Kind Lending forms joint venture with RE/MAX franchise

Partnerships between mortgage companies and real estate brokerages and home builders continue to form as players in the industry look for ways to drum up originations.

Kind Lending is the latest mortgage company to announce such an alliance. The Santa Ana, California-based lender has entered into a joint venture with RE/MAX Results in a bid to capture more purchase business in the Midwest. 

The joint venture, which is dubbed Results Home Mortgage, LLC, is headquartered in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, and will focus on servicing borrowers in Minnesota and Wisconsin.

As such, all parts of the homebuying process will be brought under one roof, said Glenn Stearns, CEO of Kind Lending, in a written statement.

"Our Results Home Mortgage joint venture brings together superb expertise in Minnesota's real estate markets and the power of a leading national mortgage lender like Kind Lending, to ensure that homebuyers receive unparalleled service throughout the land of 10,000 lakes," Stearns said. 

Through this arrangement real estate agents can access in-house loan officers to help with qualifying a borrower but they are in no way obligated to use LOs that are part of the joint venture.

This is Kind Lending's second partnership with a real estate company.

In 2021, it announced a joint venture with eXp World Holdings to create Illinois-based SUCCESS Lending, LLC. At the time, Glenn Sanford, CEO of eXp World Holdings, described the undertaking as a "synergistic mortgage solution that provides greater efficiencies."

As origination activity has declined, more joint ventures have popped up of late.

At the end of 2022, at least three lenders, including Newrez, loanDepot and Nations Lending, announced collaborations with real estate or builder partners.

Newrez's announced partnership with Keller Williams Bergen County Partners to create New Jersey-based Carnegie Mortgage Partners is that nonbank's 20th joint venture to date under the portfolio of Newrez Ventures LLC, formerly known as Shelter Mortgage.

Meanwhile, loanDepot formed NHC Mortgage in early November, a joint venture with National HomeCorp, a homebuilder specializing in affordable single-family homes, marking the lender's 10th joint venture to date.