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Point on Tuesday announced the launch of a third-party origination (TPO) channel for its home equity investment (HEI) product, expanding distribution through mortgage brokers as the company looks to broaden access to home equity without traditional monthly payments.
The new channel will be led by Samuel Bjelac, a mortgage industry executive with more than 20 years of experience across wholesale, correspondent and non-QM lending. Mortgage professionals will now be able to broker Point’s HEI product, the company confirmed in its release.
Bjelac, who will serve as Point’s head of wholesale, most recently served as senior vice president of national sales and TPO at Foundation Mortgage Corp. He has also held leadership roles at Carrington Mortgage Services, Sprout Mortgage, CoreVest Finance and Flagstar Bank.
“You have a lot of homeowners [who] have significant equity. They’re reluctant for several reasons … mainly to not refinance [out of] low first mortgage rates,” Bjelac said in an interview with HousingWire. “I think both borrowers and brokers are looking for more flexible ways to provide liquidity, and we think wholesale is a natural channel to meet the demand there.”
Founded in 2015, Point has reportedly funded more than $2.5 billion in HEIs and worked with more than 25,000 homeowners. The company said the new origination channel will allow it to partner directly with established broker networks and expand the availability of its equity-sharing product.
“Launching a third-party origination channel is a natural extension of Point’s vision to make homeownership more valuable and accessible,” said Eddie Lim, co-founder and CEO of Point. “Samuel’s record of developing scalable sales organizations, opening new distribution channels, and accelerating adoption will ultimately make it possible for Point to help more homeowners access their equity when they need it most.”
Bjelac said Point’s HEI product offers homeowners a way to access equity without taking on additional monthly debt obligations.
“The wholesale channel will play a major role in the future of home equity solutions. Brokers are the closest to the consumer conversation,” he said. “Our focus is to make sure that they have responsible, flexible tools to meet their borrowers where their needs are in today’s market.”
Point’s move into the third-party origination space comes just days after GO Mortgage debuted its own TPO channel built on a new wholesale platform.
The HEI space has been the target of regulatory and courtroom scrutiny in recent months, with companies like Hometap and Unison fielding lawsuits that allege its “equity sharing” contracts trap homeowners in unlicensed mortgages disguised as investment partnerships.
“I can’t speak for other providers, but I can tell you that we provide, I think, a very solid homeowner education, a very solid originator training and ongoing education,” Bjelac said when asked about lawsuits in the HEI space.
“I’ve had some really good success in my past introducing new types of lending options into the marketplace,” he added. “I feel that I’ve been able to empower brokers with those loan products, where they were able to provide liquidity in places that they couldn’t in the past. … It’s providing options for mortgage brokers so they can serve their borrowers better.”
