Ask a loan officer how they did last year and you'll get one number. Ask what that number looked like month by month, by loan type, and by county, and you'll learn a lot more. The single number is a snapshot. The trend is the story.
That matters more than usual right now. The MBA's latest forecast has originations landing around $2.1 trillion in 2026 and slipping to $1.99 trillion in 2027, with 30-year rates staying above 7%. In a cooling market, an annual total can hide a lot. Here's how to track LO production trends so you're reading what's really going on.
Why doesn’t a single production number tell you enough?
Because it's an average of everything that happened. Picture two loan officers who each closed 12 loans last year. One closed a loan a month. The other closed eight in the first quarter and has been quiet since. Same total, very different people to recruit, partner with, or bet on.
A big loan count is often shaped by the neighborhood, the borrower segment, and the referral network behind it, so results can change when the geography or the competition does.
What time windows should you actually watch?
Quick answer: look at three, six, and twelve months side by side. Each one tells you something different.
Trailing 3 months: shows momentum. Is the loan officer picking up speed or cooling off?
Trailing 6 months: smooths out a lucky closing or a slow stretch, and takes some of the seasonality out.
Trailing 12 months: is your baseline. Everything else gets measured against it.
When the 3-month number sits below the 6-month, and the 6-month sits below the 12-month, you're looking at someone on the way down. The reverse is someone building momentum, who is usually the person worth a phone call.
Production that slips for two or more periods in a row deserves a closer look, even when the current number still looks fine.
How do you tell the market from the loan officer?
This is the hard part, and it's where most people get fooled. With rates in the 7s, refinance business is thin. At 7% to 7.5% it's very difficult for anyone to find a reason to refi.
So a loan officer whose numbers are sliding might just have a refi-heavy book in a purchase market. Another whose total looks flat could be losing purchase business and covering the gap with refis. The total hides both. Check the purchase-to-refi split and the loan type mix (conventional, FHA/VA, jumbo, non-QM), then compare that loan officer to the others working the same counties.
Our rule of thumb: if everyone local is down 15% and one loan officer is down 5%, that's a strong producer. If a national average says the same loan officer is "below the curve," the national average is the wrong yardstick.
Compare a loan officer to the people working the same counties, not to a national average.
What can make production look wrong?
Team production can hide under a manager. When loans close under a manager's NMLS number, which is common on teams, an individual's production can be under-reported.
Coverage gaps. Loans closed in a county that isn't covered won't show up at all.
The fix is simple. Leave the most recent month out of your trend read, and confirm someone's team structure before you draw conclusions.
How often should you check?
Monthly is plenty. Modex refreshes production data generally around the 10th each month. Checking more often mostly shows you the same numbers. Pair the production trend with workforce movement while you're at it. A loan officer whose volume dipped right after changing companies is in a different situation than one who's sliding at the same desk with the same team. One may be a ramp-up period. The other may be a problem.
Where does Modex fit in?
Modex tracks mortgage production across 2,370 counties, covering 95% of U.S. residential home loans, pulled from county deeds of trust. History generally goes back to 2016, which is enough to see more than one market cycle. Recruiters use it to pull trailing production by loan type, purchase-to-refi split, and geography before the first call. Wholesale and non-QM AEs use it to see which loan officers are growing, which are fading, and where to spend their route time.
The Bottom Line
Tracking production isn't complicated. Pick your windows, split purchase from refi, compare against local peers, and give the data a month to catch up. Do that consistently and you'll usually spot a shift before the people who only look at annual totals.
Want to see the trend on a loan officer you’re watching? Pull them up in Modex and look at their production over time, or request your demo today.
