One day after announcing plans to reenter the wholesale lending business, LoanDepot said the move reflects its expectation that refinance activity will drive origination growth across multiple channels.
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“Getting back into wholesale, which is a business that we were in previously, is going to allow us to achieve greater scale,” said
“We do not control the customer experience, but we will be able to utilize the volume to help us to create additional operating efficiency,” he added.
The anticipated return of refinance volumes made it an ideal period to
“We believe our assets and strategy provide us with a unique competitive advantage,” Hsieh added.
His comments came during a call when the Irvine, California-based lender and servicer reported a quarterly loss coming in part from changes in fair value on mortgage-servicing rights.
The company finished the fourth quarter $32.8 million in the red, steepening
The bottom line total missed the consensus estimate of analysts tracked by S&P Global Capital, who predicted a slimmer $9.3 million loss.
For the full year, Loandepot recorded total losses of $107.5 million after failing to turn a profit in any quarter in 2025. The number showed the company inching back toward profitability after a $202.2 million loss for 2024.
Still, despite the negative bottom line, LoanDepot expects a surge in refis to propel business in coming quarters and said benefits would hit other segments as much, if not more, than the wholesale channel. Hsieh noted in particular the potential for direct-to-consumer originations and pointed out how the company pulled back on that part of the business during his predecessor’s tenure.
“As we look ahead with expectation of a larger refinance market, our top-of-the-funnel customer acquisition advantage uniquely positions us to outperform our competition,” Hsieh said.
“Our primary strategy focuses on being one of the only scaled originators, primarily creating and servicing our own customers, as opposed to acquiring customers from third parties.”
Revenue came in at $310.3 million in the fourth quarter, pulling back from $323.3 million in the prior reporting period and surging from $257.5 million 12 months earlier. For the full year, though, revenue accelerated by 12.2% to $1.19 billion compared to $1.06 billion in 2024.
Salaries and commissions from its renewed expansion strategy helped drive expenses up higher to $342.1 million, the company reported. By comparison, third-quarter expenses came in at $333.6 million and were near par to $341.6 million year over year.
How mortgage production and servicing fared
Providing a late-year boost was fourth-quarter production, which came in at just over $8 billion, up 23% from the prior reporting period’s $6.5 billion and 11.9% year over year from $7.2 billion.
“While the fourth quarter is typically a seasonally slow quarter, we originated the most volume since 2022, gained share in an expanding market and achieved a 71% recapture rate from our in-house servicing platform,” Hsieh said.
Equivalent full-year numbers for production were $26.5 billion for 2025, up from $24.5 billion in 2024.
Gain on sale margins took a fall down to 294 basis points, though, compared to 361 in the third quarter, reflecting shifts in product and loan-purpose mix, LoanDepot leaders said. Margins increased from 260 basis points on a year-over-year basis.
Fewer high-margin originations from government-backed lending in the fourth quarter helped push up LoanDepot’s average loan balance compared to the previous three months and contributed to the decrease.
Meanwhile, servicing fee income came in at $112.9 million, rising from $111.8 million three months earlier and $108.4 million over the same period in 2024.
Total unpaid principal balance in the company’s servicing portfolio grew to $119.1 billion, heading upward from $118.2 billion on a quarterly basis and $116 billion a year earlier.
Investors appeared to react negatively following the earnings release on Tuesday afternoon. After closing at $1.89 LoanDepot’s stock value took an immediate dip before rising back to $1.81 per share two hours later in after-hours trading.
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