Banks and credit unions have long originated most of the country’s home equity loans, and borrowers still want those loans. Nonbank lenders now move a loan from application to booked in far less time, and depositories are giving up share to them. For banks and credit unions, keeping that business means investing in operational execution built for how home equity loans move.
Share is moving to faster lenders
A borrower who applies for a home equity loan at a bank or credit union waits about 40 days on average before the loan is booked. At a nonbank lender, the wait is about 15 days. Nonbanks went from 8% of subordinate-lien originations in 2022 to 29% in 2025, and banks and credit unions, which together once held 85% of home equity lending, were down to 66%, according to FirstClose’s eBook, “The 7.99x Return.” The borrowers themselves haven’t changed. Roughly 90% of U.S. homeowners have equity they could tap, and nonbank home equity borrowers still carry prime credit profiles, so the shift reflects process and borrower experience far more than credit quality.
The fix starts in order management and the point of sale
Anyone who has worked a home equity pipeline knows where the days go. A file sits waiting on a title report while someone on the team spends the afternoon chasing a status update. FirstClose’s Order Management Services (OMS) takes that work off the team’s plate. Flood, title, income verification, and tax orders go out from one place, and when a provider doesn’t come through, the order moves to the next one on its own. Providers that perform well get more of the work.
On the borrower side, the XpressEquity point-of-sale (POS) platform provides homeowners with an application branded as the lender’s own, while lenders can see every lead and loan in one place.
An independent study put a per-loan value on operational execution
To determine what that kind of execution is worth, FirstClose commissioned MarketWise Advisors, LLC, to study its client base. Working independently, MarketWise gathered responses from 71 people at 54 FirstClose client lenders and translated what they reported about their home equity operations into per-loan values.
Most of the value came from the core platform
In MarketWise’s model, the average reported financial and operational impact across those lenders came to $753.04 per loan, a 7.99x return. Core capabilities, anchored by OMS, accounted for $478.06 of the average per-loan impact, and extended capabilities, including the XpressEquity POS, added $274.99.
On order management alone, participating lenders reported saving an average of 33.74 minutes per loan, totaling 448 hours per institution in the study. That’s time a team can put toward the next application in the queue. The loans themselves moved faster and cleaner, too. Participating lenders reported cycle times days shorter on average and 31% less errors.
Read the full study
“The 7.99x Return” breaks the $753.04 down across all six financial levers MarketWise modeled and lays out the market data behind the gap between depositories and nonbanks. If you’re making the case for home equity investment inside your own institution, it’s worth having in hand before that conversation. Download “The 7.99x Return”
Disclaimer: This result is indicative of the average reported result across the 2026 FirstClose client base in an independent ROI study conducted by MarketWise Advisors, LLC. It represents the mean level of performance reported across a representative sample of FirstClose clients. The data is provided for informational and educational purposes only and should not be construed as investment advice. Neither MarketWise or FirstClose provide any warranty or representation as to accuracy or future performance. Actual performance may materially differ based on individual factors. All rights reserved.