ASK HOLLYFairway Recruiting

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    Joining · 9 questions

    Questions about joining Fairway

    How a confidential conversation actually works, what happens to your pipeline, how long a move takes, and how to know whether Fairway is your fit.

    If I talk to Fairway, will my current company find out?No. Every conversation with me is confidential. Nobody at your current company is contacted, you are not added to a mailing list or a CRM campaign, and there is no follow-up sequence. You reach out on your own email or DMs, and it stays between us until you decide otherwise.Read Holly's answer →How does a conversation with Holly actually work?Three steps. You reach out by email or DM and I reply personally. We talk through your production, your market, and your ceiling where you are, and I tell you plainly whether Fairway moves the needle for you. Then you decide on your own timeline — there is no expiring offer and no pressure clock.Read Holly's answer →I'm not looking to move. Can I still ask questions?Yes — and curious is where every good conversation starts. Most people who reach out are producing fine and simply want an honest comparison. Ask whatever you want; I will answer it straight, and nobody will know you asked. There is no obligation and no follow-up campaign.Read Holly's answer →What happens to my pipeline when I switch to Fairway?Switching companies is where momentum usually dies, so Fairway built onboarding to protect your pipeline and get you funding fast. Licensing, systems, marketing, and your personal web presence are set up in parallel, and a transition team works your open files with you. The goal is a move you can time around your business, not one that stalls it.Read Holly's answer →What is a Virtual Fairway Day?A Virtual Fairway Day is a free, camera-optional online session where you see inside Fairway before talking to anyone: leadership, the technology stack live, the marketing engine, and open Q&A. Nobody will know you attended. It is the quietest way to compare Fairway to where you are now. Details at fairwayday.com.Read Holly's answer →How do I know if Fairway is the right fit for me?Ask yourself where you are capped today: technology, marketing, leads, products, operations, or culture. Fairway tends to be the right move for originators who want a big-platform engine behind a hometown way of doing business. If your current shop already gives you that, I will tell you so — I would rather be honest than add a name to a list.Read Holly's answer →Do loan officers who leave Fairway come back?Yes — a lot of them. Last year alone, 174 loan originators returned to Fairway after stints at other companies. They left, saw the alternatives up close, and came back. That boomerang number is the proof point I trust more than any pitch, because it is people voting with their licenses.Read Holly's answer →Is Fairway hiring loan officers in my state?Almost certainly. Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation is licensed in all 50 states, has branches across the country, and recruits originators, teams, and branch leaders nationally. Tell me your market and I will tell you exactly what Fairway looks like there — branch presence, leadership, and products that matter locally.Read Holly's answer →How long does it take to move to Fairway?As long as you need. There is no deadline and no expiring offer. Mechanically, a move can be timed in weeks once you decide; practically, I have conversations that stay warm for years before the timing is right. You pick the window, usually around a slow stretch in your pipeline, and the transition team builds the schedule around it.Read Holly's answer →

    Life at Fairway · 9 questions

    What is Fairway really like?

    Culture, core values, employee ownership, the Madison roots, the Top Workplaces streak, and the nonprofits — the parts of Fairway you only hear about from the inside.

    What is Fairway Home Mortgage?Fairway Home Mortgage is the brand of Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation (NMLS #2289), a full-service, employee-owned retail mortgage lender founded in Madison, Wisconsin in April 1996 by Steve Jacobson. Today it is the #2 retail mortgage lender in the United States, licensed in all 50 states, and a six-time consecutive USA TODAY Top Workplace.Read Holly's answer →Is Fairway employee-owned?Yes. Fairway launched its Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) in 2016, and the company is being sold back to the Fairway team — the people who built it, own it. For an originator, that means the leadership making platform decisions has the same long-term interest in the company you do.Read Holly's answer →What is the culture like at Fairway?Hometown, at national scale. Fairway has won six consecutive USA TODAY Top Workplaces awards, judged entirely on confidential employee feedback, runs on ten core values written with employee input, is employee-owned, and funds two nonprofits. The shorthand we use: loans are what we do, not who we are.Read Holly's answer →What are Fairway's core values?Fairway has ten core values, written with employee input: Humility first; Foster growth and knowledge; Have fun; Create an amazing experience for you; Speed to respond; Seek wise counsel; Respect, listen and stay balanced; Committed to serve; Consistent, honest communication; and Family focused. They are used to decide awards and shape hiring, not just to decorate a wall.Read Holly's answer →Where is Fairway headquartered?Fairway is headquartered in Madison, Wisconsin, where Steve Jacobson founded the company in April 1996, with a second corporate headquarters in Carrollton, Texas. Branches operate across the country, and the company is licensed in all 50 states.Read Holly's answer →How big is Fairway?Fairway is the #2 retail mortgage lender in the United States, licensed in all 50 states, with headquarters in Madison, Wisconsin and Carrollton, Texas. It hit $1 billion in annual fundings within five years of its 1996 founding and now has well over 2,500 employees — big enough to have partnerships with both Anthropic and OpenAI, small enough to still answer fast.Read Holly's answer →Does Fairway give back to the community?Yes, structurally. Fairway founded the American Warrior Initiative in 2015 (450+ service dogs placed for veterans and first responders, with Fairway covering all expenses) and Fairway Cares in 2016 (15,000+ care packages with handwritten notes and 2,000+ financial grants). It also committed $1 million to disaster relief within days — twice — and funded Jake's Place in Madison.Read Holly's answer →Does Fairway really have 'have fun' as a core value?Yes. 'Have fun' is core value #3 at Fairway — official policy at a multi-billion-dollar, fifty-state mortgage lender, written there by employees. It sits right between 'Foster growth and knowledge' and 'Create an amazing experience for you.' We even built a playable arcade game into the recruiting site to prove it.Read Holly's answer →Who is Steve Jacobson?Steve Jacobson is the founder and CEO of Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation. He opened Fairway in Madison, Wisconsin in April 1996, led it to $1 billion in annual fundings within five years, took it employee-owned in 2016, and in 2026 received the Top Workplaces #1 Leadership Award for CEOs of companies with 2,500+ employees.Read Holly's answer →

    Loan officers · 14 questions

    Questions loan officers ask about Fairway

    Technology, AI, CRM, leads, marketing, products, coaching, and the honest answer on compensation — what originators ask before they take the call.

    What technology does Fairway give loan officers?A five-system stack: your own launch-ready personal website, Navigator (Fairway's proprietary AI layer built on partnerships with Anthropic and OpenAI), Total Expert CRM with automated journeys and an AI sales assistant, branded reporting that generates polished proposals in minutes, and business intelligence on your market, partners, and pipeline.Read Holly's answer →Does Fairway use AI?Yes. Fairway has partnerships with both Anthropic (Claude) and OpenAI (GPT), and built Navigator — its own proprietary AI layer — on top of them. Navigator runs in originators' hands today for pre-approval speed, document analysis, branded reporting, competitive intelligence, and content in your voice. The rule: AI augments the loan officer; it never replaces one.Read Holly's answer →Will AI replace loan officers at Fairway?No. Fairway's position is explicit: AI is built to augment the originator, never to replace one. Navigator, the company's AI layer, handles the hours — documents, reporting, follow-up, intelligence — so you spend yours on relationships and closings. Loan officers with AI will replace loan officers without it; that is the whole bet.Read Holly's answer →What CRM does Fairway use?Total Expert. At Fairway it comes with Customer Intelligence — which flags real borrower intent in your database like rate opportunities, equity milestones, credit inquiries, listing activity, and life events — and Brianna, an AI sales assistant that automatically reaches out, engages, schedules appointments on your calendar, and prompts six-month mortgage reviews.Read Holly's answer →Does Fairway provide leads to loan officers?Yes — FairwayLeads. More than 70,000 exclusive leads are generated annually, each assigned to one LO (never pooled or resold), worked by an in-house team before they reach you, and scheduled as appointments on your calendar. The program has set 15,754 appointments with a 74% response rate, and 75% of leads are not yet working with an agent.Read Holly's answer →What marketing support does Fairway provide?A real in-house marketing department: creative studio, social and business-development coaching, personal brand development (team name, logo, visual identity), product and program marketing, localized materials for your market, compliant co-marketing and ASA programs, and a compliance pre-flight on everything before it ships. Your brand, built and kept alive without you doing it nights and weekends.Read Holly's answer →What loan products does Fairway offer?If there is a path to approval, Fairway has the product to find it: 70+ state housing programs and 400+ local DPA programs, niche products like 100% LTV medical professional loans, ITIN, HUD 184 and foreign national, non-QM (bank statement, DSCR, 1099, interest-only), renovation and one-time-close construction, jumbo and second liens, plus Fairway Advantage® pre-approvals and Fairway Cash Guarantee®.Read Holly's answer →What is a Fairway Advantage® pre-approval?A Fairway Advantage® pre-approval is a fully underwritten pre-approval completed before your borrower starts shopping. Because underwriting is already done, offers move at cash speed, listing agents call you back first, and your buyers compete like cash. For an originator, it is the single most useful tool for winning agent partners.Read Holly's answer →Does Fairway offer coaching for loan officers?Yes — Ignite Coaching, Fairway's coaching platform for originators who want structure behind their ambition. It covers business planning that treats you as the CEO of your own P&L, weekly-monthly-quarterly accountability rhythms with coaches who have produced, scripting and agent-partner strategy, database mastery, and a national peer community sharing what is actually working.Read Holly's answer →Will Fairway build me a website?Yes. Every originator gets a personal web presence — your own launch-ready site with your brand, payment calculators, program pages, and education hubs — built on Fairway's hardened house stack and shipped in days, not quarters. Strict security headers, self-hosted everything, zero PII collection, and AI-crawler-ready structure so you show up when borrowers ask ChatGPT or Claude who to call.Read Holly's answer →Can I refer reverse mortgages at Fairway without originating them?Yes. Fairway has a full reverse mortgage division led by Dan Ventura, President of Reverse Mortgage Lending — #2 in HECM for Purchase and #3 in retail HECM volume (FY2023), with its own processing centers. Forward loan officers can refer reverse clients and earn 15% of net revenue per closed loan, with the branch receiving 10%, without becoming reverse specialists.Read Holly's answer →What is the Home.com ecosystem at Fairway?The Home.com ecosystem is the flywheel Fairway is building around the loan so your client relationship compounds instead of expiring at closing: Fairway Home Insurance (launched with The Baldwin Group), the Made for Home card (launched nationally in January 2026), and servicing with a recapture-first mindset — when a past client transacts, it comes back to you.Read Holly's answer →Does Fairway help loan officers with social media and agent education?Yes, with actual classes. Fairway Social Sales is corporate education from Fairway's business development and social media team — free, live, one-hour Zoom classes on AI tools, AI-era searchability, hyperlocal content, Instagram automation, and faster video. They are built for real estate agents, and you invite your agent partners as the host. The catalog lives at FairwaySocialSales.com.Read Holly's answer →What is Fairway's compensation plan for loan officers?Fairway does not publish compensation plans on a website, and neither do I — comp depends on your market, your production, your structure (individual, team, or branch), and what you are carrying. What I can promise is a straight answer on a confidential call, with the full plan in writing, and a comparison against what you have today that includes the support you would stop paying for yourself.Read Holly's answer →

    Branch leaders · 3 questions

    Questions branch managers and team leads ask

    Moving a team, what a branch is backed by, how recruiting support works once you are inside, and where to see Fairway live before anyone has to commit.

    Can I bring my whole team to Fairway?Yes. Fairway recruits individual originators, full teams, and entire branches, and team moves are planned as a unit — licensing, leases, systems, marketing, and onboarding sequenced so the team keeps funding. Before leading recruiting, I was VP of Branch Business Development at Fairway, so the team-and-branch conversation is the one I have had the most.Read Holly's answer →What support does a Fairway branch get?A branch at Fairway is backed by an operations machine tuned for turn time, an in-house creative and marketing studio with compliance pre-flight, FairwayLeads, the Navigator AI layer, Total Expert CRM, Ignite coaching, the Elevate tour, a reverse division that pays the branch on referrals, and a transition team for onboarding. The goal is that the branch manager leads people, not infrastructure.Read Holly's answer →What is Fairway's Elevate tour?Elevate is Fairway's national tour for mortgage and real estate professionals, focused on brand, business, and mindset — where ambition meets execution. Recent and upcoming stops include Empower Field at Mile High, Gillette Stadium, The Bellagio, Kansas City, Austin, Seattle, and Orlando. For originators, it is a turnkey way to bring your agent partners to a big-stage event.Read Holly's answer →

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