A team of 16 employees, led by two former UMortgage managers, will join UHM's existing team in Cincinnati, Ohio, according to a news release.

Ravi Patel and Justin Allen, who spent more than two years at mortgage brokerage UMortgage, will both serve as area branch managers for the Cincinnati region. The duo brings with them eight loan officers, three loan officer assistants, a processor, a production manager and a marketing manager.

The team is expected to bring in notable origination volume to retail lender UHM. It closed 996 units and funded over $260 million the previous year, compared to the 874 units amounting to $215 million closed by the UHM team in 2024.

Prior to UMortgage, Patel and Allen were both operating on the retail side of lending. Patel worked at Guaranteed Rate for over four years, and Allen worked for six years at Nations Reliable Lending, a firm UHM acquired earlier this year.

(Nations Reliable Mortgage, also known as NRL Mortgage, closed $1.091 billion in origination volume in 2024, while UHM counted $7.6 billion in volume.)

The former UMortgage branch managers will both report to Caveh Azadeh, senior vice president of sales at UHM. Azadeh and Allen worked together at NRL Mortgage from 2016 to 2022, before Allen left for UMortgage.

"It's been incredible to see how my former colleagues and I took different paths — gaining new experiences, growing through a changing market, and navigating the post-COVID world — only to come full circle and reunite," said Allen in a statement. 

Patel, on the other hand, highlighted the importance of "keeping the team together" in making a move to a new firm. "We have a strong team with some real talent and energy that we could never leave behind," he added.

Union Home Mortgage has prioritized growing its headcount in the last few years, bringing in new talent via acquisitions and organic hiring. As of Wednesday, it sponsors almost 900 loan officers and is licensed to operate in all 50 states. 

In a previous interview, Bill Cosgrove, CEO of UHM, noted the firm's $22 billion servicing portfolio has supported its growth and hiring efforts. 

"We have positioned Union Home to be growing revenue. We're incredibly stable and it's a very attractive package for a lot of loan officers today that may be concerned about the direction of their current company," he said.

Union Home Mortgage funded over $5 billion in originations in 2024, up from $3.9 billion in 2023, data from Modex shows.