What does success look like in a market that’s still finding its footing? In this conversation, HousingWire President Diego Sanchez sits down with Joseph Panebianco, CEO and President of AnnieMac Home Mortgage, to unpack how strong leadership teams are redefining performance as the industry moves deeper into 2026.
Panebianco shares how AnnieMac continued to grow while much of the market focused on survival, why disciplined investment and thoughtful M&A have been central to that growth, and how lenders should think about execution as potential tailwinds emerge. From production forecasting to integration strategy, this conversation offers a clear-eyed look at what separates good lenders from best-in-class operators in the next phase of the cycle.
#MortgageIndustry #AnnieMacHomeMortgage #HousingMarket
Panebianco shares how AnnieMac continued to grow while much of the market focused on survival, why disciplined investment and thoughtful M&A have been central to that growth, and how lenders should think about execution as potential tailwinds emerge. From production forecasting to integration strategy, this conversation offers a clear-eyed look at what separates good lenders from best-in-class operators in the next phase of the cycle.
#MortgageIndustry #AnnieMacHomeMortgage #HousingMarket
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NewsTranscript
00:00We are live from Dallas, Texas, and I'm sitting down with Joe Panabianco, who is the CEO of
00:13Animac Home Mortgage.
00:15Joe, you and I have talked before.
00:17We always have wonderful conversations.
00:19So glad to talk with you again.
00:20Yeah, it's great.
00:21I always look forward to these events.
00:23Yeah.
00:24So again, thank you so much for joining us.
00:26You've led Animac through several market cycles, and the last year has been an interesting
00:32one.
00:33How are you defining success for Animac right now?
00:38So yeah, when you look back at the amount of years you've been in this industry, you
00:42think, man, get it old.
00:44But having said that, how I define our success is on this three-dimensional plane.
00:50And I start with the loan officer productivity, retention, and recruiting.
00:57And the combination of those three adds up to whether we fulfill or hit our goals or not.
01:03So tell me, how are those metrics playing out for you over the past year and as we head
01:07into 2026?
01:08Over the past year and two, they've been great.
01:11But it wasn't until we really started focusing on them, broke them into their component pieces,
01:15that it really started paying dividends.
01:17And when did you start doing that, like really focusing on those three metrics?
01:21You know, we started right before COVID, but then COVID came and metrics went out the window,
01:25right?
01:26Because everybody was so busy with everything else going on.
01:28But you know, once 2022 rolled around, and then 2023, you really had to become much more
01:36data-driven in order to have even a chance of being successful in those markets.
01:40So when you're thinking about M&A or other forms of growth, are you looking at those three
01:47metrics at those companies?
01:50Yep.
01:51How they've done it and how we can apply it.
01:53Yeah.
01:54That makes a lot of sense.
01:55So we saw on stage today that there are several prominent housing market analysts who have some
02:00optimism about 2026, which is a little bit different from previous three years.
02:05How are you thinking about anti-mac growth in this more optimistic environment?
02:11So you know, I used to manage money for an investment company in New York, and we always
02:18believed in a macro approach.
02:19You start with a large macro picture.
02:21And in this instance, the large macro picture is a slightly brighter market for home purchases,
02:28potentially for refinances, backed up by maybe a little bit more accommodative Fed, backed
02:32up by an administration that seems to be more housing focused.
02:35So there are a lot of tailwinds.
02:38So you know, we set our business plan around that.
02:42But more importantly, what we do is we set our business plan around two or three other
02:46scenarios that occur, right?
02:49Walk me through those scenarios, because I was really interested in this when we were doing
02:52prep for this interview.
02:55How do you think about those scenarios?
02:57And how do you scenario plan for these three different scenarios?
03:01So what we do is we take our base case scenario.
03:04That base case scenario is largely based upon the combined forecasts of the people you would
03:10hear out there.
03:11You know, Barry Habib, Logan, et cetera.
03:15And then we say, within that forecast, you know, how are we best going to execute on MLO
03:20productivity, retention, and recruiting?
03:22We could talk about that because there's a waterfall there.
03:24And then we say, okay, great.
03:25Then you have your forecast for growth.
03:27You have your forecast for M&A, et cetera.
03:29And then you have to say to yourself, okay, then what?
03:31Right?
03:32What happens if we have another scenario where it's a slightly more pessimistic view?
03:38And then you go through, how is that going to affect things?
03:41Right?
03:42And how is it going to affect you?
03:43So there might be people who do that.
03:46I certainly hope they do.
03:47And if I can add one bit of advice, it's certainly do that.
03:50But the other bit of advice that people don't do is they don't really take a hard look at
03:54what happens if policy becomes more accommodative, right?
03:58Because that's almost as much, it's a bit asymmetric, meaning there's more risk on the downside
04:03than the upside.
04:04But the upside has risks.
04:06You really have to ask yourself, you know, if rates were to drop further and business
04:10picks up, what does that mean?
04:12And most people completely dismiss that because they think, I don't care about the upside
04:16scenario.
04:17I want to focus on the downside scenario.
04:18So I think people would maybe really cheer that scenario where rates drop.
04:25But I think you have some caution when you think about that scenario.
04:29Tell us a little bit more about how you analyze that and where your caution comes from.
04:33So it really comes from, I guess, scars from, you know, March, April, and May of 2020.
04:40You know, you had this large spike in business, and everyone was like, great, but, you know,
04:47are you prepared for that?
04:48And what does that really mean?
04:49Right?
04:50Are you prepared for margin calls?
04:52And then you dive a bit deeper.
04:53Are you prepared?
04:54Do you?
04:55Who are your broker-dealers?
04:56What are those margin calls?
04:57How much do rates have to move in order for you to be called?
04:59Then don't forget, it'll take six to eight weeks before you close loans.
05:02And before that, you've got upfront MIP going out the door.
05:05You've got commissions going out the door.
05:06You've got haircuts on your warehouse lines going out the door.
05:09There's this huge capital infusion that needs to occur in order for you to maximize your
05:14growth.
05:15Now, you could say, most people say, well, you know, we still have a bit of a cash cushion.
05:18We can do this.
05:19But the reality of it is we are entering a long period of time, which I call short feast,
05:24long famine.
05:25Okay.
05:26Short feast.
05:27And you see it in the numbers now.
05:28Eight or ten instances where rates have dropped, and then they've gone back up.
05:30And I don't see anything that suggests that we're going to have less regulatory volatility.
05:39We sort of live in a world by tweet, right?
05:41Right.
05:42We don't know what's coming out.
05:43So at any given time.
05:44So what that really means is, yeah, you might make more money during a sharp drop in rates.
05:49And I'm not saying a 3% drop, but it's a little bit of a drop where refinance has now
05:53become, say, 35%, 40% of the business.
05:56But can you really maximize that if you're not prepared to have the warehouse lines, to
05:59have liquidity, to make sure you can meet all the demands of...
06:03It's essentially a rapidly growing business has as many demands as a rapidly shrinking business.
06:07So how have you built your balance sheet and your team and your cost base in preparation
06:15for those three potential scenarios?
06:17So you've got the base case.
06:19You've got potentially some upside risk with rates.
06:22And then, like we just talked about, we have some downside possibility with rates.
06:27How are you constructing your business to be ready for all three of those scenarios?
06:31So you almost have to go department by department and say, what are the core needs of the company?
06:37And you say, okay, let's assume that Logan is right.
06:42And you're going to see maybe a 5% to 10% increase in purchase business, and we're going
06:46to see rates somewhere in the high fives, low sixes, et cetera.
06:52You can kind of guess what that's going to do for refinance business.
06:55And you have to say to yourself, okay, in that world where we get X% more refinance business,
07:01how do we stress test the system?
07:04And if purchases pick up, how do we stress test the system?
07:06What do the individual, we run a branch network, right?
07:09So what do the individual branches need?
07:10What is their operating capacity now?
07:13And what will their operating capacity basically be, right?
07:15And then that's the way you can make sure that you are prepared for what I call insurances
07:20you need in this business.
07:21You need a little bit extra warehouse line capacity.
07:24You need a little bit extra operating and underwriting capacity.
07:27You need X amount of reserves to make sure that you can do all those things.
07:31Then on the more challenging ones are the ones where rates are more accommodative or less
07:37accommodative.
07:38And then we go through a process that I've always called a pre-mortem.
07:40Pre-mortem.
07:41Yeah.
07:42If this occurs, where are the breaks going to be?
07:46We sit down and say, okay, you know, and we go again, department, what's going to happen?
07:49How much staff are we long and how much staff are we short?
07:52How much capacity are we long and how much capacity are we short?
07:55And then you have to sort of get your comfort level as to how you're preparing for that.
08:00And I would say that a large part of that is preparing for that in advance by having good
08:03relationships with your investors, your warehouse line providers.
08:08And really over the really long term is making sure that you have been a good stakeholder with
08:15everyone you've worked with.
08:16And people talk about the concept of shareholders and that's usually a company specific thing.
08:22But stakeholders are, what has your relationship truly been with Chase, with your warehouse
08:29line banks, with the big, and that will largely dictate during those times where things compress
08:35in the wrong direction or expand in the right direction.
08:39They definitively have a hierarchy, but with who they want to help.
08:42So looking over 2026, I can see at least three potential inflection points where things could
08:50get interesting with rates.
08:51So we've got the Supreme Court decision on tariffs.
08:56We've got the new Fed share potentially getting approved in May.
09:03And then we've got the midterm elections, all of which could send things into any of these
09:10scenarios that we've been talking about.
09:12How are you planning for really all this volatility that we've been having for several years now,
09:19but these potential inflection points, how are you planning for those?
09:22Same exact way.
09:24Your question gets right to the heart of why we have a base, best, and worst case.
09:28Because at any given time, I agreed with Barry and Logan, you're not quite sure what's going
09:33to happen if tariffs get repealed, and if those repealed tariffs need to be paid back, right?
09:41And you're not quite sure what's going to happen with November elections, but what you can be
09:44sure of, we often say you have to control your controllables.
09:47What we can control is, are we ready for either scenario?
09:50And on top of that, are we nimble enough to move?
09:53And sometimes nimble enough to move doesn't mean you get in a room with 50 people looking
09:57for their opinions.
09:58If you've done your base, best, and worst case, you've done your premortems, right?
10:03Then you know what to do.
10:05Now you just have to have the willingness to do the hard thing.
10:11Yep, so M&A has been a decent part of your growth picture.
10:17You have organic growth, you have inorganic growth.
10:20Will that continue to be something that you look at when you think about strategic growth
10:25for Anti-Mac?
10:27There's no doubt there's multiple ways of growing.
10:29You can grow through just loan officer acquisition, branch acquisition, regional acquisition, and
10:35then M&A, right?
10:37So we look at all of them, and they all have their different bars.
10:40You know, if you're asking specifically about M&A, yes, M&A, we've been in a couple talks,
10:46a couple have fallen through, because I think I was using this term before, you have to kiss
10:51a lot of frogs in the M&A industry.
10:53And not necessarily because they're not the right frog, but together you're not going to
10:57make the right couple, right?
11:00And so you also have to understand that when you're engaging in M&A, and I know if you talk
11:04to the experts, and kudos to them, they will say, here's the things you need to do.
11:08You need to get rid of all this overhead costs, take the production out of it.
11:12And as a consultant, you can say that, right?
11:16But as an operator, you have to be very cognizant of the fact that you're dealing with human
11:19beings whose identity is tied to this company, people they've worked with for 10, 15, 20 years.
11:25You have to make it all work.
11:28That's why I'm saying that we've had one recently where we just had to, you know, shake hands
11:34and say goodbye simply because there was too much of that legacy overhang for him or them
11:41to make the proper decision at the time.
11:43And time will tell what's right or what's not, but at least you can still walk away from
11:47those relationships and still have a very, be friends, right?
11:51In the acquisitions that you've done over the past couple of years, and I'm talking about
11:57acquiring a great L.O., a great branch, a great region, a great division, whatever,
12:02or a great company.
12:04Are there any characteristics of that acquisition target that have turned frogs into princes for
12:11you?
12:12Yeah.
12:13There's a—not to get too wonky here, but there's a gentleman, Marcus Aurelius, a famous
12:17Roman emperor.
12:18It's great saying it's, you know, you want to make sure that it's the hive before the
12:25bee, right?
12:26And so what that essentially means, what I interpret that to mean in this industry is you will bump
12:31into people who are so focused on their particular outcome, whether it be the loans that they're
12:36able to do, their income, their product they're likely to make it.
12:38And that's important because I would say if people make money, then I make money, you know,
12:42like I eat last, so to speak.
12:44But having said that, you have to find that balance between is somebody so focused on the
12:48bee that the hive doesn't matter?
12:50And the hive matters because if you want all the things that people say they want, if you
12:54want longevity, if you want a strong culture, if you want to feel as though you're part—you're
12:58included in decisions, we love that.
13:01But it's hard to have people get those things if they're just very much focused on what's
13:06in it for me.
13:07So, you know, we have had situations where we've had really great, what we thought from
13:13a production, from a data perspective, really great people come in.
13:16And as human beings, I'm sure they're great.
13:18But as operators, we just didn't see eye to eye.
13:21So the best things that worked out for us are people who are willing to have that balance
13:26between hive and bee.
13:28So you seem like the kind of guy that has annual plans and three-year plans and five-year
13:34plans and maybe lifetime plans for your business.
13:38If we get to, you know, three years from now, five years from now, what will make you happy
13:45in terms of what Annie Mac has accomplished in that time period?
13:49God.
13:50So I'd say—I'd be lying if I didn't say I had financial goals, right?
13:56But what I will tell you honestly is that I still believe what I said earlier.
14:00When those goals come, I'll eat last at the table if the other goals are achieved.
14:05So what makes me very happy is longevity, meaning seeing people that have come in and
14:10they work and then they get married and they have a kid or two kids and then they move on.
14:14That is a very fulfilling thing.
14:18That's more long-term, but what's really fulfilling is quarter by quarter when you—because we not
14:22only look at business plans for the company, we do it region by region or branch by branch,
14:26is when you can help people achieve their goals.
14:30And I'd say the third leg of that would be about a year and a half ago, I started doing
14:36some coaching for loan officers and teams in our company.
14:40And I got to tell you, that's really fulfilling, right?
14:43Because it's filling on two ways.
14:45One, you get to really help move the needle for people.
14:48And I'd say most of what everyone in this room and most people listen to this need, they
14:52just need a little bit more accountability.
14:55They may not be—they may not love it, they may not be willing to—if you give somebody
14:58a little bit more accountability and very clear direction, most people will take that
15:01and run and they wind up doing better.
15:04I love that aspect of the business because most of our plans, as same with you and HousingWire,
15:10you'll set plans out and they may not happen for months or years.
15:14But with coaching and mentoring, it happens very quickly and you see the results of it.
15:19So interesting.
15:20How do you get access to Joe the Coach?
15:22Because you're a CEO, so you're busy.
15:24So I allocate about a quarter of my time to that.
15:27And so I live—any psychologist would say, my day, is there something wrong?
15:33I live a very structured day.
15:36And so what I tell people, I invite people into the coaching program, I've called people
15:40up.
15:41I actually have a great story about one lady I called up and I said, hey, listen, I've
15:44really left to coach you, I've heard good things.
15:46So it starts from their divisional or their branch manager.
15:48This would be somebody who is willing to coach, right?
15:50Because you have to be willing to accept coaching, right?
15:54I called her up and I said, hey, how are you doing?
15:56You're able to have to coach you.
15:57And I walked through and she's like, okay, well, that's great.
15:59I'd love to do it.
16:00But how do you get paid?
16:01I said, well, the more ones you do, the better I'm off.
16:03And she's like, but how is that?
16:03I was like, well, this is Joe Pena-Biaco.
16:05I'm the CEO of your company.
16:06She's like, oh my God, I didn't realize who you were.
16:08So yeah, it's sort of invite only or some people request.
16:13We have several small groups that are getting bigger.
16:16And without exception, they have thrived under that environment.
16:20If huge capital IF, if they are willing to accept it, right?
16:26That's the key.
16:27Well, Joe, another great conversation.
16:29So great to catch up with you.
16:30Thank you so much for taking the time today.
16:31Yeah, it's totally my pleasure.
16:32All right.
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