- 2 days ago
When thinking about how he envisions AI transforming mortgage lending, Robert Pieklo has a simple question: why are costs still going up? In this episode of Ten Minute Talks Allison LaForgia sits down with President and CEO of eLEND Robert Pieklo, to unpack how the company scaled from roughly $80 million in monthly volume to more than $625 million monthly while maintaining profitability for seven consecutive quarters.
Pieklo shares the capital markets strategy driving eLEND’s expansion, his outlook on non-QM lending, liquidity management in a volatile rate environment, and why broker partnerships remain at the center of the company’s growth. He offers a perspective on AI in technology, separating industry hype from real operational value and reveals where eLEND is investing next to create long-term competitive advantages.
Pieklo shares the capital markets strategy driving eLEND’s expansion, his outlook on non-QM lending, liquidity management in a volatile rate environment, and why broker partnerships remain at the center of the company’s growth. He offers a perspective on AI in technology, separating industry hype from real operational value and reveals where eLEND is investing next to create long-term competitive advantages.
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00:11I'm Allison LaForgia, Managing Editor of HousingWare's Content Studio, and I'm with Rob
00:16Pigolo, the President and Chief Executive Officer at ELEND. Thank you for joining me on this 10
00:21Minute Talks. Thank you so much for having me. This is amazing, amazing venue. Thank you for
00:25having me. I know. We are in the heart of the Financial District at New York City at the Stock
00:31Exchange. We're going to jump right into our questions for today. Let's do it. You've said
00:36that ELEND went from funding roughly $80 million a month at the time of the AFR acquisition to a
00:42record-breaking multi-million dollar in March while staying profitable for seven straight quarters.
00:49From a secondary marketing and capital markets perspective, what were the biggest strategic
00:54shifts that made that growth possible without sacrificing execution or margin discipline?
01:00Yeah, it's been a wild ride. I mean, we started, geez, February of 24, and obviously we thought
01:05we were near a bottom in the market, and we weren't. There was still a little bit of ways to
01:09go,
01:10but yeah, we're funding about $80 million a month in volume and probably only $30 or $40 million of
01:15wholesale in the broker community. And just last month, we funded $625 million, actually,
01:20which is incredible, up from, like I said, the $35 or so million. So on a percentage side,
01:25it's always good talking in percentages. We've grown significantly, so we're very happy about
01:28that. But we're not done. You know, we're not done. We have a mission. We believe in the broker
01:32channel in the community. And what we've done is truly bring in the capital markets world and put
01:37that in the forefront for the brokers. We have incredible price. We find out where the execution is
01:42going to be and the ax is going to be in the secondary and capital markets and bring that forward
01:46in our
01:46rate sheets. So we've been able to execute, deliver operationally, and then still, when it comes to
01:52the secondary marketing, do it and do this and have this kind of growth profitably.
01:56Now, something that we've noticed lots of interest in, the non-agency market has continued to expand
02:03rapidly with non-QM securitization volume surging and investor appetite evolving across the stack.
02:10What trends are you watching closely in non-QM or HELOC or other non-agency products? And where
02:17do you see the biggest opportunity or risk for lenders over the next 12 to 18 months?
02:22Yeah, I mean, it's something we're definitely interested in. We're going to be rolling out
02:26some products real soon for the broker community in that space. But you have to be cautious. You
02:30have to be cautious with it. I mean, geez, I think I might have gotten like eight emails this
02:33morning to meet about non-QM and production out there. And when you start to see that, that means that
02:38some standards might be coming down. And you don't want to be left in a position like a lot of
02:43companies were even just last April during kind of the tariff issues that were out there. And you
02:47saw these huge changes of appetite for paper just for a few weeks. And you have these huge write downs.
02:52It's a difficult product to try and hedge, but definitely now there's definitely more liquidity,
02:57more traction in the space. So we want to stay in the center lane, do it with incredible price and
03:02really good execution. And we're going to have obviously quick operational speeds. We're going to focus in on
03:06that versus some of the fringe type products we're seeing out there, which is a little scary given
03:10the current macro environment and seeing like kind of what's going on in housing in general and the
03:15credit profiles that are out there. So we're going to stick in the middle of that lane and we're going
03:19to roll out that product line real soon. So more to come soon. We love a preview. So capital proposals,
03:28warehouse lending pressures, and changing capital requirements are forcing lenders to rethink
03:33liquidity and balance sheet strategy. How are those regulatory and capital market developments
03:39shaping the way that Elend approaches growth, hedging, and long-term scalability?
03:44Yeah, it wasn't a main focus to start with AFR when we acquired the company because we were in a
03:49pretty
03:49good position. Now it's like all I deal with. So the growth has been incredible. And when you're
03:54growing this fast and doing it profitably, it's difficult to kind of, you're playing, you're towing the line
04:02when it comes to capital requirements, what's happening with liquidity. You have these large
04:06market moves, you have to be prepared for margin calls and other things that are out there. So
04:10our growth has been amazing, but it's also that success has made us be cautious going forward
04:15because of what you're seeing in terms of volatility in the markets. People don't quite understand that
04:21when you have a large pipeline and these things move, especially when things move for the better,
04:26you end up having a significant amount of liquidity that's required to pay these margin calls. So
04:30it happened in 2020 when you saw the, when rates kind of moved down quickly and people were struggling
04:36to make payroll at that time. So we have to be cautious with that. If we do have some,
04:41hopefully we'll get some news in the Middle East soon and see rates come down a little bit,
04:44we have to be prepared and have the liquidity to deal with those margin calls when they come.
04:48Yeah, I think everyone's very much keeping an eye on the situation in the Middle East, hoping that
04:52with a reduction in oil prices, we'll continue to see some movement from a rate perspective.
04:58Now, Elend has built a business that is now more than 90% TPO at a time when brokers and
05:05correspondent partners are demanding speed, consistency, and competitive execution. From
05:12your perspective, what separates lenders that can truly scale and wholesale today from those that
05:18struggle when volume returns? Yeah, always thinking you're right. You know, we see that with a lot of
05:23lenders that they tell everybody how it should be done versus the other way around. We listen,
05:26we take feedback, we make changes on the fly. So a company of our size, even though like we're on
05:32a,
05:32you know, seven and a half to $8 billion run rate for this year, we're still pretty small. I mean,
05:36less than 300 team members in total. We're doing it through efficiencies and listening to our brokers.
05:41But if there's a change or something that needs to be made, like something has to change in our tech
05:44stack or something has to be changed in our process, I might get that feedback on a Tuesday and
05:49implement it on Thursday. So it doesn't have to go through a huge ticketing system and wait,
05:53you know, six months to be told I can't do it. We're building on the fly. So when we get
05:57these
05:57feedbacks, the feedback from the broker community about our process, anything that happens, we try
06:02to make it smooth, remove friction, and it's resonated with the broker community. We weren't great to start.
06:06We were growing and we weren't great. We made lots of mistakes, but we listened and made changes.
06:10And it's my favorite thing to do is come back to the broker community and call out an individual that
06:15provided some feedback that really helped our process and made it easier for someone else
06:18and we get those daily.
06:19So you've really taken the partnership approach and leaned into that strategically.
06:24Yeah, it's a big deal for us. We're probably, I'm probably too active on social and I watch my
06:29DMs and answer every single, you know, geez, I think I reply to every single comment that mentions us,
06:35every single message I get on all the social platforms, I'm answering. It's me. It's not a bot.
06:41It's not somebody else. I'm answering them. I'm listening. And our team has started to take that in.
06:46And now it's awesome to see, you'll see a comment or a message and I'll get a message internally of
06:50someone saying,
06:50hey, I saw this. We're going to make this change. It's a good idea.
06:52So that partnership is big and it goes a two-way street. We recommend certain ways to work with us
06:57and they recommend how we should work with them. And it's been just an amazing partnership and relationship
07:02that we've built with a lot of the mortgage and broker community.
07:05Now talking about a different type of partnership, pivoting over to a technology question,
07:10you've talked openly about investing heavily in technology when many fintech leaders have
07:16been burning through capital, chasing growth. As you look at the rest of 2026, what market
07:24indicators, policy changes, or secondary market trends are you personally watching most closely
07:29that could reshape opportunity?
07:31Yeah, I think it's real interesting. I know there's a lot of talk about tech and deployment of AI and
07:36things that we see out there. And I'll be honest, a lot of it's fluff. There's a lot of people
07:39that are
07:39out there doing things insane. They're doing things, end of the day, look at their cost to
07:43complete. I think first quarter data just came out in terms of cost to complete. And guess what?
07:48Of the 9,000 AI messages I received over the last couple months, somehow nobody was able to find a
07:55way to do a loan cheaper, right? You see this and now we have cost to complete is up this
07:59quarter,
08:00which is insane. Not for us. It's down for us, obviously. But as you look at the tech and kind
08:05of
08:05what's being deployed, where you're going to move forward and deploy, whether it's AI or whatever,
08:11it has to provide some kind of return on the investment that you're making. To spend 500 or
08:16a million dollars to save eight dollars on a file doesn't make a lot of sense to us. We're not
08:20focusing on the commodity stuff that's going to be available to us very soon. We're focusing on the
08:23big ticket items, pull-through rates, looking at our pipeline, living and breathing, execution.
08:28These are the things that we're deploying. And it's really, we're creating an opportunity for us to have the best
08:33execution on the planet. So when you get your pull-throughs right and you get your modeling
08:38correct, it goes a long way versus, you know, changing something that, you know, might save you
08:44something that's outsourced for eight dollars an hour. You know, that's not really where you want to
08:47deploy. You're seeing company after company deploy things like that. Things to look out for, for us,
08:52it's kind of kind of turn around and you look at the exchange and you look at what's going on
08:56in the
08:56markets. Capital markets is changing. Things that we're looking out for, like companies like
09:00figure, are intriguing to us to want to partner with and work with because they have what seemingly
09:04is going to be what the future of capital markets could possibly be on chain. So things like that
09:09and those that are early adopters there, I think are going to benefit a ton from change like that
09:14of how these things are executed in the secondary markets. So Rob, what's next for Elend?
09:19Investment. Investment in technology. We continue to invest in the channel. We believe there's going
09:23to be an incredible mix between this kind of boots on the ground with our broker channel and our broker
09:29community and the originators that are in that channel. We love that channel. We love the
09:32originators. We love the spirit, the entrepreneurial spirit of these broker owners as well. We're going
09:37to focus in on building technology for them because that last mile of origination has been discounted
09:43forever. Like I did it also early in my career. I was like, oh, it doesn't matter to be an
09:47LO on the
09:47ground. It matters. Now, if you can provide the tools for somebody that they can deliver a technology
09:53experience that makes it easy for the consumer, but there's still that human interaction at the ground
09:58level in that town, I think that's a big deal. So that's going to be, we're going to be focusing
10:01a lot on the experience of the borrower with their broker partner and then our manufacturing
10:05and execution in the capital markets. Well, Rob, I can't wait to see the next update. Thank
10:09you for joining me on 10 Minute Talks. Thank you as always. This is awesome.
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