HousingWireHousingWire
Jet HomeLoans, the mortgage arm of publicly traded homebuilder Dream Finders Homes, has acquired Cherry Creek Mortgage LLC. The deal, which closed on March 4, should provide Jet HomeLoans with greater secondary execution it can use to help homebuyers with affordability, an executive told HousingWire.
Cherry Creek’s salesforce was acquired by Guild Mortgage in March 2023, but its securitization and servicing platforms were not included in that transaction. The seller of the securitization and servicing platforms was listed as Cherry Creek Holdings. Financial terms of the deal were not revealed.
“Cherry Creek is a Freddie- and Ginnie-approved lender and we are excited to take advantage of those vehicles,” Kelley Hailstone, the president of Jet HomeLoans, said in an interview. “It’s a strategic move on our part to obtain that better execution. Our intention is to provide better affordability to our customers who are buying Dream Finders homes and pass that along as more competitive offerings for consumers.”
Eight staffers from Cherry Creek will be moving over to Jet as part of the transaction.
Jet HomeLoans, founded in 2017 as a joint venture with Dream Finders, did roughly $2.3 billion in mortgage origination volume in 2024. And in July, Dream Finders, a top-10 homebuilder mostly focused on the Sun Belt states, acquired the remaining shares of Jet HomeLoans. A few months later, Dream Finders acquired Alliant National Title Co.
Like many large homebuilders, Dream Finders has used temporary and permanent mortgage buydowns to attract homebuyers. To that end, Jet HomeLoans is planning to expand once approvals with the agencies come through and enable the lender to be a direct seller, Hailstone said.
Following the Cherry Creek acquisition, Hailstone said Jet HomeLoans is “very open to partnerships with other lenders” that are looking for correspondent partners.
Jet HomeLoans was advised on the transaction by Sterling Point Advisors, Milliman and McGlinchey Stafford.
The announcement caps a busy two weeks of mergers and acquisitions in the mortgage space.
Community bank Bank7 acquired a small Oklahoma independent mortgage bank last week. Earlier this week, Union Home Mortgage announced the acquisition of NRL Mortgage, a $1 billion lender based in Houston.
