Last week, 340 originators switched companies and 1,291 individuals obtained their NMLS license. Notable originator movements last week include:
Figures are based on last 14 months’ production.
Top Gainers (non-Bank/CU):
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.
Part 4 of RETR’s Post-Acquisition Loan Officer Attrition Study
After Part 2, this was the question we heard most:
Are acquirers mainly losing lower-producing Loan Officers—or are meaningful producers leaving too?
The answer appears to be both.
Higher-producing LOs are more likely to still be with the buyer. But even among the strongest current producers, a meaningful number are now producing for someone else.
Are higher-producing LOs more likely to stay after an acquisition?
We analyzed the current 14-month loan production of the 1,165 LOs who transferred across the eight acquisitions in our study.
Looking only at LOs who are still active today, retention rises steadily with current production:
|
Current 14-Month Loan Count |
Still With Buyer |
At Another Lender |
|
1–5 loans |
56.6% |
43.4% |
|
6–15 loans |
58.2% |
41.8% |
|
16–30 loans |
63.4% |
36.6% |
|
31–60 loans |
71.8% |
28.2% |
|
61+ loans |
80.8% |
19.2% |
The relationship is clear:
The more an LO is producing today, the more likely they are to still be with the acquiring company.
The same pattern appears when we look at current loan volume:
|
Current 14-Month Loan Volume |
Still With Buyer |
|
Under $2.5M |
55.9% |
|
$2.5M–$5M |
59.3% |
|
$5M–$10M |
67.6% |
|
$10M–$25M |
69.7% |
|
$25M+ |
79.4% |
But that is only half the story.
How much current production has moved to competitors?
Among the transferred LOs who remain active today, they collectively produced more than:
30,000 loans and $11.3 billion in current 14-month volume.
LOs still with the acquiring companies accounted for:
LOs who left and are now active elsewhere accounted for:
That means competitors now hold roughly 27% of the current loan count and 28% of the current volume generated by these active transferred LOs.
So while buyers are retaining a larger share of today’s higher producers, the production leakage is still meaningful.
Acquirers are losing real producers
Even in the highest loan-count cohort, not everyone stayed.
Among LOs currently producing 61+ loans over 14 months, 30 are now at another lender.
And 16 departed LOs are currently producing more than 100 loans over 14 months.
So post-acquisition attrition is not simply a story of marginal or inactive originators leaving.
Some meaningful producers are leaving too.
And as we saw in Part 3, many of those LOs are ending up at competitors alongside others from the same acquired roster.
Could retention bonuses be influencing the results?
Possibly.
Top-producing LOs are often offered retention incentives during acquisitions, and those agreements can include repayment provisions lasting two or three years.
That may help explain why higher-producing LOs are more likely to remain with the buyer.
Our data does not identify which LOs received retention bonuses or the terms of those agreements, so we cannot isolate their impact.
But it is an important factor to keep in mind when interpreting the higher retention rates among today’s top producers.
What does this tell us about post-acquisition LO retention?
Across this four-part study, a pattern has emerged.
Acquirers first lose LOs who never transfer.
Then additional attrition occurs over the following months and years.
Most of the LOs who leave remain in mortgage lending.
And while higher-producing LOs are more likely to stay, a meaningful share of current production still ends up outside the acquiring company.
For an acquirer, retaining headcount is only part of the equation.
The bigger question may be:
How much of the acquired sales force—and its future production capacity—actually remains with the buyer?
One important distinction: The loan production analyzed represent each LO’s current rolling 14-month production, not their production at the time of acquisition.
So this analysis tells us where today’s producers ended up. It does not tell us whether an LO’s production increased or decreased because of the acquisition.
That would be a different study.
When it comes to mortgage market intelligence, you have a handful of options, and RETR is one that truly stands out. Here’s what Jeremy Engle, a national Top 50 producer at Vero Mortgage has to say about RETR: “Love RETR!!! I remember spinning my wheels on agents that seemed to be busy from social media or other reasons. But it turns out that some of them were not busy and now I can focus on a dialed in network and concentrate my time on a smaller number of agents. Less calls, more deals!”
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.