About 25 people from loanDepot’s top producing team have joined boutique lender Revolution Mortgage to reunite with their former team lead.
Roughly half of the team led by Stacy Chevalier, former area manager covering parts of the states in Washington and Idaho at loanDepot, made the transition as of Tuesday, Chevalier said in an interview with HousingWire. About 80% are expected to make their way over to Revolution, Chevalier said.
After Chevalier left for Revolution Mortgage in December, loanDepot gave the team an ultimatum to either work for another loanDepot team or leave, a former loanDepot employee told HousingWire.
“We recently reconfigured some portions” of the local footprint in Washington state to ensure it could best serve its customers, a loanDepot spokesperson said in response.
“While this included closing some locations to better align our state footprint with our business model, we remain committed to the Washington market. (…) We will also continue to actively source qualified Washington-based loan officers, branch leaders and teams who align with our core values and are dedicated to the communities they serve,” the spokesperson said.
Chevalier’s former team of 55 employees – including loan originators, LO assistants, branch, sales and marketing managers – originated $1.8 billion in sales volume in 2021, becoming the most profitable team for loanDepot with the most loan closing volume, units and revenue, according to Chevalier.
She started her new position on Thursday and is responsible for growing sales in the West Coast for Revolution Mortgage.
“The last 12 months have been incredibly challenging and I believe we have two choices – we can buckle up and hang on for dear life or lead through it,” Chevalier said.
“We are very active in the communities, we have strong relationships. We have daily calls to give them ideas to go out and bring in business (…) Most people have more than 20 years of experience in mortgage. This is not a young mortgage team,” Chevalier said of her team members when asked how she will navigate another tough market in 2023.
Chevalier’s transition to Revolution Mortgage comes after Brian Covey, former vice president of regional production at loanDepot, made the transition to Revolution in December as executive vice president.
Covey cited a desire to move away from the “cookie-cutter, non-personalized model” to work for a lender where LOs can dictate more sales process control in a margin-compressed and purchase mortgage-focused market.
Covey plans to expand the company’s reach by targeting local and purchase markets through training and hiring top talent, he said in a previous interview with HousingWire.
“If 100 LOs get out of the market in one state, where does the one or two loans that they did a month go?” he said in December. “It will be acquiring talent that joins us to grab market share that comes from other companies.”
T2 Financial, doing business as Revolution Mortgage, is a direct retail lender headquartered in Ohio with 373 loan officers and 75 branches in 45 states, according to mortgage data platform Modex. The lender originated $2.04 billion in volume in 2022 with 72% of its production coming from purchase mortgages and 27% consisting of refinances.
“Expanding into the Pacific Northwest along with other future markets allows us to grow strategically,” Covey said of Chevalier’s addition to Revolution Mortgage.
“This is a huge win and we are excited to partner with Stacy and the team both personally and professionally,” he added.