Synergy One to take over Newrez distributed retail mortgage operations

Synergy One Lending, a division of American Pacific Mortgage (APM), will assume control of Newrez’s distributed retail mortgage business under a new strategic agreement announced Wednesday, extending an existing partnership and reshaping both lenders’ retail strategies.

The agreement — which is not considered to be a merger or acquisition — moves Newrez’s distributed retail operations and personnel to Synergy One, which is building out a purpose-built retail platform following its June merger with APM.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, according to the company announcement.

“This transition is direct evidence of the momentum behind Synergy One right now,” Aaron Nemec, division president of Synergy One Lending, said in a statement. “We have worked hard to build a powerful platform for retail originators, and Newrez’s decision to trust us with their people reflects the strength of what we have built. We are proud to welcome this team and energized about what we will build from here.”

Growing the retail footprint

San Diego-based Synergy One said the deal will increase its national retail footprint, adding branches and originators at a time when many lenders are still rationalizing their physical networks after years of margin compression and interest rate volatility. Synergy One said it’s licensed in 49 states, employs 540 people and operates 65 branches nationwide.

Data from mortgage tech platform RETR shows that as of July 6, following the addition of Synergy One, APM now has 1,135 producing loan officers. Since the start of 2026, APM has produced about $5.1 billion in mortgages, ranking No. 29 among all U.S. lenders.

APM President Steve Majerus told HousingWire that Synergy One has had a correspondent lending relationship with Newrez for years. “They know our business model; they know our leadership team — that really is the strength of the relationship,” he said.

While the companies did not share details about the number of employees involved, Majerus said it was fair to characterize the move as a bet by APM and Synergy One on the future strength of the retail channel.

“We’ve had a demonstrated track record of being fully committed to in-market distributed retail model, and have grown it prior to our merger with APM a pretty significant amount over the last couple of years,” he said. “Every opportunity we get to add experienced professionals that are aligned with what we view the future of the industry to be, we’re going to be open to those discussions and participate in those opportunities every chance we get for the foreseeable future.”

Newrez charts a new path

Newrez — a Rithm Capital subsidiary and top-five U.S. mortgage lender and servicer by volume — framed the move as a redeployment of capital and resources toward joint venture partnerships and its localized Newrez Direct strategy, retail segments it views as having the strongest long-term upside. Newrez will continue to originate through its wholesale, correspondent, consumer direct and joint venture channels.

“This move reflects our confidence in Synergy One as a partner and a continued deliberate focus on the areas of our business where we see the strongest growth opportunity going forward,” Newrez President Baron Silverstein said.

RETR data shows that Newrez is the 25th-largest U.S. mortgage lender since the start of the year, having closed $5.4 billion in volume.

In February 2024, Newrez announced a restructuring of its Caliber Home Loans retail division. That came less than three years after Newrez agreed to acquire Caliber in a deal valued at nearly $1.7 billion.

The 2024 restructuring involved personnel cuts to regional and divisional management. It also reduced loan officer compensation, with sources telling HousingWire that many LOs were seeking opportunities elsewhere.

A Newrez executive, speaking on background, said at the time that the goal was to “flatten” the organization and better align the distributed retail business with other channels in an effort to better recapture servicing business. The executive also said that Newrez remained “committed to retail. … There’s always noise about Newrez not being committed to retail. That’s not an accurate statement.”

Building on the merger with APM

The transition comes roughly a month after Synergy One joined forces with fellow California-based lender American Pacific Mortgage. Under the merger agreement, Synergy One is maintaining its brand name under APM’s divisional dba model. APM is licensed in 49 states, employs more than 2,900 people and operates nearly 300 branches.

As higher-for-longer rates and elevated origination costs keep pressure on company margins, lenders are making careful choices about which channels they want to own. Newrez’s decision to exit distributed retail in favor of JVs and consumer direct efforts — and Synergy One’s move to double down on traditional retail — illustrate diverging but conscious bets on where future home purchase business and operating leverage will come from.

APM is 49% employee-owned through an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP). That could be a factor for incoming Newrez retail teams as they weigh long-term career paths, particularly as more originators look for stability, equity participation and local control in a volatile interest rate environment.

“This strikes right at the heart of our strategy of taking advantage of scale and adding additional scale on the production side — and distributing those costs associated with that around a larger platform,” Majerus said.

“As we’ve grown over the last couple of years, we’ve been able to do it profitably while taking on the cost of that growth, and so we expect to continue to do that … as we go to materially higher levels in terms of production overall.”

Editor’s note: This article was updated with comments from APM President Steve Majerus.

This article was written by Neil Pierson with the assistance of HousingWire Automation, then reviewed by a HousingWire editor before publication.