While low interest rates kept the refinance boom going through the second year of the pandemic, purchase activity boosted the volumes of many of last year’s top loan originators.

“2021 was a really interesting year because, even though it was still a partial refinance year with relatively low rates, it really became a big purchase because of COVID and basically where we are as a country and as a society,” said Daniel Rosenfeld, a loan originator with Leader Bank. “People just wanted to have a house; people had to have a house – it was almost like ‘at all costs.’”

The Warren Group, publisher of The Commercial Record, has compiled from its proprietary loan originators module the top loan originators of calendar year 2021. The originators are ranked by number of loans and loan volume statewide and by the institution with which they are most closely affiliated.

Loan originators processed $45.16 billion in residential mortgages across the state in 2021, according to The Warren Group, up from $35.93 billion in 2020 and $19.6 billion before the pandemic in 2019. Purchase activity statewide for loan originators was $15.87 billion last year, up 20 percent from $13.2 billion in 2020 and up 69 percent from 2019.

Who were Connecticut’s top loan originators in 2021? See our rankings to find out!

Loan originators also handled more than 100,000 residential refinances in Connecticut in 2021, up 29 percent from 2020.

Fairfield County saw loan originators handle 12,200 purchase loans for $7.3 billion compared to about 11,000 loans for $5.97 billion in 2020 and about 8,400 loans for $3.78 billion in 2019.

Loan originators in Hartford County did 11,250 purchase loans for $2.9 billion compared to 10,400 for $2.5 billion in 2020 and nearly 9,000 for $1.98 billion in 2019.

Fairfield County

Jarret Coleman consistently lands at or near the top of The Warren Group’s rankings of Connecticut loan originators each year. In 2021, he achieved what he never thought possible: $1 billion in total loan originations.

“For all of us in the mortgage business, we were living in a bit of a fantasy type of environment during the pandemic the last couple of years,” said Jarret Coleman, a loan originator with U.S. Bank. “I can’t remember another time like it where you had a booming purchase market and a booming refi market at the same time.”

Not all of Coleman’s business was in Connecticut. He works for U.S. Bank, which does not have retail branches in Connecticut but is among the top mortgage lenders in the state. In addition to lending in Fairfield County, Coleman originates loans in California, Florida, New Jersey and New York.

While Coleman had both refinance and purchase business, he traditionally focuses on the purchase market. As in Fairfield County, Coleman saw a similar environment affecting homebuyers elsewhere: housing demand outpacing supply, multiple offers on homes and buyers waiving contingencies.

“Because of what happened with the pandemic and the mindset shift that you don’t have to be in the city to work for a company in the city, I wasn’t surprised to see Fairfield County explode in terms of demand,” Coleman said. “The thing that is surprising is that every single market that I’m in across the country, it’s the same mentality.”

Coleman said the activity in 2021 kept him busy, helping to take his focus off problems related to the pandemic and other events in the world. But he added that the competitive nature of the current purchase market created additional work for loan originators that did not always pay off in a commission-based business.

Some borrowers apply for preapproved loans with multiple lenders, he said, and every weekend, 10 to 15 of his clients end up bidding on the same property.

“I know that 14 of them are not going to get an accepted offer, because only one person can win,” Coleman said. “And selfishly, I know that I’m spending my weekend doing preapprovals for the vast majority of people who have no chance at winning at the bid.”

But as interest rates have risen in 2022, dampening the refinance market, Coleman said the active purchase market has been good for loan originators and kept them busy, even as they watch for potential effects from inflation.

Hartford County

Hartford County’s top loan originator, Daniel Rosenfeld with Leader Bank, saw about 45 percent of his 2021 mortgage volumes from refinances, according to The Warren Group, but he and his bank traditionally focus on the purchase market. A $3 billion-asset bank based in Massachusetts near Boston, Leader Bank has no retail branch presence in Connecticut, which Rosenfeld said has meant he has grown his business without the branch referrals that other bank loan originators might have.

Rosenfeld has been with Leader Bank for more than seven years and attributes his success to the relationships he has built over the years in the real estate community and among his clients.

Leader Bank does not advertise in Connecticut, Rosenfeld said, and most of the refinance activity Rosenfeld came from existing clients or referrals from those clients.

“I really try to develop a relationship with my borrowers,” Rosenfeld said. “It’s not a one-shot deal – I try to personalize it, and it really has worked well.”

Like Rosenfeld, Lynne Kirby of Evolve Bank & Trust works for a company without a retail branch presence in Connecticut. Evolve Bank & Trust has mortgage lending offices in several U.S. states, including Connecticut and Massachusetts.

Another top loan originator in Hartford County, Kirby has been with Evolve Bank & Trust for two years and said the stability from working in the same Greater Hartford market for decades has helped build her reputation.

“I’m lucky enough to enjoy confidence from the Realtor community,” Kirby said. “I’ve worked hard