Best Mortgage Lenders in 2022: Squeak Rocket Passes UWM for First Place

Last year, Rocket Mortgage was the largest mortgage lender in the country, according to the latest HMDA data.

While it wasn’t much of a surprise, she’s topped the leaderboard for several years now, but it’s been a lot closer than in years past.

The Detroit-based non-bank lender narrowly outperformed crosstown rival United Wholesale Mortgage with just about $100 million.

A year ago, the gap between the first and second places was more than 100 billion dollars!

So there is likely to be a number one new mortgage lender in 2023. Read on to find out who else topped the lists.

Top Mortgage Lenders for 2022 (Overall)

As mentioned earlier, Rocket Mortgage was again at the top in 2022 with $128.9 billion in mortgages funded, according to HMDA data from Richey May.

That was enough to beat Pontiac, Michigan-based UWM, which funded nearly $128.8 billion.

And UWM did so by relying solely on mortgage broker partners, while Rocket originates loans through both retail and wholesale channels.

In third place at $124.8 billion was Wells Fargo, which recently announced plans to roll back its home loan business.

In fourth place was New York City-based JPMorgan Chase, with a value of $99.1 billion. The company now owns First Republic Bank, one of the largest mega-loan lenders in the country before its demise.

SoCal-based Pennymac, which counts several former Countrywide executives employees, took fifth place with $71.7 billion.

The bottom half of the top ten included U.S. Bank, Bank of America, Loan Depot, Trust, and Amery Home Mortgage.

Collectively, about 4,300 banks and lenders will fund about $3.35 trillion in mortgages in 2022, down significantly from 2021.

For reference, Rocket made about $343 billion in 2021, while Wells and UWM generated about $228 billion each.

Freedom Mortgage, Homepoint, and Newrez all fell out of the top 10, while Bank of America, Truist, and AmeriHome all rose.

Best mortgage lenders to buy in 2022

If we factor in purchase-only loans, those that went to homebuyers, UWM took top honors with $91.8 billion in financing.

That was more than enough to eclipse second place Wells Fargo with $78.8 billion and third place Chase with $60.1 billion.

In fourth place was Rocket with $52.2 billion, followed by Pennymac with $49.1 billion, which is a less familiar name since they often act as a correspondent for other mortgage companies.

The rest of the Best in Buy category included U.S. Bank, Chicago-based Guaranteed Rate, Amery Home Mortgage, Fairway Standalone Mortgage, and Truist.

Caliber Home Loans and Loan Depot fell out of the top 10, while AmeriHome and Truist joined the biggest players.

Best Mortgage Refinance Lenders in 2022

When it came to refinancing mortgages for existing homeowners, Rocket Mortgage was undoubtedly king with $74.2 billion in financing.

They’ve nearly doubled their closest competitor in this category, Wells Fargo, which raked in just $40.4 billion in ref.

In third place was UWM with $37 billion, followed by Chase with $33.9 billion and Loan Depot with $23.2 billion.

Other refinancing leaders include Bank of America, Benemac, Mr. Cooper, PNC Bank and USBank.

Homepoint, Newrez, and Freedom Mortgage all fell, while Bank of America, PNC, and US Bank joined the top ten.

For the record, the recently failed First Republic Bank was the 13th largest refinance lender in the nation, the 14th largest homebuyer lender, and the 12th largest mortgage lender overall.

Whether that pushes Chase higher or more remains to be seen, but it’s certainly possible.