Mortgage Market Intelligence

Mortgage Market Intel #26 - Introducing the Agent Loyalty Index: A New Way to Measure Realtor Relationships

Written by Steven Wynands | Jun 29, 2026 11:00:00 AM

Market Movers

Last week, 288 originators switched companies and 1,105 individuals obtained their NMLS license. Notable originator movements last week include:

Figures are based on last 14 months’ production.

Market Movers (Gainers by Producer Volume)

Top Gainers (non-Bank/CU):

  1. Northpoint Mortgage, Inc. +14.18%
  2. River City Mortgage LLC +9.47%
  3. ClickStart Mortgage LLC +9.23%
  4. Trailblazer Mortgage L.L.C. +7.4%
  5. Global Credit Union Home Loans, LLC +6.2%
  6. First Colony Mortgage Corporation +5.59%
  7. JUNIPER FINANCIAL, LLC +5.07%
  8. Hartford Funding, Ltd. +4.74%
  9. Priority Financial Network +3.05%
  10. Mortgage Solutions Financial +2.79%
  11. Mortgage Solutions FCS Inc. +2.78%

Calculations based on last aggregate production of individual LO’s 14 months’ production. Excludes companies below $100M in 14mo LO production value after gains factored in.

 

Introducing the Agent Loyalty Index: A New Way to Measure Realtor Relationships 

The mortgage industry has always measured production.

We rank Realtors by transactions closed. We track referral partners. We count meetings and monitor loan volume.

But we've never had a way to measure Realtor loyalty itself.

Until now.

Today we're introducing the Agent Loyalty Index (ALI)—a new mortgage sales intelligence metric that measures how consistently a real estate agent works with the same mortgage lender versus distributing business across multiple lending partners.

Simply put, ALI helps answer a question the industry has never been able to quantify:

How loyal is this Realtor to their lending partners?

What Is the Agent Loyalty Index?

The Agent Loyalty Index (ALI) is scored on a 0-10 scale.

    • ALI 9-10: Nearly all business goes to one lender.
    • ALI 7-8: One dominant lending relationship with a few secondary partners.
    • ALI 5-6: Several meaningful lender relationships.
    • ALI 3-4: Business is regularly distributed across multiple lenders.
    • ALI 0-2: Highly diversified with no clear preferred lending partner.

Higher scores indicate greater concentration with a single mortgage lender. Lower scores indicate a more diversified referral strategy.

Neither is inherently better. The value comes from understanding the relationship dynamics behind the production.

The First Industry Benchmarks

With that framework in place, we analyzed hundreds of thousands of Agent Loyalty Index scores across producing real estate agents nationwide.

The trend is exactly what many experienced loan officers would expect.

As Realtor production increases, the average Agent Loyalty Index declines.

The reason is straightforward.

Many of the industry's highest-producing "agents" are actually teams. As those teams grow, multiple agents naturally develop relationships with multiple loan officers, creating a more diversified lender mix.

Even so, the data provides valuable context.

An average ALI of 2.85 doesn't suggest these teams lack preferred lending partners. It suggests those relationships are shared across several lenders rather than concentrated with one.

Why ALI Matters

Imagine two Realtor teams that each close 50 buy-side transactions annually.

One has an Agent Loyalty Index of 8.6.

The other has an ALI of 2.8.

On a production leaderboard, they appear identical.

From a sales perspective, they are very different opportunities.

One has highly concentrated lender relationships.

The other regularly works with multiple lending partners.

Production tells you who performs.

The Agent Loyalty Index helps explain how they distribute their business.

That's context the mortgage industry has never had before.

Introducing the Loyalty Risk Index

Alongside ALI, we're also introducing the Loyalty Risk Index (LRI).

While the Agent Loyalty Index measures how concentrated an agent's lender relationships are today, the Loyalty Risk Index estimates how likely those relationships are to change based on historical partner movement and relationship stability.

Together they answer two different questions:

    • Agent Loyalty Index (ALI): How concentrated are this agent's lender relationships today?
    • Loyalty Risk Index (LRI): How likely are those relationships to change?

This Is Just the Beginning

The mortgage industry has spent decades measuring production.

We believe the next generation of mortgage sales intelligence will also measure relationship dynamics.

Over the coming months, we'll publish deeper research using the Agent Loyalty Index to explore loyalty across brokerages, markets, lender networks, production levels, and other trends that have never before been measurable.

Understanding who produces has always mattered.

Understanding how they choose their lending partners may become just as important.

Upcoming RETR Training

    •  Mon, June 29 @ 2p ET - Intro to RETR: The Modern Loan Officer’s Data Advantage Register 
    •  Wed, July 1 @ 1p ET - The Opportunity Playbook: Finding Wins in Any Market Register 
    Note: Full training calendar is available at https://training.retr.com

Is RETR Better?

When it comes to mortgage market intelligence, you have a handful of options, and RETR is one that truly stands out. Here’s what Matt Muscat, Director of Marketing at Treadstone has to say about RETR: “We feel like we are OG’s with RETR, but honestly can’t remember life in mortgages without it at this point. We use it daily to find the data we need to make decisions. In addition, they add new features to the system constantly and some of these items have been very forward thinking. The value ratio with RETR is insane.”

 

 But you don’t have to take their word for it. RETR offers a free trial to individuals and organizations to judge the quality of the data and insights for themselves.