Tech options expand in the secondary mortgage market

Maxwell Capital, a fintech division established to buy closed conventional loans from clients using the company’s point-of-sale software, is now making it possible for lenders to sell non-agency loans through the platform.

The company underwrites, aggregates and sells to investors products like non-qualified mortgages, fixed rate seconds and loans underwritten based on debt service coverage ratios, said President Brian Simons, in an interview. That process minimizes turn times, he noted.

“We pass kind of that better pricing back down to our smaller clients,” Simons said. “We do take a little cut there along the way, but our end game here is not to make as many dollars as we can on trading because we have all these other services.”

Lenders have to go through a counterparty review to use the platform that takes an average of roughly two weeks, he said.

While interest in non-agency loans has been inconsistent at times, Simons said the platform helps lenders tap into demand from multiple sellers and he expects the outlook for the market to improve as uncertainties around inflation and its effect on interest rates seems to be subsiding.

“We’re actually more positive now than probably where we were 30 days ago. I’m not saying inflation is coming down, but it looks like it’s beginning to,” he said.