Fun with numbers: Did you know that, at age 22, Billie Eilish has won twice as many Oscars (2) than 80-year-old Martin Scorsese (1)? (And yes, Samuel L. Jackson, Tom Cruise, and Johnny Depp have won a cumulative total of 0.) Lenders and vendors didn’t have a lot of fun with numbers in 2023, with overall production dropping from $4.4 trillion in 2021 to $1.6 trillion last year, a drop of 63 percent in dollar volume, even more in units since average loan amounts have gone up. Yes, this is an over-simplification, but have you cut your staffing and expenses by 63 percent? (The MBA is predicting $2 trillion this year.) Lenders and vendors who want to stay in business aren’t sitting on their hands, and many are out there adding related businesses (title, insurance), avoiding overly competitive markets or low margin products, monitoring branches or LOs taking advantage of pricing concessions, engaging in aggressive cost-cutting and renegotiating contracts and compensation packages, and tweaking their business models and channels. All easier said than done. (Found here, this week’s podcast is sponsored by Lender Toolkit. With Lender Toolkit’s AI-powered AI Underwriter and Prism borrower income automation tools, you’ll be able to get loans approved in under two minutes. Hear an interview with money manager Vijay Marolia on the affordable housing shortage.) Lender and Broker Services, Products, and Software Revolution Mortgage, a nationwide lender, partners with OptiFunder for end-to-end warehouse automation. “We’ve been using OptiFunder to help us manage our warehouse allocations for years. The optimization savings, easy platform, and customer service made us instant fans of OptiFunder,” said Revolution CEO and Founder Tony Grothouse. “We have recently expanded our use of the system to automate our entire funding process. Our team leverages technologies every day to boost efficiencies in the loan process.” Founded in 2019 to bring optimization and automation to the mortgage industry, OptiFunder has automated over a half million processes for originators, including funding, wire data checks, collateral shipping, purchase advice reconciliation and writeback to the LOS, paydown requests and more. With connections to over 150 warehouse lenders and investors, OptiFunder offers the most comprehensive automation from funding through loan sale. Schedule a demo or meet with us at ICE Experience 24 to learn more about our robust automation.