COO Rob Pieklo describes AFR's competitive advantage in ten minutes
In the new 10-minute talks, HousingWire President Diego Sanchez sits down for an in-depth conversation with the company's president and chief operating officer, Rob Pieklo. American Financial Resources (AFR).
During the 10-minute conversation, Pieklo explores AFR's strategy, the competitive landscape of the mortgage market and its new focus on developing the company's unique approach to differentiate itself from other big names in the wholesale space.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity. To start the conversation, Pieklo explores his recent hiatus from AFR and his return to the company.
Pieclo: I actually started my career at AFR, ended up as one of the junior partners and sold AFR in 2017. I took a break from AFR for about five and a half years and had the opportunity to work with the foundation. Come back and buy in February. They asked me to become chief operating officer and eventually president.
Sánchez: Is there a big focus on the new AFR in the wholesale channel?
Pieclo: There is, yes. We have many brokers in our wholesale channel, so they were known as a niche player. They didn't really get into “vanilla loans”. We knew it was an opportunity.
Since we already have a large number of confirmed customers, it was not difficult to get more customers. It was about getting share of wallet among customers who weren't getting a ton of business from verified customers. So we saw that opportunity and saw a lot of retailers choose to be more entrepreneurial and go into the broker channel.
Sánchez: In the wholesale channel you already mentioned, you have two real juniors — (UWM) and . Are you competing wholesale with these two witches to grab market share for yourself?
Pieclo: We have to fight tooth and nail for every loan. We're up against some incredible companies and these guys, including their . We are looking for places where we can provide a different level of service and experience.
If you combine that with what we've been able to do in capital markets, we've been able to create very small holes – it's like a rounding error for them. But for us, it's a lot of work. Many people left the wholesale channel. That's why we love the channel so much. Brokers need options and we want to be one of those options. It can't just be two players.
To wrap up the conversation, Pieklo examines three competitive strategies for AFR to succeed in the wholesale market.
Pieklo: We focus on bringing capital markets into the hands of brokers. This is something that many lenders do not do. We are incredibly transparent. We look primarily at secondary markets. What are people asking? Are there certain credit balances? How do we get the prices at which these incentives pass through the broker channel?
We take that information — the prices and those fees — feed it into the broker channel, and they love it. We have our own portal and we create experiences as we keep updating it daily.
