Exclusive: UMortgage rolls out flat-fee broker compensation model
UMortgage is rolling out a flat-fee broker model that waives certain charges for originators who close more than 50 loans per year, part of a broader push to more than quadruple its sales force to 1,000 loan officers by December.
Under the structure, LOs earn 275 basis points per loan but pay a $995 flat fee, a $300 closing quality control fee, and 10% in administrative and payroll taxes per transaction. Once an originator funds 50 loans within an anniversary year, the $995 flat fee is eliminated.
The company is also offering a $500-per-loan recruiting incentive, capped at $25,000. If a LO recruits another originator who produces 36 loans annually, the recruiter would receive $18,000, funded from corporate margins. Unlike some competing platforms, the model does not rely on commission splits.
“That’s not unique to us — there are other flat-fee broker models out there,” UMortgage president and CEO Anthony Casa said in an interview with HousingWire. “Where we are focused on creating our own niche in the market is by putting an annual corporate margin cap in place at $49,750 — 50 units multiplied by the $995 fee — after which 100% of the revenue stays with the loan officer.”
Previously, UMortgage operated with a 50-bps corporate margin. On a $500,000 loan, that equated to about $2,500 in company revenue, or roughly $250,000 annually from an originator who closes 100 loans. Under the new structure, revenue in that same scenario would total about $49,750 — roughly 20% of the prior level.
Casa said the model mirrors approaches long used in residential real estate and is designed to attract high-producing originators, even at the expense of company margin. About 15% of UMortgage’s sales force closed more than 50 units in 2025. The structure is also intended to appeal to LOs transitioning from retail to the wholesale channel.
The shift represents an estimated 65% reduction in revenue, a trade-off the company expects to offset through scale enabled by technology. UMortgage reported its first profitable year in 2025, Casa said.
Central to that strategy is the firm’s proprietary Tempo platform, which focuses on customer relationship and task management. Casa said the average LO using Tempo has increased business by roughly 28% year over year. Originators pay a subscription fee to access the Arive loan officer system, Microsoft tools and more.
“This is definitely something that’s going to put pressure on our profitability, but we wouldn’t do it if we weren’t 100% confident that this was the best model,” Casa said. “Nobody can really dispute the data at this point that the wholesale channel is now over 25% market share – it’s tripled in the last decade. What’s missing is a high-quality platform that loan originators are confident in.”
UMortgage currently has 213 LOs, according to the Nationwide Multistate Licensing System, and reportedly originated about $2.5 billion in volume in 2025. The company plans a national roadshow over the next two quarters, followed by weekly Thursday webinars aimed at recruiting additional originators.
“We want to tap into a market that is already very robust,” Casa said. “The thing about this model is that the cost of the growth is basically all sweat and labor.
“The technology does all the scale. We have contract processing companies to support the fulfillment, so there really isn’t any true cost to bring people on because we’ve automated those processes.”