Today’s Daily Download episode features an interview with United Wholesale Mortgage CEO Mat Ishbia. In this episode, Ishbia shares UWM’s journey to becoming the top wholesale lender, his goal to be the top lender in the nation and how UWM has managed to successfully navigate COVID-19. This episode digs deeper into the main feature from the July issue of HousingWire Magazine, which spotlights how UWM captured the wholesale market. During the interview, Ishbia also gives an update on how the company is performing now and their plans for the rest of the year. One of the biggest updates from UWM was the launch of its Conquest program for new UWM customers. The new loan program offers borrowers an interest rate as low as 2.5% for both purchase mortgages and refinances.“If you go back to May 11, the day before we rolled out Conquest, nobody was talking about 30-year fixed in the 2s. A lot of people said you could never go below 3%, and all of a sudden, now we’ve done almost 100,000 loans since that day, with a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage in the 2s,” said Ishbia. Ishbia wraps up the podcast by commenting on the journey of the broker channel, looking back at the fall and rise of brokers since the financial crisis more than a decade ago. “The big thing here is that the broker channel is back and is stronger than ever,” he said. “With what UWM has done and a lot of other great wholesale lenders, it makes it so that you can be an independent mortgage broker  – you’re not captive to a retail lender – with access to the best lenders in America with different turn times, different products, different service levels, different pricing, and basically take care of your clients, make the same if not more money and do more business as an independent broker.”The Daily Download examines the most compelling articles reported from the HousingWire newsroom. Each afternoon, we provide our listeners with a deeper look into the stories that are helping Move Markets Forward. Hosted by the HW team and produced by Alcynna Lloyd.HousingWire articles covered in this episode:How UWM captured the wholesale market (HW+)UWM CEO Mat Ishbia promises no layoffs during coronavirus slowdownUWM now offering mortgage interest rates as low as 2.5%