Business Description

Our Company We are a leading provider of lending solutions that make the American dream of homeownership more accessible and achievable for all, especially the increasingly diverse communities of first-time homebuyers, through a broad suite of lending and real estate services that simplify one of life's most complex transactions. We launched our business in 2010 to disrupt the legacy mortgage industry and make obtaining a mortgage a positive experience for consumers. Our goal is to be the lender of choice for consumers and the employer of choice by being a company that operates on sound principles of exceptional value, ethics, and transparency. We offer a wide variety of loan products and our in-house servicing platform complements our loan origination strategy. We were the fifth largest retail-focused non-bank mortgage originator and the ninth largest overall retail originator during 2025 (based on data, published by Inside Mortgage Finance on February 12, 2026). Market Considerations During 2024 and 2025, the U.S. residential mortgage market continued to experience the impact of geopolitical risks and inflation. While the Federal Reserve lowered the Federal Funds rate three times in 2025, market concerns regarding, among other things, the long-term impacts of tariff policy and inflation resulted in long-term rates remaining elevated. The heightened rate environment negatively affected the affordability and loan qualification of homebuyers, contributed to the “lock-in” effect of borrowers that secured lower long-term interest rates during 2020 and 2021 giving rise to a lack of supply of homes available for sale and decreased demand for refinancing, shrinking mortgage loan origination volumes. Actions taken by the Federal Reserve to impact short-term interest rates do not always have a corresponding impact on long-term interest rates, which more significantly influence the price of a fixed-rate mortgages. Despite the Federal Reserve reducing the Federal Funds rate to a range of 3.50% to 3.75%, the 30-Year Fixed Rate Mortgage Average in the United States as reported by the St. Louis Fed remained above 6% during all of 2025. In February 2026, the MBA forecast an 8% increase in U.S. annual one-to-four family residential mortgage origination volume from $2.05 trillion in 2025 to $2.22 trillion in 2026, with a 10% increase in refinance activity. However, prevailing interest rates and strength of the housing market coupled with existing economic conditions such as market volatility, geopolitical risks, and inflation, contribute to inherent uncertainties in estimates and assumptions. Strategy We believe in our diversified business model, with robust origination capabilities across multiple channels that provide access to purchase, refinance and home equity lending opportunities across market cycles. These origination capabilities are complemented by our in-house servicing platform and recapture capabilities, all of which are enhanced by our technology assets and our nationally-recognized brand, which we believe gives us a distinct advantage in new customer acquisition. Our strategic plan rests on four primary objectives: 1. Investing in the business through growth, operational efficiency and infrastructure. We intend to continue investing in recruiting and hiring sales talent across all origination channels. We also plan to further leverage technology to improve the customer experience and manufacturing processes. Finally, we expect to make additional investments in critical hardware and data upgrades which we believe will position us for future growth opportunities and to better mitigate risk. 2. Becoming a Best-in-Class Mortgage Banker . Our goals are simple: find another loan, close it faster, produce it cheaper, and maintain superior loan quality. We plan to do this by utilizing our scale and marketing prowess, leveraging our multi-channel origination strategy, investing in technology, and improving our processes. 3. Growing profitable market share . By hiring and training sales professionals in our direct channel, recruiting and attracting loan officers that have existing relationships with real estate professionals in our retail channel, and 4 T a b l e o f C o n t e n t s partnering with national and regional homebuilders in our joint venture channel, we plan to grow our origination capacity to capture profitable market share growth across refinance, resale and new home loans. 4. Returning to profitability .…