If you are a mortgage broker or loan officer, you know the specific headache that comes with pricing a loan. You have a borrower with a 720 credit score, 15% down payment, and they want a condo in a specific zip code. Ten years ago, finding the best rate meant opening twenty different tabs, logging into twenty different wholesale lender portals, and manually plugging in the numbers.
It was exhausting, prone to error, and frankly, a waste of time.
This is where tools like Loan Sifter come into play. It’s a name that has been around the block in the mortgage industry, often cited as a staple for independent brokers who need speed. But what exactly is it, and how do you actually get the most out of it?
I’ve spent plenty of time navigating Product, Pricing, and Eligibility (PPE) engines, and I’m going to walk you through exactly how Loan Sifter works, why it matters, and how to use it without pulling your hair out.
What is Loan Sifter?
At its core, Loan Sifter (often styled as Loan sifter) is a Product, Pricing, and Eligibility (PPE) engine designed specifically for the mortgage brokerage community. It is currently part of the Optimal Blue ecosystem, which is a massive player in mortgage technology.
Think of it as the Google Flights of mortgages. Instead of checking Delta, United, and American Airlines separately, you enter your destination once, and the aggregator shows you every flight available.
What Loan sifter Does
Loan Sifter automates the search for “Best Execution.” You input your borrower’s specific scenario—credit score, LTV (Loan-to-Value), DTI (Debt-to-Income), property type, etc.—and the system scans its database.
It doesn’t just look for rates; it looks for eligibility. It filters out lenders who won’t touch that specific condo project or that borrower with a recent bankruptcy. Then, it presents you with a list of wholesale investors who will do the loan, ranked by price.
Key capabilities include:
- Real-time Pricing: Markets move fast. Loan Sifter updates lender rate sheets dynamically.
- Customizable Filters: You can adjust compensation plans and profit margins on the fly.
- Home Equity Searches: A newer feature that allows you to price out HELOCs and HE-LOANs alongside traditional mortgages.
Who Uses Loan sifter?
This tool is built primarily for mortgage brokers and non-delegated correspondents.
While retail lenders often use proprietary internal pricing engines, independent brokers need a tool that can “sift” through dozens of different wholesale lenders at once. If you are a loan officer (LO) trying to offer your client the best possible deal from a variety of sources, this is the type of software you live in daily.
Key Features and Benefits of Loan Sifter
Why do so many broker shops stick with this platform? It usually comes down to data volume and integration.
Comprehensive Loan Product Comparisons
The biggest draw is the network. Loan Sifter supports best-execution searches across 120+ wholesale investors.
When you are trying to compete with big banks or other brokers, having access to a massive library of investors is your edge. You might find that a niche lender you rarely use has a “fire sale” on rates for high-balance conventional loans this week. Without a PPE like Loan Sifter, you would likely miss that opportunity because you wouldn’t have time to check that specific lender’s rate sheet manually.
Seamless Integration Capabilities
A PPE engine is useless if it lives on an island. You don’t want to type borrower data into your Loan Origination System (LOS) like Calyx Point or Encompass, and then type it all over again into your pricing engine.
Loan Sifter integrates with most major LOS platforms. This means you can often click a “Price Loan” button directly inside your loan file, and the data pushes over automatically. It reduces human error—no more fat-fingering a social security number or a loan amount—and speeds up the pre-approval process.
Time-Saving and Accuracy
Accuracy is the currency of the mortgage business. Quoting a borrower a rate of 6.5% only to find out later that they only qualify for 7.125% because of a Loan Level Price Adjustment (LLPA) you missed is a nightmare.
Loan Sifter automatically calculates these adjustments. It reads the guidelines for you. If a lender requires a 0.25% hit to the price because it’s a two-unit property, the engine bakes that into the displayed price. This protects your reputation and ensures your Loan Estimates (LEs) are accurate from day one.
How to Set Up and Use Loan Sifter
If you are new to the platform or just trying to refine your workflow, here is a practical look at how to navigate it.
Step-by-Step Setup Guide
When you first get your login (usually provided by your broker owner or system admin), don’t just jump into pricing. You need to configure your defaults.
- Set Your Compensation Plans: This is critical for compliance. You need to ensure the system knows your company’s comp plan (e.g., Lender Paid Comp at 2.75% or Borrower Paid). If this isn’t set correctly, every price you see will be wrong.
- Select Your Investors: You might not be signed up with all 120+ investors. In the admin settings, uncheck the lenders you don’t have a relationship with. There is no point in seeing a great rate from a lender you aren’t approved to submit loans to.
- Customize Your View: You can adjust which columns appear in your search results. I recommend keeping “Rate,” “Price,” “APR,” and “P&I” front and center.
Running Loan Scenarios
This is where the magic happens. Here is the workflow for a standard check:
- New Scenario: Click “New Search” or “Price Scenario.”
- Input Data: Fill in the fields. Be precise. A 740 credit score prices differently than a 739 in many brackets.
- Pro Tip: Always double-check the “Property State” and “County.” Loan limits vary by county, and this triggers High-Balance or Jumbo loan products.
- Advanced Filtering: If you are doing something tricky—like a Bank Statement loan for a self-employed borrower—use the “Product Type” filters to select “Non-QM” or “Expanded Guidelines.”
- Hit Search: The engine will spin for a few seconds (sifting through the data) and populate a list.
Tips for Optimizing Usage
- Save Scenarios: If a borrower is “thinking about it,” save the scenario. You can reopen it next week and hit “Reprice” to see how the market shifted without re-entering data.
- Use the ‘Compare’ Feature: Most versions of Loan Sifter allow you to select 2-3 different loan products (e.g., a 30-year fixed vs. a 15-year fixed) and generate a side-by-side comparison PDF. This is excellent for sending to clients to show you’ve done your homework.
Loan Sifter vs. Competitors
Loan Sifter is a heavyweight, but it isn’t the only fighter in the ring.
Top Alternatives to Loan Sifter
The main competitors you will see in the brokerage space are Lender Price and Loanscorecard (often used for Non-QM).
- Lender Price: Known for a more modern, slick interface. Some users find it faster visually, and it has gained significant traction for its user experience.
- Optimal Blue (Enterprise): Yes, Optimal Blue owns Loan Sifter, but they also have an enterprise-level PPE used by huge lenders. Loan Sifter is the version tailored specifically for the wholesale/broker market.
Feature Comparisons
When comparing Loan Sifter to something like Lender Price, the differences often come down to the investor library and interface preference.
- UI/UX: Lender Price often wins on “looks.” It feels newer. Loan Sifter has a more utilitarian, spreadsheet-style look, but many veterans prefer this because it puts data density first.
- Non-QM Support: Both handle it, but you often need to ensure your specific Non-QM investors are mapped correctly in Loan Sifter, whereas some newer engines prioritize Non-QM right out of the box.
Why Choose Loan Sifter?
Consistency. Because it has been around so long, almost every wholesale lender prioritizes getting their data into Loan Sifter correctly. It is the industry standard. If a lender isn’t on Loan Sifter, they are invisible to a huge chunk of the broker market. For a user, this means you are getting the widest possible view of the market.
Real-World Applications and Success Stories
Let’s look at how this actually plays out in the daily life of a Loan Officer.
Case Study: The “Save the Deal” Moment
Imagine you have a client in contract on a home. You originally quoted them with Lender A. But during underwriting, the appraisal comes back low, pushing the LTV from 80% to 85%. Lender A’s pricing for 85% LTV is terrible because they have huge hits for Mortgage Insurance.
Instead of panicking, you open Loan Sifter. You modify the LTV to 85% and hit search. Instantly, you see that Lender B has a special program for high-LTV loans with discounted MI. You switch the loan to Lender B, save the rate, and close the deal. Without a PPE, you might have lost that deal or forced the borrower to bring more cash they didn’t have.
Common Use Cases
- The Shopper: A client calls and says, “Rocket Mortgage offered me 6.5%. Can you beat it?” You can plug in their scenario and see within 30 seconds if any of your 50 lenders can beat that price.
- Investment Properties: Pricing on investment properties varies wildly between lenders. Loan Sifter makes it easy to spot who is hungry for investor loans and who is pricing themselves out of the market.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does Loan Sifter cost?
Pricing varies depending on the size of your shop and whether you are buying it directly or through an enterprise agreement. Generally, it is a monthly subscription per user (seat). For individual brokers, it is an overhead cost, but considering one saved deal pays for a year of the service, it is considered essential.
Is Loan Sifter suitable for small mortgage brokers?
Absolutely. In fact, it is most vital for small brokers. Large banks have internal product development teams. Small brokers rely on the wholesale market. Loan Sifter levels the playing field, allowing a one-person shop to offer the same products as a massive lending institution.
What support options are available?
Since being acquired by Optimal Blue, support is handled through their central channels. They offer a knowledge base, email support, and ticketing systems. Most users find that the best “support” actually comes from their wholesale account executives, who are all experts in helping brokers configure their specific bank within the Loan Sifter engine.
Final Thoughts
In the mortgage industry, speed and knowledge are your only real products. Rates are commodities; your ability to find the best rate is the service.
Loan Sifter remains a dominant force because it solves the fundamental problem of the wholesale mortgage channel: fragmentation. It brings order to the chaos of hundreds of rate sheets and guidelines. While the interface might feel strictly business, the engine under the hood is powerful.
If you are serious about brokering loans, mastering your PPE isn’t optional. It’s the cockpit from which you fly the plane. Whether you choose Loan Sifter or a competitor, the goal remains the same: accuracy, speed, and getting your borrower to the closing table with the best deal possible.
