In the mortgage market of 2019, borrowers can do just about everything online, never meeting the lender behind the process.
And as comments from executives of America’s biggest banks made clear last week, that person – or institution – making the loan is increasingly less likely to be a banker.
In an earnings report last week, JPMorgan Chase said that mortgage originations were down 18% compared to a year ago in the first quarter. For Wells Fargo, which reported earnings the same day, mortgage lending was down 23% compared to the year earlier. (Wells Fargo is still the largest originator of mortgages in the U.S., with a 10.7% market share in 2018, according to Inside Mortgage Finance.)