The big interview: UWM’s Smith: Tough market will separate the strongest originators
At the Association of Independent Mortgage Experts (AIME) Fuse event in Austin, UWM president and CEO Mat Ishbia had told brokers to stay positive whatever rates do. Smith took that message and talked through what it takes in practice.
“The mindset piece here is everything,” he said. “If you want to talk to people like, ‘Woe is me,’ yeah, okay. But that’s not going to do anything to help you win in today’s market. You can win. But you’ve got to believe you can win before it can happen. What are the actions you’re taking to get the results you want? I think a lot of it’s mindset: what you want to do, what you’re willing to do. And you say, I want to do all these things. Do your actions support your words?”
Finding the business
Smith, who has spent 35 years in the industry, was asked what excites him about 2027. He answered for the industry first.
“Do you think of yourself as a professional loan officer, or are you just doing a job?” he said. “If this is your profession, you will come into February of next year doing great. But you’ve got to believe in yourself, right? Some companies are probably going to go away. Some LOs are going to leave the business. I’m not upset about that, because this wasn’t a profession to you. This was a job you were doing.”
One analyst put into perspective some of the industry’s contraction. Marina Walsh, vice president and head of industry analysis at the MBA, said about 4,600 companies are still originating loans. Independent mortgage companies numbered 881 at their 2021 peak, and 707 at the end of 2025, and industry employment is down more than 35% over the past four and a half years.
