95 percent of loan officers are unprepared for the next refi wave
“More than 95 percent of loan officers are not ready for the next refinance wave, and most are not even taking the first steps to get ready.”
Prepare before the rates move, not after
What I tell loan officers is simple: get your clients to apply now and submit their documents today, so that the moment rates drop, you can lock immediately instead of scrambling to gather information. Think of it the way you would think about investing. You open the account and fund it before the opportunity arrives, not after. Waiting until rates move to start preparing means you are already behind.
This also means loan officers need to be visible now, marketing themselves and letting their client base know they are ready to move fast when conditions shift. The originators who stay quiet during a slow market are the ones who get buried when volume returns. We have already seen how quickly windows can open and close: earlier this year, a modest rate dip revived refinancing activity across the country almost overnight, and originators who were not ready lost that volume to competitors who were.
The biggest mistake I saw the last time rates dropped quickly was originators treating the slow market as a signal to coast. Production slows, and too many loan officers respond by working less instead of working harder. That is backwards. A slow market takes more effort, not less, because you are the one building the systems, training the staff, and running the marketing that will let you scale the moment the wave arrives.
Too many originators simply blame market conditions and stop trying. Then when rates move, they are caught flat-footed while more prepared competitors capture the volume. That risk lines up with MBA’s own outlook on refinance volume staying below historic levels absent a sustained rate drop, which makes every point of share even more valuable to originators who are ready to compete for it.
