HousingWireHousingWire
Equity Smart Home Loans made a splash Wednesday by announcing it is severing ties with United Wholesale Mortgage (UWM) and partnering with Rocket Pro. In an interview with HousingWire, longtime CEO Pablo Martinez said that the contract termination occurred last week.
“It just comes down to pricing. It’s like when you go to Costco, you see people spending 20, 30, minutes in line to save 30 cents on gas. We’re in a tough market. A lot of our loan officers are struggling. And if they can have better pricing, then it’s going to give them that edge to win more deals. So we’re behind our loan officers, our consumers come first,” Martinez said during the interview.
He continued, “The problem that Rocket and UWM have is not our problem; it’s a higher-level problem. Our loyalty and commitment are to our borrowers and our loan officers… but they want to get us involved, and they want us to make us part of that, and I’m not buying into that. When one lender is offering better pricing, then we’re going to pivot.”
Martinez says that the way he sees the termination isn’t a switch. “The way I’m looking at it is we’re freeing ourselves from UWM and allowing people to work with Rocket. And I have no problem with UWM, if they want to drop the ultimatum and allow us to work with them, then they can be one of our lender partners, too.”
In 2024, Equity Smart Home Loans originated over 1,600 loans, according to Modex data. Of those loans, just over 66% were brokered. Over 18% of loans went to UWM, which equated to 336 loans, Modex data showed.
The news comes as Rocket, a Michigan-based mortgage and fintech giant, is doing major acquisitions with Mr. Cooper and Redfin, shaking up its leadership team and a initiating a full-scale rebrand.
Just Wednesday morning, Rocket Companies announced it is integrating Rocket Pro with ARIVE, a leading software platform used by mortgage brokers, which connects the company to a network of around 28,000 active users.
