How Flourish Lending is able to deliver great rates

March 17, 2026

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

Home mortgages were first standardized in the United States in the 1930s, when the New Deal established the Federal Housing Administration to insure lenders and Fannie Mae to purchase those insured loans and provide liquidity to the mortgage market.¹

In the intervening years, the home lending market has expanded, but many of the essential players and processes have remained the same. As in any ecosystem where stagnation sets in, inefficiencies prevail.

Flourish Lending^◊ transforms the home lending experience. By addressing inefficiencies in the industry’s traditional playbook, we’ve accelerated processes and reduced operating costs. Those savings are passed on to the clients of advisors who offer Flourish Lending — which is how we can give them access to home borrowing rates that can often be well below the industry average.

For a better understanding of the strategic and technological innovations that power Flourish Lending, it helps to first understand the fundamentals of the typical home lending process.

The average homebuyer faces a byzantine process to secure a mortgage or refinance an existing loan. As confusing as it can feel from the consumer’s perspective, what’s happening behind the scenes is perhaps even more complex.

It all begins with the capital markets, which set bare metal rates for loans based on interest rates, investor demand, and inflation. Lenders use those rates as a baseline to set their borrowing rates, layering in a prospective borrower’s risk profile and their own operating costs to arrive at a final rate that’s offered to the consumer.

The loans reach borrowers through three primary channels:

• Mortgage brokers work with the borrower on the paperwork, then partner with wholesale lenders, who ultimately underwrite and fund the loan

• Retail lenders, like big-name banks, use short-term credit lines to fund the mortgage and may service the mortgage themselves longer-term or may sell off the loan in the secondary market

• Correspondent lenders originate and fund loans themselves but typically sell it to a large bank or aggregator

Most loans are sold in the secondary market once funding is complete. In 2017, nearly half of all loans originated by banks were sold on the secondary market; that number jumps to 97% among non-bank lenders.² Secondary market activity also factors into the rate borrowers see: "gain-on-sale" margins are baked into the rates that lenders set to cover the lender’s overhead and origination costs and ensure they make a profit when they sell off the loan.

At each step along the way, the complex system introduces drag and adds on costs, which are passed on to the borrower in the form of a higher mortgage or refinancing rate.

The core philosophy behind Flourish Lending is simple: It doesn’t have to be like this. Just because a system has operated in one manner for years does not mean it is exempt from innovation.

Flourish Lending sets out to address the inefficiencies within the system, circumventing bottlenecks and lessening the friction found in the traditional system. We do so by two primary avenues.

Direct access to capital market desks

In the traditional lending process, very few people who sit outside the capital market trading desks see bare metal rates. Loan officers, brokers, and underwriters are outside the loop.

Through our lending partner Pylon, Flourish Lending gives clients access to rates directly from the trading desks of capital market providers – such as Citibank and Bank of America. This access places us earlier in the process, before wholesalers or aggregators add gain-on-sale margins, marking up the price of the loan before consumers see it. We can shop the market in real time, finding the most cost-effective options and passing savings directly to borrowers.

On top of that, Flourish Lending waives the $1,250 origination fee if the borrower has had direct deposit set up in their Flourish Cash^† account for at least 30 days, increasing the potential to save.

Automation and efficiency

In spaces where technological innovation is lacking, human workers often pick up the slack. The home lending industry is no exception. Cumbersome processes that over-rely on human input have historically driven up borrowing costs for consumers.

Freddie Mac reports that retail lenders saw their mortgage origination costs rise by 35% between the end of 2020 and 2023.³ However, that same report found that lenders who used technology realized savings for themselves, which were passed on to their borrowers.

The Flourish Lending platform is technology-native and automates and digitizes many of the processes that have been manual. Through our lending partner, underwriting is automated, appraisal ordering and income and asset verification are digital, and compliance workflows are streamlined.

Our technology-first approach improves speed, compresses cost, and reduces overhead. As a result, borrowers enjoy better transparency and a shorter time-to-close, and the efficiency we create in the system flows into borrower pricing.

Flourish Lending is available to clients of financial advisors on the Flourish platform. Clients can apply for a mortgage or refinance directly within their Flourish portal. Flourish Lending offers an additional benefit: clients can share access with friends and family through their advisor, connecting their loved ones with exclusive rates and a fast online application process.

If you’re not yet a Flourish client, head to our product page to learn more, then speak with your financial advisor about setting up your account.