Every transaction on this page changed somebody's platform — and somebody else's value. IMB Wire tracks the M&A, capital, distress, leadership and licensing events shaping independent mortgage banking. The reporting is sourced and concise. The strategic question is what those events mean for your platform.
For owners and executives deciding whether to build, buy, partner, or prepare for an exit.
Curated by Howard Michalski, who built a $10B mortgage platform through M&A.
If these transactions are changing the value or strategic options of your platform, let's pressure-test where you stand.
Pressure-test my positionTier 1 M&A, capital raises, distress, owner or CEO succession, enforcement. Tier 2 channel launches, senior hires, product and technology. Tier 3 commentary, remarks, rankings. Market rates, agency and regulatory backdrop — conditions, not company events.
Mortgage Nerds, an Appleton, Wisconsin brokerage owned by Mike Cox and Brian Hofmann, is joining NEXA Lending after an approximately 18-month platform search, keeping its own brand while affiliated Processing Nerds stays independent.
eXp World Holdings and Glenn Stearns' Kind Lending are shutting down Success Lending, their 2021 mortgage joint venture, in what eXp called a mutual strategic decision, and eXp says it is exploring a replacement joint venture with Newrez.
Vito Roppo and Nick Ferrante left Fairway Home Mortgage to join Rate as producing partnership branch managers leading a new branch in Elmhurst, Illinois, with $155M in combined production per Rate.
Figure Technology Solutions (Nasdaq: FIGR) completed its previously announced acquisition of Kiavi, the #1 Residential Transition Loan lender, integrating Kiavi's technology and operating platform into Figure Connect; a Figure–Sixth Street joint venture purchased loans off Kiavi's balance sheet, and Kiavi CEO Arvind Mohan joins Figure as Chief Business Officer.
Stewart Information Services (NYSE: STC) acquired ProTitleUSA and DocSolutionUSA, adding title analytics, portfolio diligence, and mortgage document-generation capability for servicers, investors, and capital-markets clients; terms undisclosed; Solomon Partners advised the sellers; Alex Goldovsky (ProTitle/DocSolution CEO) quoted on joining Stewart.
SDNY Judge Margaret Garnett denied Better's TRO and preliminary injunction against Vishal Garg's shareholder solicitation, finding no irreparable harm; Delaware Vice Chancellor Lori Will granted Garg a TRO that suspends Better's 15% poison pill and the special committee while the fight continues.
Verification/fraud fintech Informed appointed former Rocket Pro GM Dan Sogorka CEO on Aug 31 as it expands from auto into adjacent verticals including mortgage credit; he is stepping down as CEO of UWM-partnered broker platform Origna8 and staying as board adviser.
South River Mortgage (NMLS 1854524), a top-five reverse originator, promoted longtime President and founding employee Tyler Plack to CEO effective Aug 28; Jim Plack retires as CEO and stays on the board.
Vishal Garg received SEC approval Thursday to solicit shareholder support for his return as Better CEO and to remove five directors; Better still awaits an SDNY TRO ruling and the sides were set for Delaware Chancery Friday on the poison pill.
Velocity Financial agreed to buy Toorak Capital's business-purpose lending platform in an all-cash deal; a third-party investor takes Toorak's ~$3B UPB loan book, which Velocity will manage, with close expected in Q4 2026.
Announced, not closed — close expected in Q4 2026. John Beacham stays on as EVP of Velocity Commercial Capital.
HomeServices of America said Prosperity Home Mortgage (~$9B annual originations) will retain mortgage servicing in-house under its OnePoint strategy instead of selling MSRs after close.
A vertical build, not a transaction — reported on the tape, not counted in the deal tracker.
CrossCountry Mortgage completed its all-cash acquisition of Two Harbors Investment on Aug 25, taking TWO private at $12/share plus stub dividend (~$1.28B total) and adding ~$155B owned MSR plus RoundPoint servicing to CCM's ~$209B book.
This is the close. An earlier item on the tape covered stockholder approval only.
RoundPoint and the MSR book go private under Ron Leonhardt. Stockholders get $12 cash plus a $0.20326 stub. TWO leaves the NYSE as a CCM subsidiary. UWM’s $500M+ suit is still live and did not block the close. CCM is not a defendant.
Vishal Garg filed a declaration in the Southern District of New York opposing Better's TRO and injunction request, disputing a mutually agreed ouster and saying he had about 15 minutes to review the press release and lost system access within about 30 minutes.
A separate filing from the Aug 24 special-committee item — declaration dated Aug 24, reported Aug 25.
This morning’s NMN piece. IMB working capital is warehouse and repo. When Treasuries get choppy, the sharper CEOs start looking at a depository (escrow deposits, FHLB) or an insurer (permanent capital, takeout). Cornerstone buying Roscoe is the IMB-buys-bank example. Most of the time the bank or the insurer buys the IMB.
The Real Brokerage completed its $880 million acquisition of RE/MAX Holdings, combining the two into a single brokerage network of roughly 180,000 agents.
Brokerage consolidation rather than an IMB transaction — carried as market color.
Already signed and funded. Casa, Hodgson, Paradise, and Hobson come over as executive partners. 246 LOs, about $2.05B trailing. NEXA goes to roughly 4,000 LOs and $14.15B. The UMortgage entity is slated to dissolve by year-end; teams can keep the name as a DBA. Casa said out loud: when he looked at the tech, lender relationships, infrastructure, and scale, he asked how he was supposed to compete with that.
Every director but Garg backed Lewis as interim CEO. Unanimous: no continuing operating role for the founder. Q3 still in guidance. Cost cuts to exceed $45M annualized.
loanDepot received an NYSE Section 802.01C notice on Aug 21 after its Class A average close stayed under $1 for 30 trading days; six-month cure period, reverse split among options.
Most counts tossed. RESPA Section 8 kickback claims survive for a few borrowers. 35% commission-share allegation.
Fifth straight profitable quarter. Volume per firm $689M, highest since Q2 2022. Per-loan cost down from $11,898. 85% of the sample in the black when servicing is included. Still below the 39 bps history.
A bank taking an Illinois IMB team. Rene Shaffer and the First State people move onto a 50-state bank platform. Small shop, but the shape is the same as the Whalen piece: IMB production going inside a depository.
$603.2M derivatives loss, $2.05B Oaktree + Ishbia raise, dividend suspended, then a shareholder suit. Brokers told HousingWire it is still business as usual. Public filings put a $27.5B notional on the books in Q1.
Evergreen Home Loans launches BrokerBrand TPO. CEO Donald Burton said they will not compete for the broker’s borrower relationships.
NAF putting AI voice agents on originations and a $73B servicing book. President Christy Bunce on the record.
reAlpha completed its acquisition of InstaMortgage for about $8.5 million on August 19, adding in-house origination, underwriting, and funding across 38 states and D.C. while two state approvals remained pending under a closing waiver.
Fannie Mae eliminated roughly a dozen senior roles across capital markets, regulatory affairs, multifamily, and related functions in mid-August, with reports that the departures were involuntary under FHFA Director Bill Pulte's ongoing restructuring.
MBA 25 bps vs 89 bps at the peak. Walsh: never seen margins this compressed this long. T3 Sixty’s Hakalir: consolidation more likely than a massacre.
Checkr acquired Truv, adding consumer-permissioned income, employment, and asset verification that reaches about 96% of the U.S. workforce and deepening Checkr's mortgage verification business.
Appraisal management company Class Valuation acquired Illinois-based Allstate Appraisal (founded 1959), with Allstate keeping its team while gaining Class's tech and national infrastructure.
Atlas VMS acquired Houston-based First Appraisal Management to expand Texas AMC coverage; FAM managing partner Nicole Bookout becomes EVP of appraisal operations at Atlas.
Mark McArdle (Newrez policy) in NMN: the largest IMBs sit under states, CFPB, Ginnie, GSEs, and warehouse banks. He wants one federal supervisor and a conditioned liquidity backstop.
Flat-fee brokerages GoRascal and Houston-based Matador Lending merged; Matador's ~50 originators keep the Matador DBA on GoRascal's 50-state platform and set a $1 billion Texas production goal.
AnnieMac CEO on LinkedIn. Higher fuel, inflation, uncertainty, Treasury issuance weighing on rates, refinances, and consumer sentiment.
Better's board, excluding Garg, said it unanimously terminated Vishal Garg as CEO after concerns about judgment and credibility, contradicting the Aug. 3 'mutually agreed' transition language as Garg pressed directors to resign.
Two owner articles after the school-supply post. Aug 13: 33 years at Equity Resources, consistency is why they survived. Aug 20: culture is not ping-pong tables, it is a common goal, egos at the door, accountability.
TPG Mortgage Investment Trust agreed Aug 10 to acquire Cherry Hill Mortgage Investment in a cash-and-stock deal valuing CHMI at about $117.5 million, creating a ~$9 billion residential mREIT pending Q4 close.
Initial rollout in 17 markets. Sopko: buying a home is one of life's biggest financial decisions, and insurance is part of that journey.
On its Q2 call, Ellington Financial said it is nearing an agreement to buy a small servicer with single-digit billions of servicing rights to build special/subservicing capability, with an announcement expected sometime in September.
AnnieMac Home Mortgage recruited a roughly 12-person Wichita retail team that had moved to Union Home Mortgage after the Sierra Pacific asset buy, adding about $220 million in trailing-12 production.
About 100 LOs, $1B trailing, Envoy north of $4B run-rate. Iverson keeps a smaller shop and ~$250M MSR. Close was targeted for late August. As of this morning, no close confirmation.
Combined servicing heads toward 2 million. Newrez already said it will put 4 million loans on the same OS starting 2027. This is a cost-to-service story.
Better Home & Finance appointed board member Daniel Lewis interim CEO effective August 3 as founder Vishal Garg transitioned from the CEO role while remaining a director, and raised its year-end annualized cost-cut target above $45 million.
PennyMac confirmed another round of layoffs eliminating select lending and mortgage-fulfillment positions with severance, citing reduced industry volume, weeks after closing its Franklin, Tennessee consumer-direct office.
New Silver Lending acquired Quincy, Massachusetts-based Mayflower Venture Partners to expand New England fix-and-flip and construction lending, with Mayflower's team continuing under the New Silver platform.
PennyMac reported Q2 2026 net income of $22 million, down sharply from a year earlier, with fallout-adjusted lock volume down 18% to $31.5 billion as management realigned cost structure.
Supreme Lending. Also on record at The Gathering: will not grow a dollar past culture; culture is the first screen in M&A.
Commercial/multifamily mortgage banker BWE signed a definitive agreement for Bayview's MSR Opportunity Fund and Springmont Capital (Morgan family) to buy a majority interest, with Bayview becoming majority owner and CEO DJ Effler remaining.
Activist Randian Capital published an open letter urging loanDepot's board to explore strategic alternatives including a sale, citing share-price decline since the 2021 IPO and arguing the MSR book could command a premium in a strategic deal.
Two Harbors common stockholders approved the merger with a CrossCountry Mortgage affiliate at a reconvened July 2 special meeting, with $12 cash per share plus a pro-rated stub dividend and closing then still expected in August.
Finance of America Reverse closed an all-cash purchase of Onity Mortgage's reverse MSR book of about 20,000 Ginnie Mae HECM loans (~$5.2B UPB) effective June 30, with Onity exiting reverse origination and staying on as subservicer for three years.
Bill Cosgrove took a California non-QM-tilted retail shop in 45 days. About 200 people over. No servicing in the deal. Cosgrove said the industry still has record-low gross margins and overcapacity, and consolidation will continue.
PRMI's Ken Knudson on LinkedIn: the industry's Christmas wish has been another refinance boom. Buyers cannot refinance a home they never purchased.
NMN interview. Risk-adjusted, slower-moving 20-year approach. Owns a separate PE firm that funds Cash2Keys so AnnieMac can buy the house if the buyer falls through. May overweight non-QM.
Atlantic Bay, 30 years, same brand, just under 700 people. Holland: keep growing only as long as culture holds. If culture slips, stop growing.
Steve Majerus becomes APM president. Synergy One keeps the brand as a division. Majerus said scale is becoming essential to fund pricing, products, AI, and customer acquisition. This is the $2B–$5B shop that chose a DBA/division over staying fully independent.
Comment period closed mid-June. Unused warehouse capacity is not optional for an IMB that has to pass Ginnie/GSE tests. Oswald told NMN the combined CCF-plus-definition change swings too far. MBA asked to keep 0% CCF on unconditionally cancelable secured warehouse.
Canadian bank buying a Dallas charter so it can offer FDIC deposits to U.S. mortgage warehouse clients. Follows the 2024 JPM warehouse-team hire. Flagstar exited warehouse in 2024. Comerica pulled back.
Not a sale. Brand joiner. Biaggi said alignment in values and leadership style is the kind of partnership he wants as AWM grows nationally. $2.05B in 2025 (Modex), on pace over $3B in 2026.
Rare public price. ~$1B DTC originator plus $3B servicing, cash at close $47,291,890 per the Tiptree 8-K. Taffet wanted a direct-to-consumer channel.
2025 HMDA. IMBs took $193B of the market's $303B year-over-year growth. 47 lenders originated half the volume. Do not use CHLA's 84% nonbank figure as if it were the same series.
Walsh: when volume rose, costs did not fall. Wage growth, third-party charges, and worse pull-through. Servicing carried a chunk of the profitable-firm share.
Todd Scrima sold a 30-year Western IMB into CrossCountry. One day later Summit filed a California WARN to permanently eliminate 163 jobs, including the CIO, COO, and GC. Scrima's line was that growth happens through scale and investment.
Freedom Superior LLC, indirect parent of Freedom Mortgage, signed a definitive agreement March 16 to acquire GSE-approved MSR platform Seneca Mortgage Servicing from EJF Capital, subject to regulatory approvals.
Propy acquired the title division of Boss Law on Mar 12, 2026, adding St. Petersburg and Seminole Fla. offices under the Propy Title brand for institutional/REIT closings.
Blend Labs completed the sale of substantially all Title365 title-insurance assets and liabilities to Covius Services on March 1, exiting ownership of the title unit it had agreed to sell in June 2025.
Cypress, California non-QM wholesale/correspondent platform LenderMac Holdco agreed to acquire Draper, Utah agency lender Direct Mortgage Corp. to add Fannie, Freddie and Ginnie approvals to a multichannel platform.
PennyMac Financial Services signed an all-cash deal on February 11 for Cenlar Capital's subservicing business at $172.5 million upfront plus up to $85 million contingent, expected to add about $740 billion UPB and 2 million loans, close in H2 2026.
Experian announced February 3, 2026 an agreement to acquire AI mortgage-shopping platform Own Up for integration into Experian Marketplace, with close expected within 90 days; financial terms were not disclosed.
Xactus acquired Baleen Solutions on Feb 2, 2026 and is folding Baleen's tax-document income automation into Xactus360 as Income CalculationX for mortgage lenders.
Lower Mortgage acquired Goodlettsville, Tennessee IMB Acopia Home Loans, adding more than $425 million in annual production, 14 branches and 36 originators who will operate as Team Acopia in Lower's Southeast division.
Stewart Title acquired Townsend Title Insurance Agency, adding Cape Coral, Fort Myers and Lehigh Acres offices while keeping Townsend staff and locations; financial terms were not disclosed.
First Federal Bank of Lake City, Florida signed a definitive agreement January 5 to acquire the assets of Fidelity Bank's NOLA Lending Group mortgage division, keeping the NOLA brand across Louisiana, Florida and Mississippi offices.
reAlpha Tech Corp. signed a definitive agreement on December 22 to acquire independent lender InstaMortgage for about $8.5 million in cash and stock, then expected to close in the first half of 2026 subject to regulatory approvals.
UWM Holdings and Two Harbors announced a definitive all-stock merger on December 17 valuing TWO at about $1.3 billion and adding roughly $176 billion of MSR UPB, then expected to close in Q2 2026.
Milliman acquired Dallas-based MorVest Capital, adding MSR valuation, financing, hedging and brokering to its mortgage solutions practice.
Fairfield, New Jersey IMB Absolute Home Mortgage confirmed December 2, 2025 a deal to acquire the assets of Gaithersburg’s Fidelity Direct Mortgage, with founder Maria D’Souza-DaTa joining Absolute’s board; terms were not disclosed.
Bayview MSR Opportunity Fund completed its all-cash acquisition of Guild Holdings on November 28, taking Guild private at $20 per share (~$1.3 billion equity value) with the brand and leadership remaining in place.
Finance of America Reverse agreed to an all-cash purchase of PHH Mortgage's HECM servicing portfolio and certain reverse origination assets, with PHH to subservice for three years and exit reverse origination at close.
Minneapolis MSR investor Rice Park Capital Management acquired Charlotte retail and consumer-direct lender Rosegate Mortgage and combined it with affiliate Nexus Nova to recapture on MSRs that lack an embedded recapture agreement.
The Title Team acquired Minnesota title and closing firm LEER Title Services, a 20-plus-year woman-owned agency in Walker, Bemidji, Park Rapids and Longville, with founder Ineke Leer staying to lead the local team.
Fairfax-based Atlantic Coast Mortgage acquired the assets of Virginia Beach's Tidewater Mortgage Services, combining ACM's 40-state platform with Tidewater's Mid-Atlantic and Southeast retail offices.
Title and escrow firm Propy completed its first acquisition under a stated $100 million AI roll-up, buying Mobile County, Alabama title company Delta South Title for an undisclosed sum.
Stewart Information Services agreed November 7 to acquire Mortgage Contracting Services' mortgage property-preservation, inspection and default-servicing support line for $330 million cash, with the close later reported December 10.
Maryland retail lender NFM Lending agreed to acquire Gaithersburg-based Homespire Mortgage, which will operate as Homespire Home Loans under president Michael Rappaport with job offers extended to Homespire staff.
Opteon announced the acquisition of U.S. appraisal firm Equity Valuation Partners, effective November 1, folding EVP into the Opteon brand for residential and commercial valuation.
Carrington Holding Company entered an agreement on October 31 to acquire Melville, N.Y. DTC originator Reliance First Capital from Tiptree, adding a ~$1 billion origination platform and a ~$3 billion servicing book expected to move at close.
PartnerOne entered an agreement with Accenture to acquire cloud LOS provider Mortgage Cadence, with closing then still subject to customary conditions and terms undisclosed.
Centerbridge Partners completed its acquisition of lending-software vendor MeridianLink on October 24, 2025, paying $20.00 cash per share and delisting the company from the NYSE, with Silversmith taking a minority stake.
Lendware completed an asset purchase of residential-mortgage CRM platform Aidium on October 7 and rebranded the product under the Lendware name after a summer of Aidium leadership turnover.
On Oct 1, 2025 Annaly agreed to buy a ~$12B UPB MSR portfolio from PennyMac, with PennyMac retaining all subservicing and recapture on the sold book.
Chimera Investment Corporation completed its purchase of wholesale non-QM originator HomeXpress Mortgage on October 1, paying estimated book value plus a $120 million cash premium and 2,077,151 Chimera shares.
Rocket Companies completed its acquisition of Mr. Cooper Group on October 1, combining the largest U.S. originator with the largest servicer and a combined book of nearly 10 million homeowners.
Union Home Mortgage acquired Sierra Pacific Mortgage's retail branches and wholesale broker relationships, leaving Sierra's servicing operations in place and expanding UHM's West Coast footprint.
Closinglock acquired Viking Sasquatch's AI payoff-retrieval software on Sep 16, 2025, adding automated insured payoff ordering for title and settlement teams.
Michigan-based Credit Union ONE acquired Icon Mortgage on September 16, retaining all employees and senior leadership and saying it will operate the lender as a separate mortgage affiliate in Michigan, Florida and Texas.
The Bank of Glen Burnie completed its purchase of Virginia Beach originator VA Wholesale Mortgage, which originated about $125 million in 2024 and will operate as a dedicated division of the Maryland community bank.
Anniemac Home Mortgage said August 12, 2025 it acquired certain assets of Bartow, Florida-based Home Solution Lenders, a construction-to-permanent shop that produced $192 million last year, terms undisclosed.
Great Lakes Credit Union CUSO Mortgage Forward acquired substantial assets of Birmingham-based FiT Mortgage on August 11, 2025, adding Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia and Florida origination and onboarding FiT’s senior team.
AG Mortgage Investment Trust acquired an additional 21.4% interest in Arc Home on August 1, lifting its stake in the non-QM/non-agency originator from 44.6% to 66.0% in exchange for about 2.03 million MITT shares.
Work on commission. They are not operators, they carry a number of companies at once, and they are paid to close a deal — any deal. The incentive is the transaction, not what the platform looks like eighteen months after it.
Are accountants. The rolodex can be genuinely useful. But they do not operate lenders, and they are not in the business of working deals — so the parts that decide whether a deal works are not the parts they are looking at.
I built and ran the M&A playbook that created a $10B lender. You get that experience — the bruises and the lessons, including the soft things that decide outcomes and never appear in a model: culture, fit, retention, staffing.
I am not here to sell you one transaction. I am here to help you build a real capability — the tools, the process, and the coaching to make M&A a skill your team owns. Your people know how to operate the business. Let me help you engage owner-operators, who are not branch managers and do not respond like them.
Talk it throughWe identify where your platform sits in this market, what is affecting its strategic value right now, and the next question your leadership team should answer. You leave with a read you can act on, whether or not anything follows.
Worth the exercise whether or not selling is anywhere on your mind. Seeing how the platform reads from the other side of the table is what has you prepared when an opportunity arrives, rather than reacting to it — and the work that makes a platform attractive takes quarters, not weeks.
Howard Michalski built a $10B platform through M&A and has spent much of his career buying, integrating, and operating mortgage businesses. If you intend to buy, he can get you to market with a plan and the capability to run it. If you are not there yet, he can tell you what to strengthen first.
Assess my positionNot ready for a call? Reply privately with a transaction or market question — it comes straight to Howard.
Every destination here earned its place by carrying a story on this tape. Counts are items sourced to it. Primary sources and regulators outrank commentary; nothing is here because someone paid for it.