Mortgage franchise president unfazed by headwinds

About 72% of the firm’s sales go to real estate companies or real estate teams, and by selling to them, they have purchase referral – what Morrison calls “diamonds in their backyard”.

The industry is sitting up and taking notice. During one of his recent video pep talks, Mat Ishbia, the president and CEO of wholesale lender UWM, urged brokers to forge closer relationships with real estate agents in response to falling refi demand. The point was not missed on Morrison.

“UWM’s right. Everybody now, unfortunately, is trying to establish those realtor relationships. But since a majority of our sales are already to real estate companies as an affiliated business, they’ve had that relationship from the beginning when they bought Motto,” he said.

As part of the firm’s growth strategy, Motto added “the last piece of the puzzle” in December 2020 with the purchase of fintech start-up Wemlo, with a view to solving “the number one problem” faced by the broker channel – fast and cost-effective loan processing.

“From the get-go, when we established our franchise brand, we said, ‘what is the key technology we need to bring a mortgage broker or their loan originators to make them successful?’ It was obviously a loan origination system,” he said.