Key facts
- Cost to originate a loan increased by 28% between 2021 and 2025.
- Loans closed per production employee per month dropped significantly from 2021 to 2022.
- Average annual income for retail loan officers fell from over $170,000 to $91,000 between 2020-2021 and 2022.
- Producers may increase volume to mask underlying strain, a pattern that can lead to higher effort per unit.
- Operational signals like work pattern shape, pipeline composition, and response latency can indicate producer strain.
- Approximately 20% of producing loan officers switched companies in 2025.
Traditional production metrics in commission-based industries may not accurately reflect the true effort or strain on producers, according to Martha Fernandez, a clinical social worker and co-founder of CEREVITY. Fernandez argues that while production numbers are objective and readily available, they can mask an increase in effort per unit, especially when hours worked remain constant or rise while output per employee declines.
Data from MBA's performance reports indicates that the cost to originate a loan increased from $8,664 in 2021 to $11,094 in 2025, a rise of approximately 28%. Concurrently, loans closed per production employee per month fell from 2.5 in 2021 to 1.4 in 2022. On the residential side, NAR's 2026 Member Profile shows the typical agent completed nine transactions in 2025, down from twelve in 2022, with median weekly hours remaining at 35.
Compensation data further supports this observation. STRATMOR found that while average retail loan officer commissions stayed relatively stable between 92 and 103 basis points, average annual income dropped from over $170,000 in 2020 and 2021 to $91,000 in 2022. This suggests that the effort required to earn commissions has significantly increased.
Fernandez posits that production volume can rise even when capacity is strained because producers may increase their output to compensate for underlying difficulties, a response that quiets immediate pressure but does not address the root cause. She advocates for monitoring operational signals that precede production declines, such as changes in work patterns (e.g., increased late-night or weekend work, canceled time off), pipeline composition (more units, more rework), response latency and tone, withdrawal from non-transactional tasks, and the absence of recovery periods after peak performance.
She advises managers to address these observations by naming specific behaviors rather than focusing on numbers, and to separate the observation from the resource. Fernandez notes that approximately one in five producing loan officers changed companies in 2025, a year of improving stability, highlighting the cost of misinterpreting producer strain.