate (formerly Guaranteed Rate) has announced a new initiative to focus loans on attracting signees with nontraditional incomes, such as entrepreneurs and other self-employed individuals. This move comes as the company aims to “keep the momentum” of 2024.
- SWBC Mortgage, based in San Antonio, Texas, has announced a new chief operating officer: Steve Remington, who previously spent 21 years as the chief operating officer of Benchmark Mortgage.
- Amerant Mortgage, a subsidiary of the Florida-based Amerant Bank, announced layoffs of 58 workers during April 2024—the layoffs will begin to take place on June 23. The affected employees include 15 mortgage loan officers, as Amerant is “transitioning from being a national originator to a Florida-focused model,” per a statement from an Amerant spokesperson.