Today on Power House, we have a fantastic conversation between Diego and Melinda Wilner, the COO of United Wholesale Mortgage. Today’s episode is all about what it really takes to thrive in today’s market.
Melinda talks about her journey from mortgage broker to UWM executive and how her leadership has supported UWM’s position as the top mortgage originator since 2022. They also talk about company initiatives like their TrackLight program and All-In Agreement, and how these are central to their mission of protecting the wholesale channel.
Here’s what you’ll learn:
UWM focuses on growing the wholesale channel to enhance broker experiences.
In-house technology and innovation are key to UWM's competitive edge.
The All-In Agreement protects the wholesale broker channel.
The TrackLight program significantly reduces title costs for consumers.
The wholesale channel is gaining market share in the mortgage industry.
UWM aims to create a community among mortgage brokers.
Related to this episode:
UWM.com
https://www.uwm.com/
Melinda Wilner | LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/melinda-wilner
United Wholesale Mortgage | HousingWire
https://www.housingwire.com/company/united-wholesale-mortgage/
Enjoy the episode!
The Power House podcast brings the biggest names in housing to answer hard-hitting questions about industry trends, operational and growth strategy, and leadership. Join HousingWire president Diego Sanchez every Thursday morning for candid conversations with industry leaders to learn how they’re differentiating themselves from the competition. Hosted and produced by the HousingWire Content Studio.
Melinda talks about her journey from mortgage broker to UWM executive and how her leadership has supported UWM’s position as the top mortgage originator since 2022. They also talk about company initiatives like their TrackLight program and All-In Agreement, and how these are central to their mission of protecting the wholesale channel.
Here’s what you’ll learn:
UWM focuses on growing the wholesale channel to enhance broker experiences.
In-house technology and innovation are key to UWM's competitive edge.
The All-In Agreement protects the wholesale broker channel.
The TrackLight program significantly reduces title costs for consumers.
The wholesale channel is gaining market share in the mortgage industry.
UWM aims to create a community among mortgage brokers.
Related to this episode:
UWM.com
https://www.uwm.com/
Melinda Wilner | LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/melinda-wilner
United Wholesale Mortgage | HousingWire
https://www.housingwire.com/company/united-wholesale-mortgage/
Enjoy the episode!
The Power House podcast brings the biggest names in housing to answer hard-hitting questions about industry trends, operational and growth strategy, and leadership. Join HousingWire president Diego Sanchez every Thursday morning for candid conversations with industry leaders to learn how they’re differentiating themselves from the competition. Hosted and produced by the HousingWire Content Studio.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00One of my greatest passions has been watching the mortgage process develop and UWM being
00:06a very big part of that, of like, how do we take out some of the friction of this like
00:09archaic, you know, kind of dinosaur model that just moves so slowly, right?
00:14How do we make things faster, easier, cheaper, less complex?
00:24Welcome to Powerhouse, where we interview the biggest names in housing and ask them
00:29about their strategy for growth.
00:31I'm Diego Sanchez, president of Housing Wire, and my guest today is Melinda Willner, COO
00:38of United Wholesale Mortgage.
00:40Melinda, it's so great to have you on the show.
00:42Thanks for having me.
00:43I appreciate it.
00:44Looking forward to it.
00:45Yeah, me too.
00:46Before we dive in, could you briefly introduce yourself and your role at UWM?
00:53Absolutely.
00:53So, Melinda Willner, chief operating officer of UWM, have been here for about 13 years.
00:59And I oversee our IT teams, our underwriting teams, and our non-underwriting operations teams.
01:06And prior to my coming here, I was 12 years as a mortgage broker, too.
01:09So, a long history in housing and mortgage.
01:12And it's been a heck of a ride.
01:14So, you've been in the wholesale channel for a long time?
01:18Yes, except one tiny blip.
01:19I had a little wholesale company who switched over to retail, and then it moved back.
01:23So, how do you and Matt Ishbia, the CEO of UWM, divide up the executive responsibilities?
01:31You gave us a little bit of that in your intro, but how do you divvy things up?
01:36Yeah, no, good question.
01:37Obviously, we've been together for 13 years.
01:40It's a long time, especially with somebody like Matt, who runs real fast-paced.
01:45And it's been a great ride, for sure.
01:47So, Matt does a great job.
01:49One of his main skills is being able to develop a team and develop team members.
01:54And when I first started, we spent a lot of time together, just like I do, trying to develop any leader under me.
02:00But he does a very good job of kind of allocating team and hiring experts and letting them run with it.
02:08And it's been a heck of a ride.
02:11So, I have about 80% of the company goes through me, and he gets the other 20%, obviously 100% overall.
02:17But he gives me the hard, big part.
02:21Yeah, that sounds similar to the partnership that Clayton Collins, our CEO, and I have.
02:26So, a lot of the day-to-day flows through me.
02:29But ultimately, he's responsible for all of it.
02:32So, UWM became the top originator in the U.S. in 2022.
02:40And you've held on to that title despite really tough competition and also a difficult housing market.
02:46How have you been able to grow market share over these years where a lot of lenders have either, you know, plateaued or even shrunk and somebody have even gone away?
02:59Yeah, it's a good question.
03:00And honestly, it's even before the last few years, our focus has always been on wholesale, growing the wholesale channel, enabling brokers to give borrowers amazing deals and an amazing experience that keeps them coming back for more.
03:12So, over, you know, the past few years, honestly, we just kept doing more of the same that we did the prior years.
03:19We did, we expanded our product line a little.
03:21We got a lot of feedback from our brokers of, hey, I want to keep this loan in the wholesale channel, and I need for them to have a really good experience, but I don't always have that great experience with different wholesale lenders that are out there.
03:33Will you please expand your product box out some, which we did a little bit of that over the last couple of years.
03:38But honestly, it's just been that constant focus of trying to get better every day, trying to grow that wholesale channel and make sure that their experience and their consumers' borrowers' experience is great.
03:49So, it's just, you know, put your head down, keep focused on doing things right, and success comes from there.
03:55Let's talk a little bit more about that product set because we've been in a higher for longer mortgage rate environment, longer than anyone would like.
04:04And I feel like we are going to be there for a while longer.
04:07And in this kind of environment, you kind of need to go outside the traditional products.
04:14And so, you see, you know, some of the non-QM lenders, you know, getting market share.
04:19Have you thought more about non-QM at UWM?
04:23Well, we have a couple of products.
04:25So, we have a bank statement, DSCR type there.
04:28But, I mean, honestly, it's really a drop in the bucket overall of what we do.
04:32The high majority of our mortgages are conventional, a good amount of government.
04:36And then the non-QM space, it's some loans.
04:39It's a great fit for some people, but it's not our primary.
04:42But, again, it's like, you know, we don't want to – our brokers didn't want to take it where they have a bad experience.
04:48And then, hey, I'm done with that broker because I didn't love doing it.
04:50So, it was really the, hey, UWM, we want it.
04:53These are the two products that we need the most.
04:55Can you please start doing them?
04:56So, we were always very much, you know, down the fairway for years, probably the first 10 years that I've been here.
05:02It was always like, no, let's just focus on this.
05:04And after that feedback, and, again, it really goes back to our goal of continuing to keep wholesale loans inside of wholesale
05:11and make sure that they don't go out to retail.
05:14But that was really the push behind the products.
05:17It wasn't like, oh, wow, we need to close many more loans, so let's open up these two products.
05:21Because, again, you know, it's kind of a drop in the bucket overall of our business.
05:25And what about jumbo and home equity, which are other areas that people are pretty active in right now?
05:30Those are there, too.
05:31So, yeah, we've been a jumbo space first and then open up those more traditional non-QMs a little bit later down.
05:38But it's been successful.
05:39And, you know, I never thought that I would hear this from anybody where they're like, you're the best at non-QM.
05:46I'm like, it wasn't even our intention.
05:48Like, we never came out as, oh, we're the non-QM lender like you were referring to earlier that, hey, they're growing some market share in there, too.
05:55But it's great to be able to take our UWM process and make sure that regardless of the loan product, the loan type,
06:02that the brokers are still enjoying a wonderful process and they want to come back here.
06:05So that's my that's my job as the COO to make sure that we're underwriting and closing great loans and that we do it with a level of service that the brokers fall in love with us and bring back the next one.
06:15And that's that's our focus always has been.
06:17So I've interviewed a bunch of executives in the Wholesale channel over the past three or four months.
06:24And my sense is competition is increasing in wholesale in 2025.
06:32But I love your perspective on that.
06:34How does UWM plan to stay on top this year?
06:38You know what?
06:39I don't even think about entrance to the space.
06:43I what we have done has been, I don't know, holistic, innate.
06:49I don't know what the right word for it is, but I really don't fear anybody coming in to the marketplace to do it.
06:55I think we care more than anybody.
06:57I think we do it best.
06:58I think with our culture of continually improving and hiring great people and we're just a fun place to do business with.
07:04Like I really don't even think anybody could come in and touch much for a very long time, let alone our technology and our process.
07:12Like we've been investing for years in our kind of proprietary systems, our tools that we have out there.
07:17It would be really hard for somebody to come in and be as great as UWM is.
07:22So, you know, we just again just we focus, we care, we put our head down, we work, we try and figure out how to improve every day.
07:28I don't really care who comes into it.
07:30Like really not that worried about it because we're doing our thing and it's been it's shown that it works over these years and brokers are loving it.
07:37So let them come in.
07:39Yeah, we're a good competitive group if you haven't noticed.
07:41Yeah, no, I can tell that you're pretty competitive.
07:45Really, the way that you compete in wholesale, you know, there's kind of three variables.
07:50You know, there's rate, there's tech and there's service.
07:55And, you know, speed to close is kind of in between tech and service.
08:00Yeah.
08:00Tell me about how you look at those three variables when you think about being the best in wholesale.
08:08Yeah, no, it's a great question.
08:09I think they're all they're all important.
08:11I mean, it's no fun to have something that's cheap with horrible service.
08:16It is it's no fun to have something that is kind of taking you backwards in in speed or technology.
08:25Like time, I think I know it is for me and I believe this for any salesperson, any executive time is the most important and limited resource that we have.
08:33So, hey, yes, maybe, you know, when you when you do that cost structure, when you think how much time and effort you put into doing one loan with a lender that doesn't perform so well.
08:48Like, you know, I've often heard brokers tell me that they can get true like hands on file time with with far less hurdles and far less complexity.
08:56They can get, you know, three to five more loans done here versus one loan there.
09:01And, you know, again, time is you can say time is money, time is limited, whatever it is.
09:05But but the quicker we're able to to do our jobs, the more of our job that we can do is the way that I look at it.
09:12So it's it's it's the all in ball of experience.
09:16There's no you can't take just one of those things and be great at just one of them.
09:20You got to look at them all. And it's a total package deal.
09:23I interviewed Jason Bressler, your CTO a couple weeks ago.
09:28Really great conversation. And I love how much UWM invests in technology.
09:35And you're not just partnering like you're building almost all of it, if not all of it yourself.
09:41That's right.
09:41Why did you go down that path? Because it's an expensive path.
09:45I get I mean, I get that you own everything, but it can be an expensive path.
09:50Yeah, it's a great question. It started a long, long time ago.
09:53We we now have eighteen hundred people in our technology team, which is bigger than most true technology teams or contractors.
10:00It is huge. And and honestly, I think it's well known that we move fast and we roll out a lot and develop a lot.
10:07And if we were, you know, hand bound to to some vendor who doesn't move as fast, who doesn't care as much as we do or who has other clients that they need to please.
10:17We wouldn't be anywhere close to where we are today. Like that's that's definitely been one of our superpowers in there for sure.
10:23So it's not just it's not just control. And that's a great big aspect of it, too.
10:27But it's it's speed and care and time to delivery. I mean, there's days on a, you know, on a Sunday night, there's a thought like, hey, can we do this?
10:35And it's like, let's try and do it by Wednesday. Like that's that's our UWM culture here.
10:39So we getting a vendor, they would say, oh, no, that's going to take, you know, two quarters or six months or my next rollout isn't for three quarters from now.
10:46So that's been a total win. Obviously, the the innovation that comes along with that to have eighteen hundred people that are focused on technology,
10:54plus all of our other team members constantly thinking through great ideas are brokers, giving us great ideas and being able to execute on those quickly and make an impact tomorrow.
11:03So that's what we're all about. So you talked about your competitive drive at UWM before, and I love it.
11:11I love good, good, good competition. In twenty twenty one, you delivered the all in agreement to mortgage brokers,
11:21which at the time required brokers to stop working with Rocket and Fairway if they wanted to keep working with UWM.
11:30And do you in light of your desire to compete, do you think all in still has its place in the wholesale channel?
11:39I do. And honestly, I mean, I don't look at that as a as a competition play.
11:44I look at that as a protection of the wholesale broker channel as a whole that, you know, we've been we have been strictly wholesale for a long time.
11:52I don't think anybody anywhere who has ever used us could say that we don't care about wholesale.
11:58It wasn't a like, oh, let's get all these loans. It's like, hey, brokers, stop sending loans to places where they're going to take them or where they're a direct a direct competitor with you.
12:10Even if it's, you know, hey, they have this one product like it's not worth it.
12:14So the way that we all looked at that years ago was it's it's been our self-ordained job to help protect the broker channel, to make it an amazing community, to help it grow.
12:27That's what we've all been about. So, hey, if there's things that come into the market or come into play that that we know are going to impact our brokers in the wholesale channel in a negative way,
12:36we will step up to the plate and help them. And, you know, we're we're large and we've got you know, we've got we've got pull and we're going to be there to protect them because I can't say that anybody else out there is out there to protect them and that channel as much as we are.
12:50So just a follow up question on. Yeah. Why not let the brokers themselves make that call?
12:58So if they think that a player in the wholesale channel is is doing things that aren't right by the wholesale channel, they just don't send their loans to them.
13:10Why not let them make that decision? Sometimes we know more than they might know.
13:16I think when you when you I mean, you know, we watch everything that happens.
13:21I can't guarantee that every mom and pop shop really understand what's going on behind the scenes.
13:26And I think it was a lot of, oh, I sent my my loan here and they started they started soliciting my borrower the very next day after I closed the loan.
13:34Like that's that's what that's what a lot of these companies were then.
13:39I can't say what they are now. But as far as competition that there, you know, there are 70 probably you probably know the number.
13:46More than I do. You're probably watching the income or says you talked about earlier, but there's a lot of other lenders out there.
13:51It's not you know, this isn't like, oh, let's all restrict it down to two or three lenders and have a, you know, oligopoly or whatever it's called.
13:57But there's there's a lot of choices that are still out there.
14:02So, hey, it's just you can't use these one. I think now or these two now.
14:05I think it's just down to one if I remember here. Right. But but yeah, it's there's there's plenty of other places to go.
14:11And hey, we don't want them to to go to the place where we know it is not good for their loans in their future.
14:19So we that's the decision that we made all those years ago.
14:21And one final question on this and then and then we'll move on.
14:26We've been publishing a lot of stories at Housing Wire about lawsuits that UWM has filed against brokers that are that are violating the all in agreement.
14:36Is that a path that you will continue to take where you'll file lawsuits against against brokers that continue to violate that agreement?
14:44Yeah, I know. It's definitely not a focus of ours. It's not you know, we don't spend time like, oh, who's who's next?
14:50But we do continuously monitor it. And honestly, I haven't heard of a breach in a very, very long time for that.
14:57So. So, hey, if something comes up, will we will we honor the all in agreement again, potentially?
15:03But and we've been very successful in those those lawsuits as well as the counter suits that have come against us, too.
15:09So it's it's it's again, looking back, it was a great decision and we still stand by it.
15:15And I still do think it has a place in today's environment.
15:17So the reason that I reached out to you originally or reached out to Nicole, the very, very great person on your on your comps team who connects me with a lot of executives at UWM.
15:30I reached out because I was intrigued by your recent LinkedIn post about the track light program at UWM.
15:39What is track light? And tell us how it's going.
15:44Yeah, thank you for that. And yes, Nicole is a superstar for sure.
15:48But I love track light. I, you know, I shared my history with you.
15:52You know, my my entry days in here was a lot of paper, a lot of fax machines, you know, the curly purple kind.
15:58And it's one of my greatest passions has been watching the mortgage process develop and UWM being a very big part of that, of like, how do we take out some of the friction of this, like, archaic, you know, kind of dinosaur model that just moves so slowly.
16:14Right. So, hey, we got a little digit digitized, which was great.
16:17You know, got rid of the paper and now there's dock management systems, too.
16:20But but my passion has always been about how do we make things faster, easier, cheaper, less complex.
16:26And I think, you know, I've been no no stranger to to saying that titles there's issues with title.
16:34It is not the best way to do it. It is very expensive.
16:38I have learned so much about how they're regulated.
16:41Oh, you can't charge less like you can't. You're not allowed to give the consumer a deal.
16:44I mean, it's people act like it's like the you know, there's a there's a cost minimum, like for buying liquor.
16:50Right. It's like, do we because why? Because we don't want people to buy too much.
16:54Right. Hey, I have a cost minimum that you can't go below to give a consumer a better deal.
16:59Like, that's crazy to me. So so track light.
17:02There's been a lot of things that we've done in the title space.
17:04So we started with track and our attorney opinion letters a while back to be able to save consumers money and to take out some of the friction from the housing industry.
17:12So what track light is, is a complete waiver of the lender's title policy.
17:18Therefore, no cost for the lender's title policy, something that's been required on all mortgages.
17:22I mean, as long as I've been doing it for the last 25 years, I'm sure it started well before I did.
17:27So all there is is a closing fee and there's no other junk in there.
17:32I think the the max closing fee is I think it's less than four hundred dollars somewhere in there.
17:37That's a big savings. Yeah, it is. It is.
17:39So in so in a state like Texas, I the average savings are almost nineteen hundred dollars on our track light so far.
17:49New Jersey is about I think it's like thirteen hundred dollars.
17:52And then the rest of the states that we're in, the average comes out to be about twelve hundred dollars savings.
17:58That's just on the policy part, too.
18:00That's just on the premium. And then to have like a, you know, fixed, predictable closing fee without all that.
18:06I mean, you should see the things that that we see from title.
18:09Sometimes it's, you know, closing fee here, a courier fee here, a notary fee here, email fee here.
18:14I mean, you add you just keep adding to it.
18:18So, again, those savings are are not even including that part of, you know, kind of the non insurance title fees that are in there.
18:26It's been a win where we're watching adoption go up all the time.
18:30It's been it's been great.
18:31And I'm really proud of really proud of Fannie Mae for rolling this thing out.
18:36I think it's you know, everybody has been I don't know.
18:39I'm not going to speak for everybody, but I think there's been some like, oh, don't don't mess with title.
18:43Like it's too big of a monster and whatever.
18:46And it's nice to see that that with the last couple of things, you know, the use of an attorney opinion letter from years ago and now something like track light.
18:53It's great to see that progress.
18:55And it's saving people, saving consumers a lot of money.
18:58It's our partners doing a great job in there.
19:01It's a much more frictionless process anyway.
19:03And I, you know, I'm so lucky, so fortunate that we as UWM got to got to pilot this thing and be part of it.
19:10And it only makes our wholesale loans and our brokers even stronger by offering such a great cost savings and a great process with track light.
19:17You mentioned Fannie Mae and this is their title waiver pilot.
19:22But this program has some pretty powerful enemies, especially in D.C.
19:29Do you expect that this pilot will continue under the Trump administration?
19:36I do.
19:37I mean, there is there is no downside to this thing at all.
19:41I have I have seen the data, the the amount of title claims that exist on refinances is ridiculously low.
19:50I mean, they often quote the three to four percent overall, I think, is what we've heard over the years of title claim versus the amount of insurance.
19:58In general.
19:59But when you look at refinances, they just it doesn't exist.
20:03So to have this this program to cover risk, that's not really real.
20:09And the price doesn't reflect how low the risk really is in real life.
20:14I honestly I do not see it going anywhere.
20:18And, you know, that if the if the title industries, you know, I don't know, I guess the harder they fight is often because there's more money to risk at hand.
20:27But if they if they truly had the goal in mind of, oh, let me look at this from a risk standpoint, from a cost savings standpoint and just doing right by people, I think even they'd say, wow, that's pretty cool.
20:41You know, I we should have done that years ago or participate in it, too.
20:44But, you know, unfortunately, I think there's there's way too much money in title and people are trying to protect that.
20:50And it's almost like the harder they fight, the more that there is to protect.
20:53But I think any anybody who just looks at it in a in a very holistic way, you can't beat it.
20:58You can't beat it.
20:59Yeah, I love that.
21:01And as a consumer of home buying and home selling, you know, that title process is still pretty antiquated and paper driven.
21:09And there are other aspects of the home buying and home selling process that's have some room for improvement from my perspective.
21:18Oh, yeah.
21:18So you look at the valuation process and the handoffs between mortgage and appraisal companies, that seems like another opportunity for improvement.
21:31Are you looking at those kinds of areas as you think about, you know, smoothing out that whole process for the consumer?
21:38Yeah, no, absolutely.
21:39In fact, years ago, I don't know how many years ago it's been, we rolled out appraisal direct, which is basically UWM, you know, panel of appraisals acting like an AMC, but it's us.
21:49Right.
21:49So what we did is, you know, we we give the appraiser the full money.
21:54So what AMCs do, it's like, hey, you know, you charge five hundred dollars for an appraisal.
21:58They keep one hundred and twenty five.
22:00They give three seventy five to the appraiser.
22:02Like that's what that's kind of what the AMC model did with appraisers years ago.
22:06So so, yeah, it was, you know, one one less spot of friction again, which you can tell I love getting rid of friction.
22:11So by it's us as UWM, it's not the broker going to a third party to order the appraisal.
22:18The high majority of our loans that need appraisals go through appraisal direct.
22:22So the product is is great.
22:24But I love looking at things like that.
22:26We're not we've never been the oh, let's go, you know, acquire X to do it.
22:31Like if it's if it makes sense to to make the process.
22:34And again, faster, easier, cheaper, like anything, we will look at anything to do it.
22:39We know the products now appraisal waivers obviously have been in the market for a long time.
22:43Those are great.
22:44The kind of the ACE plus PDRs, those kind of like, hey, it's an appraisal waiver, but go collect some data for me.
22:50Happy to see that.
22:51That's wonderful.
22:52But I mean, if you can't tell passion on this one, too, I'm like they've been collecting data for I don't know.
22:58I think it's 12 to 15 years now like the the GSEs have so much more data than anybody else, than any appraiser or MLS or anybody could ever have.
23:09So it's great to be able to leverage leverage that data and to be able to to give consumers products where they don't have to take time and they don't have to take as much money.
23:18So that's been great progress.
23:20Yeah, it's clear from your body language and your responses that this is a passion point for you.
23:26Are there other points of friction in the home buying process that UWM would like to smooth out that you're that you're looking at right now?
23:36You know, honestly, my main focus has has just been on on title.
23:40I think that's I think that's a big one.
23:42I'm feeling pretty good in the appraisal space.
23:44And, you know, we talk to the GSEs a lot, you know, hey, what more can we do there?
23:47And they've made some good gains there.
23:50The I'm actually I love the kind of the virtual and hybrid.
23:55I think from a closing standpoint, you know, again, I'm back from the days of come to my office as an originator, sign these documents in person, this big stack, make three copies of it.
24:06And and that's what we're still doing in the closing space for the most part.
24:12But, you know, we've done such a great job of we as an industry, we've done such a great job of transitioning to upfront docs.
24:19Right. Have you applied for a mortgage for me yesterday?
24:21I sent out a package to you.
24:22Click, click, click e-sign like, OK, good to go where I used to have to come to my office and sign those.
24:27And, you know, a lot of focus on that final that final experience in the mortgage, which is that closing.
24:33How do we make that easier? Really trying to leverage that same kind of technology that we used up front for closing.
24:39Obviously, it's a little bit more difficult because you have to have a notary and there's certain docs that need to be notarized.
24:44So a big focus for us on virtual closings where we have a virtual notary.
24:49It's like a FaceTime, like you sign a bunch of docs and then you say, hey, I'm ready to to do my FaceTime with that notary.
24:55Click the button. Notary comes on. You sign a few more docs together and then you're done.
24:59You don't have to leave the house and you don't have to have the stranger walking into your house and being late.
25:04And, oh, sorry, I'm on my way. Notary person.
25:07So it's that's been a focus, too. But we're always after any part of it, even if it's our own process.
25:13Like, how do we make you close better? How do we make submission submitting a loan easier?
25:17But, yeah, those I think that's really the the two big ones that are that are in there is just title and closing.
25:23So last question. Yeah, you were a mortgage broker, but you've been in this executive seat for for over a decade now.
25:34How do you get feedback from the mortgage brokers that work with UWM so that you're working on the issues as COO that are going to be meaningful for them?
25:47Yeah, no, thank you for that question. It's a great one and one that we've prided ourself on for a lot of years.
25:53So whether it's feedback from from team members or from brokers, we have advisory councils.
25:59We have we have for our internal people what we call brilliant ideas.
26:03We rolled out broker brilliant ideas before. Hey, put your idea on a Web site and our site.
26:07A lot of people vote on them. So we get a lot of data that way.
26:10But our advisory councils have been really key to doing a lot of the things that we've done.
26:14In fact, we just had one last week and all of us executives are sitting in that room.
26:18We're hearing firsthand what it is that the brokers need.
26:20And we all have a meeting afterward, decide, OK, this is what they ask for most.
26:24How do we get get these things done? And I think that's the I mean, feedback, I would say, is the most important part to a successful business.
26:30Like if you're not if you're not making your product better and better and better, that's why, you know, go back to, hey, you got some new entrants coming into wholesale.
26:36You worried about it? Nope, not worried about it.
26:38Because we are we have such a great pulse on our brokers and what they need.
26:43And, you know, I I call on myself all the time, too.
26:46I'm like, hey, you haven't used track light yet. Tell me what's going on.
26:48And they're like, well, we'll try it tomorrow.
26:50So I know we're no strangers to calling out.
26:53Everybody's got every broker's got my email address, Matt's email address.
26:58Very we're very available because we want to hear that next great idea and be a partner with them.
27:03So constantly listening to their needs and their wants and rolling things out because we have our own technology team inside.
27:08We can move those things really quickly.
27:11So I lied. One last question.
27:14So not only has UWM been growing its share in wholesale, but the wholesale channel has been growing its share overall within origin origination.
27:26Do you see that trend continuing this year and into 2026?
27:31I do. I do.
27:32I think, you know, just a continued realization that, you know, honestly, the wholesale channel gives brokers so much control.
27:40Right. I think a lot of I think there's a lot of myths in the retail world about what it's like to be a wholesaler.
27:46And we've we have seen an amazing shift.
27:48And, you know, back when I was originating, I mean, I think we were doing more than 50 percent of the business as as wholesale brokers.
27:54And I I love watching that number tick up each year that I'm here and to try and get back into that space.
28:00We know that wholesale is the best deal for the consumer, like hands down, the best experience and really the people that that care the most.
28:08Mortgage brokers care about what they're doing and about serving their client well.
28:12So, yeah, they're doing an amazing job.
28:13We're fully committed to helping them grow in any way that we possibly can, whether it's training, helping train realtors, spreading information out there and really creating a sense of community.
28:23I'd say that's one of the things that didn't exist back when I was a broker was like, hey, you were kind of a lone wolf on your own.
28:29And there were a couple of associations which were awkward and weird.
28:32But UWM has done something I'm very proud of, has done such a great job of making a true community.
28:38I mean, a family of brokers out there that we rely on each other and we're getting more and more powerful.
28:45And I can see that growing in the market share as we either bring new entrants, new entrants into the mortgage market or watching a lot of crossover from used to be retail coming into wholesale,
28:58realizing that, wow, like, you know, my rates are really high in retail.
29:01My fees were awful.
29:02It's like it's much easier to sell a wholesale good product than that more difficult retail thing.
29:08So, yeah, we look forward to it.
29:10We'll continue to support it and keep it our main focus as it's been for years.
29:14Well, Melinda, I really appreciate your transparency and your obvious passion for wholesale and the industry overall.
29:24It's been great talking with you today.
29:26Thank you so much for joining me on Powerhouse.
29:29Thanks for having me.
29:29It was a pleasure.
29:30Have a great day.