Hello, LOs!
My wife and I have been Costco members for years. We love the novelty of being able to buy a 50-gallon drum's worth of cashews, caskets(!), cars, refrigerators, top-quality steaks and Tibetan fur rugs all at one oversized madhouse of a store.
It's no surprise that a place that sells such a comical array of goods and services is going to have a mortgage product on offer. Well, sort of. Cotsco serves as a lead generator for CrossCountry and other lenders; there is no Kirkland brand mortgage originator.
But might we in the not-so-distant future see another Big Box Store with its own proper mortgage arm?
Today, LendersOne, a cooperative of mortgage bankers and affiliated vendors, announced that it has agreed to lease retail space at three Walmart locations, and has plans to lease space at a bunch of other stores. They'll be offering purchase mortgages, refis and HELOCs at the Walmart retail locations.
You might remember that about a year ago, Mike Cagney of Figure Technologies said to watch out for non-endemic players impacting the real estate market.
"Everyone should be taking notice of the moves that Walmart's making, because they're absolutely going to come into the mortgage space," Cagney said at HousingWire's 2021 Spring Summit event.
Walmart hasn't yet become an originator, but between the floor space for LendersOne and its recent deal with Ribbit Capital to create a fintech startup that will offer "innovative and affordable" financial products, are we perhaps closer to seeing Cagney's prophecy play out?
Predictions that Amazon would also enter the mortgage arena haven't come true, so perhaps none of these retail giants really have an interest in building a low-margin business in a highly regulated corner of consumer finance. LOs, what do you think? Will Amazon, Walmart or Costco build their own mortgage operation in the next five years? Share your thoughts by emailing me at jkleimann@housingwire.com.
James Kleimann
Managing Editor, HousingWire
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