From Mortgage to Solar to Mortgage (Through Solar)

So Long, Mortgage

When I left SimpleNexus in the summer of 2022 (okay, technically nCino—but I digress), I never thought I'd spend another day in the mortgage industry.

And how could I? I was employee #22 of a successful start-up that ultimately became a big success. In the early days, we worked out of a real estate office's basement. There were three of us packed like sardines, working at fold-up tables in a space designed for one. Over the next five years, we helped grow Matt Hansen and Ben Miller's vision into a $1.2 billion company. After the acquisition, my time in mortgage was done.

I was eager for a new adventure, something exciting. I discovered that "something" in solar energy, and what a wild ride it turned out to be.

Solar Detour

I'll be frank, the solar industry is flawed at best. Don't get me wrong. I love solar in its purest form. I love it enough to have installed it on my own home. I love it enough to try to build a company that seeks to fix its flaws. What I don't love is the industry's current structure, at least here in the U.S.

When I accepted a job at Lumio, a new start-up in the solar space, I had expectations of what a "green" or "sustainable" company might be: a wannabe hippie's dream gig where I could make a living being creative and feel good about helping the planet at the same time.

As I came to learn the solar industry a bit more, it became clear that "green" was less about the planet and more about the profit. There is nothing wrong with making money, but it was hardly the aspirational Northstar I sought after at a solar company. While I can't speak to every solar company out there, I suspect other major players value speed over service. The stats back this up.

Between 2018 and 2023, the Federal Trade Commission reported a 746% increase in solar-related consumer complaints¹. This is a sobering statistic filled with misrepresented savings, hidden liens, and homeowners trapped in systems they didn't fully understand.

According to NPR, one-star reviews for solar companies have jumped over 1,000% since 2018². Multiple state attorneys general have opened investigations into everything from forgery to high-pressure sales tactics.

While I was discovering this shady side of solar, the housing market was also taking a turn for the worse.

Burning Down the House(ing Market)

Okay, okay, that wasn't my strongest mortgage pun (I'm still easing back into the industry).

But the shift was not subtle. This disrupted my home-seeking friends and family (hi, mom!) from various demographics.

To prove my point, in 2021, rates hit a record low of 2.65% (a great time to buy or refinance if you were in the position to). However, by the end of 2023, they had climbed to nearly 7.8%³. That kind of jump in less than three years was one of the sharpest increases in modern mortgage history.

For buyers, this wasn't just a number. It was a gut punch.

That leap in cost bumped the average monthly payment on a $400,000 loan up by $1,265, a 78% increase⁴. Same house. Same buyer. Completely different reality.

Those price increases put a damper on younger generations looking to buy for the first time.

In fact, only 24% of homes last year were purchased by first-time buyers⁵. That's the lowest we've seen in more than four decades. The median age of a first-time buyer? Thirty-eight⁶. For context, my dad bought a half-acre lot for well under $10,000 at age 21 and then built his first home.

The price-to-income ratio now sits at 5.6⁷, the highest it's been since the 1970s. In 1960, that number was just 2.1. A typical home back then cost about twice the median household income. Today, it's nearly six times. That gap alone explains why so many people feel locked out.

Since 1960, home values have risen 121% when adjusted for inflation. Incomes? Just 29%⁸. It's not feasible to afford the American Dream at a rate like this.

In 1960, 68% of U.S. households could afford the median-priced home. By 2019, it was just 43%⁹. And the trend hasn't reversed.

The income needed to buy a home has also surged¹⁰. In 2020, a household needed about $52,000 per year to afford a typical home. By 2025, it's closer to $92,500—a 79% increase in just five years. During that same time, average earnings rose only 25%¹¹.

I guess what I'm getting at is this isn't just a tough season in housing; it's a decades-long shift towards unaffordability, impacting Millennials and Gen Z alike.

Talk Is Cheap. Homeownership Isn't. Yet

We can cite outlandish statistics all day. And yeah, the numbers aren't... great. But at Arcasa, we're more interested in building a solution than just talking about the problem.

As you may have gathered, I'm back in mortgage. This time, I'm paired with two of the smartest people I know: our CEO, Cole Bestgen, and our COO, James Byrd, alongside an equally brilliant and growing team at Arcasa.

Together, we're trying to fix some of the issues we ran into, over and over again, in our time across both the solar and mortgage industries.

Their work was the result of a lot of trial and error, a mountain of research, and a shared frustration with how things have always been done (plus a little spit-shine and personality from me 😉). We kept circling the same question. One that plenty of people have asked before: What if solar could be used to structure a better mortgage?

Most companies and lenders stopped before they got started (because frankly, it's pretty complicated). But we didn't. We built it.

We started with the loan, thinking about how it could work better, feel better, and actually help more people get into homes. Then, we built the tech to make it happen.

At Arcasa, we help lenders offer energy-integrated mortgages. These loans unlock real benefits for the buyer through a grant when they agree to get solar. Those benefits might mean covering all or part of the down payment, offsetting closing costs, rate buydowns, or improving eligibility through smarter structuring. They might also include utility savings, higher home values, and the possibility of tax credits by the addition of solar.

To power all of this, we built QuickBid™.

It started as a spreadsheet (well, a few dozen). But over time, it became something we could actually send to loan officers—a beautiful tool (thanks to our devs and product teams) that lets them run real numbers fast and breakdown affordable homeownership options that can easily be shared and collaborated on.

QuickBid shows it all: rate, down payment, closing costs, and solar—structured together in one place to compare and share the right scenarios based on the homebuyers' needs. The numbers are ready to be input directly into the loan officer's preferred LOS.

The tech makes the mortgage work. And the mortgage makes the house possible.

Hello, Mortgage

Like I said, I didn't expect to end up back in mortgage. But I also didn't expect to care this much about making a positive impact in a historically low moment.

We're still early. There's a long way to go. But we've built something that works well and is improving daily. We're working with lenders who care about making homes more affordable and sustainable, especially for those would-be first-time homebuyers who've been quietly shut out of today's market.

If you're a loan officer, lender, or just someone trying to make the housing market suck just a little less, we'd love to connect!

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