Michigan-based United Wholesale Mortgage (UWM) is taking another step to aggressively reduce its prices in order to gain market share in a shrinking mortgage market.
The company announced on Wednesday that it is giving up to 125 basis points to brokers to use on any loans they lock with the lender, with a maximum of 40 basis points per loan.
According to a spokesperson for the company, LOs can apply their own pricing enhancement to their borrowers with these basis points.
“Sometimes 10-20 basis points is all an LO needs to win over a real estate agent or get creative on a borrower’s loan,” the company said in a statement.
Brokers can use the points for conventional, government and non-agency loans up to $1 million.
The program, dubbed “Control Your Price,” is effective immediately and is evidence of how the company intends to keep pushing its rivals in 2023. To support its strategy, the mortgage lender had about $800 million in cash as of the third quarter of 2022.
For most of 2022, UWM had an aggressive pricing strategy in place to gain market share and attract loan officers from the retail to the wholesale channel. With the Game On initiative, the lender slashed prices across all loans by 50 to 100 basis points.
In December, UWM’s chief strategy officer, Alex Elezaj, told HousingWire the company doesn’t “have any intention right now to stop Game On, which has been a big win for our company.”
According to Elezaj, “Retail loan officers continue to convert over to wholesale, and this [Game On] was an extra incentive.”
Late last year, UWM also expanded temporary buydowns for jumbo loans, which makes sense as borrowers have increased negotiating power amid surging mortgage rates. The company also recently announced a flat fee of $37.35 for credit reports.
