How Technology Transformed Secondary Marketing – And What We Shouldn’t Forget

In today’s mortgage industry, technology drives efficiency, speed, and accuracy like never before. But while we celebrate the advancements, it’s worth taking a step back to appreciate what they’ve replaced. Many core processes in Secondary Marketing have remained remarkably unchanged—but the way we publish rate sheets has evolved dramatically.

For years, publishing rate sheets was a painstaking, manual process. Investors would send rate sheets via fax or email, requiring secondary teams to key them into spreadsheets, manually remove margins, and apply caps across multiple product sets and branches. It was slow, tedious, and prone to human error.

Today, Product and Pricing Engines (PPEs) like Optimal Blue, Marksman, and Lender Price have revolutionized this process. Instead of manually inputting rates, secondary teams push a few buttons, and rates are instantly updated across multiple channels. Investors no longer have to send individual rate sheets to 100+ banks; they simply ensure accurate delivery to a PPE platform.

The benefits extend beyond the back office. Loan originators can now instantly run scenarios across multiple borrowers, checking not just pricing but eligibility—all in real-time. No more flipping through hard-copy rate sheets or manually applying loan-level pricing adjustments, only to realize at the last step that a borrower’s DTI is too high.

Secondary marketing professionals I speak with say their PPE investment pays for itself within a year—not just in time saved, but in avoiding costly pricing errors. The granularity of pricing strategies, automation of processes, and elimination of fat-finger mistakes have made modern secondary marketing nearly unrecognizable compared to its past.

While some aspects of hedging and loan sales have remained steady, technology continues to reshape how we operate. The key is to embrace the efficiencies while remembering the foundational principles that haven’t changed—disciplined pricing strategies, market awareness, and risk management.

At the end of the day, technology doesn’t replace expertise—it enhances it. Those who understand the past while leveraging today’s innovations will be best positioned for success in the ever-evolving mortgage industry.