Motto Mortgage, a mortgage brokerage franchise spun off from RE/MAX, is expanding to the Seattle metropolitan region with a new office in the city of Edmonds, Washington, according to an announcement Tuesday.
Local real estate agents Leonard Schiffman and Victor Lopez will oversee the new franchise and Tom MacArthur, another Edmonds resident, will serve as the designated mortgage broker and licensed loan originator for the office. On Thursday, Sept. 20 they’ll be hosting a grand opening with the mayor of Edmonds in attendance for a ribbon cutting ceremony.
“With our unique business model, Motto Mortgage Group provides enormous benefits to our customers,” MacArthur said in a prepared statement. “We provide the scope, scale and support of a large retail lender, while offering the flexibility, autonomy, competitive mortgage options and exceptional service of a local mortgage broker.”
That business model aims to improve the homebuyer experience when applying for a new mortgage by bringing agents and mortgage loan originators under one roof. In Re/Max’s Q1 2018 earnings call, CEO Adam Contos noted that Motto Mortgage was an integral part of the company’s organic growth during that time.
“We grew our worldwide network by more than 7,000 agents year-over-year, we continued to expand Motto, and as previously announced, we made a bold and significant investment in our network by acquiring booj, a highly regarded real estate technology company,” Contos said.
Today, Motto Mortgage has more than 60 offices open in 28 states, according to the release.
At the time of its 2016 launch, former co-CEO Dave Liniger told Inman that Motto Mortgage was created to “shake up” the loan origination industry and bolster independent mortgage brokers’ share of transactions.
“We know that independent mortgage brokers’ share of the mortgage origination market dropped significantly following the economic downturn, falling from a 15-year average of 22 percent — with a high of 35 percent in 2006 — to 10 percent in 2015,” he said.