Advice to brokers: “Everybody has to change their tune”

Rathbun remains unperturbed, however.

“It’s certainly what we’d call a flush-out period again, (but) we go through different cycles in this industry. For us, it’s actually an opportunity. Our biggest growth was from 2010 to 2012,” he pointed out.

To rise up to the challenge, brokers used to the low hanging fruit of refi loans have to learn to adapt with an almost Darwinian zeal.

“I’ve heard loan officers say they won’t work with realtors, or that they won’t do non-QM deals. Generally being very picky in what they were doing. That’s fine when you have 200 million people refinancing at one time, but when all that changes, everybody has to change their tune.

“We have the opportunity to not only close and fund a loan, but also to go out and do non-QM. Right now, we’re doing a lot of seven- and 10-year ARMs, because there’s a lot of talk of recession. If recession comes, the Fed (will) lower rates and then we have an opportunity to do refinances and help clients into lower, long-term fixed rates.”