“Success and failure are very similar if you have the support of a large enterprise, but when you’re independent, you’re banking on yourself, not on the operations of somebody else,” Villegas told MPA.
NEXA Mortgage CEO Mike Kortas took a pragmatic stance, emphasizing the appeal of being a broker. He categorizes loan officers into three distinct buckets: those aligned with retail lenders, independent loan officers, and those affiliated with large brokerage organizations.
“A small broker simply doesn’t have access to as many products,” he said. “They don’t. They don’t have the volume to get the interest rate discounts. So we were experiencing independent brokers closing their shops down and coming over to large organizations because they can’t possibly operate at the same cost and margins, and we can.”
Tristan Kirk, principal broker and managing partner at Citadel Mortgages, introduced another dimension to the discussion. He stressed that independence offers brokers substantial control over their brand identity, fostering consumer confidence.
“If you’re starting out, you may not have access to all the lenders you need,” Kirk added. “You may not have all the resources yet to develop that brand and that brokerage that you’re looking for, so there are pros and cons to both.”
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