Pennymac CEO on mortgage broker freedom

Pennymac CEO champions broker choice, eyes growth

April 28, 2025 12:56 PM

Pennymac's CEO David Spector doesn't agree with limiting mortgage broker choice. The company's executive believes brokers should be free to work with any wholesale lender they choose.

"It's really unfortunate that we're in a situation where brokers are having to choose who they're going to be aligned with at the expense of somebody else," Spector said. "I look at what's going on in the marketplace and I'm just trying to help brokers not become loan officers beholden to one broker or direct lender."

Spector argues Pennymac's infrastructure and technology make it a worthy opponent to United Wholesale Mortgage and Rocket Pro, and with time the CEO sees his company taking the number one slot in the wholesale space.

In differentiating itself from competitors, Spector claims that unlike UWM and Rocket, Pennymac does not sell the servicing of brokers and instead keeps these loans in-house.

"The retention of servicing is vitally important because the broker cares about their customer and the fact that the customer has a loan closed and the servicing immediately transfers, creates a little bit of disruption that brokers will avoid with Pennymac," he said.

The CEO said that, going forward, Pennymac will be more vocal in marketing itself to both borrowers and prospective mortgage broker partners. One of the first steps the company has taken to raise its public profile is sponsoring the 2026 and 2028 U.S. Olympic and Paralympic teams.

Read on for more insights from National Mortgage News' interview with Pennymac's executive.

What is Pennymac doing to support the broker channel?

There are over 15,000 brokers in the United States who are on the ground, and they play a vital role in providing financing to borrowers. I believe we're very different from the number one and two players in the marketplace. My focus is on supporting brokers by giving them a choice. They can choose to work with me, or go to Rocket, or UWM. I think broker choice is incredibly important — something I continue to emphasize.

It's unfortunate that we're in a situation where brokers are forced to choose who they align with, often at the expense of other opportunities. When I look at the current landscape, my goal is to help brokers avoid becoming loan officers tied exclusively to one broker or direct lender. That's really been the driving force behind the growth and vision we're building here.

We have a good scale and size. From a capital standpoint, we have the potential to be the number one broker-direct lender. We just need to keep building out the organization. Our capital markets expertise allows us to offer a full array of products at highly competitive prices. The only product we don't currently offer is non-QM, but we're studying that market closely and I anticipate we'll have an offering soon.

What excites me is the rapid deployment of state-of-the-art technology designed to serve brokers' needs—and this is just the beginning. You're going to see technology continue to evolve and improve in ways that benefit brokers even more.

Tech is touted as a motivator for brokers to partner with wholesale lenders. How are you competing with the tech tools offered to brokers?

Pennymac offers state-of-the-art technology, competitive pricing, and top-tier service. It's the consistency across all three that's critically important.

As a broker, I'm going to ask whether the technology allows me to do my job efficiently and meet the needs of my clients. Our proprietary platform, Power+, is designed with that in mind. It offers a strong workflow and is solely focused on bringing speed to the process—speed that's essential when helping borrowers quickly reduce their mortgage payments through a refinance.

We also support brokers doing non-delegated loans, and we recently launched new technology called Non-Del+. It's receiving great feedback. The goal is to give brokers everything they need to succeed.

What truly sets us apart from Rocket and UWM is that we don't sell our broker servicing. Retaining servicing is incredibly important because brokers care about their clients. When a loan closes and the servicing is immediately transferred, it creates unnecessary disruption—something brokers can avoid by working with Pennymac.

When Rocket announced the Redfin and Mr. Cooper acquisitions, what was your reaction?

If you look at the Redfin deal and the Mr. Cooper deal, it's clear to me that Rocket is going all in on retail originations. This is great for us because Rocket will be focused on integrating those two organizations, while we continue to operate without distraction. That's why I strongly believe you'll see our market share grow in the broker-direct channel over the next 12 to 24 months. The broker community needs a company like Pennymac to continue providing partnership and support.

We're committed to being the low-cost originator and low-cost servicer—helping the consumer, the broker, and our correspondent business partners. That's where our focus remains.

Take on the current political and regulatory landscape?

There was a lot of discussion about the government-sponsored enterprises just a few weeks ago, but things are starting to settle down. The folks in Washington, D.C., seem genuinely committed to avoiding any major disruptions to housing finance. Housing makes up nearly 18% of GDP—you don't want to mess with that.

There's a clear desire in D.C. to reduce regulation, and I support that. Unfortunately, a lot of time and money has been spent on regulation that may not have been necessary. Between Dodd-Frank and state-level oversight, there's already a significant regulatory framework in place. Even if federal regulations from the CFPB are scaled back, much of that oversight will likely be picked up by the states. So, the real impact may simply be a reduction in duplicative regulation, rather than less regulation overall.

If the economy slows down and we enter a recession, delinquencies will rise. That's why having strong servicing capabilities and the capacity to respond is essential. We offer a full range of modification programs, and our servicing technology is a real differentiator. We built it during COVID, when we were one of the industry leaders in granting forbearances. We acted faster than anyone else because we control our own tech.

Will interest rates come down this year, in your opinion?

Mortgage rates go up, and mortgage rates come down. I always start there—it's not a one-way street. What was unique about COVID and the post-COVID period is that rates moved in just one direction: first sharply down, then sharply up.

If you look back to the early '90s, rates have always fluctuated. They go up, they go down. That's the pattern. Historically, mortgage rates have hovered around 6%, so with rates currently closer to 7%—maybe even a bit lower today—I generally expect them to float back down toward 6%.

After that, it really depends on the broader economy, the actions of the Federal Reserve, and the economic policies being pursued by the current administration.