Newrez has appointed Jay Jones as chief servicing officer, effective immediately. The Fort Washington, Pennsylvania-based mortgage lender and servicer announced the move on November 3, 2026. Jones will oversee Newrez's $879 billion servicing portfolio and its third-party servicing business. He will also lead the move to ValonOS, an AI-native operating system due to start in early 2027, which is meant to improve efficiency for more than 4 million homeowners on the platform. Jones has more than 30 years of mortgage experience. He was most recently chief servicing officer at Rocket Mortgage, and earlier served as executive vice president of servicing at Mr. Cooper. "Servicing is a foundation of our business," said Newrez President Baron Silverstein.

A bigger slice of a smaller pie. Existing home sales have hovered near 4 million annually for 4 years, pushing a larger share fight October 29, 2026, 3:00am by Mark Milam Article Summary. eXp Realty and Newrez announced Revenos Mortgage, a joint venture set to launch in early 2027. The column argues that as home sales and mortgage volume stay muted, large firms can gain share through vertical integration, raising questions about whether savings reach consumers. AI Summary On October 8, eXp Realty and Newrez announced Revenos Mortgage, a joint venture that will pair eXp's agent network with Newrez's origination and servicing platform when it launches in early 2027. This is eXp's second ride on the joint venture merry-go-round. Its first, Success Lending, is winding down after about five years. The timing is no accident. Existing home sales have been stuck near 4 million per year for the past four years, the weakest stretch since the mid-1990s. When transactions dry up, the biggest players have an increasing incentive to compete for a larger share of what's left. Newrez president Baron Silverstein said the venture will give agents "a lender and servicer that stays with their clients long after closing." Put simply, the goal is to own the customer relationship from the home search to the loan, the closing table and every monthly payment thereafter. Rocket wrote the blueprint. Its ecosystem now spans Redfin, Rocket Mortgage, Rocket Close for title and settlement and Mr. Cooper servicing. In the second quarter, 47% of Redfin's buy-side clients financed through Rocket Mortgage. And Rocket isn't alone. Zillow acquired a mortgage lender in 2018. Lower acquired the home-search platform Movoto in 2025. Compass combined with Anywhere, bringing enormous real estate brokerage networks under one roof. Some of these transactions integrate different stages of the homebuying process. Others consolidate competitors within the same stage. Economists call these vertical integration and horizontal consolidation. Increasingly, HW Media, LLC is seeing both. Here is the part worth noticing. Rocket's own outlook assumes it will keep gaining market share even as it expects the overall mortgage market to shrink. That's the arithmetic of consolidation. Nobody is baking a bigger pie. The largest players are cutting themselves bigger slices of a smaller one. Independent lenders can't match that scale, and I won't pretend otherwise. Nor will I pretend these ecosystems offer consumers nothing. The real question is whether the convenience and savings created by integration reach the consumer or stay with the company. Other industries have already run this experiment. Healthcare. Pharmacy benefit managers were created to negotiate drug prices on behalf of insurers and employers. Today, the three largest belong to the same conglomerates that own insurers and pharmacies. CVS Health owns Caremark and Aetna. UnitedHealth owns OptumRx. Cigna owns Express Scripts. Together, those three PBMs process nearly 80% of U.S. prescriptions. In January 2025, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reported that pharmacies affiliated with those PBMs collected more than $7.3 billion above their estimated acquisition costs on specialty generic drugs from 2017 through 2022. For commercial plan members, more than half of the drugs studied were marked up over 100%, and 22% of those were marked up over 1,000%. Meanwhile, what health plans paid for those drugs grew 14% to 21% a year. The Congressional Budget Office found something even more telling. Insurer and PBM combinations tend to lower the prices paid for drugs, but those savings may never reach patients as lower premiums. Integration made the system cheaper to run. It didn't necessarily make it cheaper to use. Josh Golden, industry insider and Senior VP of Strategy at Judi Rx, had this to say: "When the wave of vertical integration swept through the PBM industry, it gave the three largest players unprecedented influence and control across the pharmaceutical supply chain. The promise was that increased scale and integration would help lower drug prices and improve care for patients. Ultimately, this promise has not played out. Instead, HW Media, LLC is left with a drug delivery system where enormous value is extracted through opaque revenue streams buried in the dark corners of a complex financial black box. "And here's the real problem: Many of the ways these companies make money are directly tied to the price and volume of drugs. We've created a system where the companies that are supposed to help control drug costs can actually benefit when those costs rise." Healthcare provides a cautionary tale for housing. The companies involved in integrations like this may realize enormous efficiencies and economies of scale, but there's no guarantee that those savings reach the consumer. And as competition diminishes, the incentive to pass those savings along may diminish with it. What HW Media, LLC is witnessing is not simply companies expanding into adjacent businesses. HW Media, LLC is seeing the potential combination of vertical integration and horizontal consolidation. That's greater control over the entire homebuying transaction, coupled with increasing concentration within individual segments of the industry. Live Nation. Live Nation merged with Ticketmaster in 2010, joining the country's largest concert promoter with its dominant ticket seller. It also owns or operates major venues. At trial, jurors heard testimony that Live Nation threatened to withhold concerts from venues that didn't sign exclusive Ticketmaster deals. On April 15, 2026, a federal jury found the company illegally maintained monopoly power and overcharged fans on every ticket sold at major concert venues. Live Nation is fighting the verdict, and remedies won't be decided until next year. But the logic of the case is instructive. Control the venue, and you control who else gets to sell the ticket. The mortgage parallel. Housing is nowhere near that level of concentration. But the first chapter of the playbook is remarkably similar: reach across the dotted line to an interdependent vertical and leverage scale. Own the front door (home search), the venue (the transaction) and the recurring revenue (servicing), then route customers through your own businesses. Its safeguard against steering is RESPA, which requires disclosure of affiliated relationships and protects the borrower's right to shop. That safeguard assumes consumers actually shop. Most don't. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) found that fewer than one in four borrowers apply with more than one lender. Raise the tide. I'm not arguing about the virtue of this growth strategy, though it certainly favors behemoths and has a colorful track record, particularly when market share becomes concentrated among fewer players. My argument is that industry leaders, the MBA, NAR and Congress should be asking a bigger question: Are HW Media, LLC creating new opportunities for homeownership, or simply competing for larger pieces of a shrinking pie? There's nothing wrong with companies pursuing growth. But corporate growth and industry progress aren't the same thing. After four years of stagnation, its industry needs leaders willing to look beyond their own market share to work collectively to restore affordability, reduce the cost to manufacture mortgages, tackle industry failures in affordable housing and remove barriers to homeownership. A rising tide lifts all boats. A closed loop just moves the water around. Mark Milam is the CEO of Highland Mortgage. This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of HousingWire's editorial department and its owners. To contact the editor responsible for this piece: [email protected].

Rithm Capital Q3 earnings call highlights. Rithm Capital (NYSE:RITM) reported third-quarter earnings available for distribution of $315 million, or $0.55 per diluted share, while GAAP net income totaled $217 million, or $0.38 per diluted share. Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President Michael Nierenberg said the company's earnings available for distribution exceeded dividends paid for the 28th consecutive quarter. The company reported book value of approximately $7 billion and said its common dividend was $0.25 per diluted share, representing an 11.2% yield cited during the call. Rithm ended the quarter with $1.9 billion of cash and liquidity. Nierenberg said the quarter occurred amid wider market spreads, higher interest rates and persistent geopolitical concerns. He attributed the company's performance to its operating businesses, including mortgage platform Newrez and residential transition lender Genesis, as well as risk management and hedging activities. Mortgage platform delivers 24% operating ROE. Newrez generated approximately $330 million in third-quarter pretax income excluding mark-to-market items, up 7% from the prior quarter, according to Newrez President Baron Silverstein. The mortgage business produced a 24% annualized operating return on equity during the quarter and has delivered annualized operating ROEs in the high teens to low 20% range for 15 consecutive quarters, he said. Newrez funded $12.9 billion of mortgages during the quarter, down 19% sequentially as higher interest rates reduced overall industry origination volumes. However, non-agency origination volumes rose 8% quarter over quarter and 30% year over year. Rithm said Newrez originated $5.1 billion of non-agency loans year to date, primarily in the non-QM category, a record for that product class. Silverstein said the company continued to emphasize pricing discipline rather than pursuing market share. He noted that Newrez's consumer-direct margin improvement reflected product mix, including fewer refinances and more home equity and non-QM loans, while competition continued to pressure wholesale margins. Newrez's servicing platform included approximately $879 billion to $880 billion of mortgage servicing rights at quarter-end. The company added 15 new third-party servicing clients and approximately $80 billion of new loan boardings year to date. Silverstein said prepayment speeds were approaching a floor, given normal turnover related to life events and loan seasoning. Rithm expects technology and artificial intelligence investments to generate approximately $125 million in annualized savings at Newrez. The company said straight-through processing for eligible loans through its HomeVision co-development is expected to launch in the fourth quarter, while phased migration to ValonOS is expected in the first quarter of 2027. Nierenberg said the benefits of those initiatives are expected to begin emerging in 2027 and continue through 2028. Asset management inflows and expansion plans. Rithm said it managed more than $60 billion of third-party assets and roughly $110 billion of investable assets when including its balance sheet. The company raised $569 million of new asset-management capital during the quarter and reported nearly $3 billion of year-to-date gross inflows. Fee-paying assets under management represented about 76% of total AUM. Nierenberg said Crestline completed the final close of its European Capital Solutions Fund with $625 million of commitments. He also said Rithm completed a first close for a new asset-backed finance fund with a U.S. pension fund and is seeing demand for asset-backed finance, residential credit, separately managed accounts, real estate and multi-strategy products. The company expects organic asset-management growth to lift AUM to between $75 billion and $80 billion by the end of 2028. Nierenberg said Rithm also continues to evaluate acquisitions and views infrastructure as a potential future area of expansion, though he said the company would seek a scaled platform rather than build the business with only a small team. Real estate leasing activity accelerates. At Elecor Properties, formerly Paramount, Rithm reported approximately 1 million square feet of executed and pending leases year to date across its New York and San Francisco core portfolios. The weighted average initial rent was approximately $100 per square foot, 22% above the comparable rate for 2025 transactions. Head of Real Estate Peter Brindley said Elecor signed 320,000 square feet of new leases during the quarter and formed a joint venture with a strategic partner for 1301 Avenue of the Americas. The building is currently 100% leased following a 113,000-square-foot renewal and expansion by a financial institution. Elecor's New York core portfolio was 88.6% leased at quarter-end. In San Francisco, leased occupancy reached 65%, up 590 basis points from the first quarter of 2026. Brindley said about 65% of the company's year-to-date leasing occurred in San Francisco, with 96% involving companies new to the portfolio. Nierenberg also highlighted the sale of an office property in Ballston, Virginia, acquired for approximately $26 million to $27 million and sold during the third quarter for more than $50 million. He said the transaction generated a 30% internal rate of return and a 1.6-times multiple on invested capital. Genesis targets selective growth. Genesis originated $1.5 billion of residential transition loans during the quarter, bringing year-to-date originations to $5 billion and above its full-year 2025 total. The business generated $33 million of pretax income, up 14% year over year, and an annualized ROE of about 13%. Nierenberg said Genesis expects total production of roughly $6 billion to $6.5 billion, while identifying multifamily lending as a significant longer-term growth opportunity. He emphasized that Genesis is focused on loans to high-quality sponsors rather than volume growth for its own sake, noting that the platform's delinquency rate was approximately 3%. During the question-and-answer session, Nierenberg said Rithm expects its book value to be roughly unchanged quarter to date. He said the company intends to deploy its balance sheet selectively, including to support its origination businesses and asset-management products, while bringing in third-party capital for larger opportunities. About Rithm Capital (NYSE:RITM). Rithm Capital Corp. is a real estate investment trust and financial services company focused primarily on residential real estate and mortgage-related investments. Formerly known as New Residential Investment Corp., the company adopted the Rithm Capital name in 2022. Through its operating businesses and investment platforms, Rithm participates in mortgage servicing, mortgage origination, residential mortgage loans, mortgage servicing rights and other housing-related assets. Its businesses include Newrez, a mortgage platform that provides home loan origination, servicing and related services, as well as other investments connected to residential real estate and private lending. Rithm primarily serves the U.S.