We were lamenting the lack of innovation in the mortgage industry — and then two startups pop up.

So it goes in the fintech startup bubble.

First, startup SoFi recently raised $80 million (yes, you read that number right) and promptly announced that it would start marking mortgages. Then, Fenway Summer LLC, the new investment venture of former CFPB captain Raj Date, yesterday announced that it had acquired Ethos Lending LLC to supplement its own mortgage startup.

Well, that didn’t take long.

Ethos Lending doesn’t appear to be too novel, however. According to DealBook, Ethos will not originate Fannie/Freddie conforming loans, and not even sell its loans to Wall Street, but portfolio them like a 1980s savings-and-loan institution. “If our borrowers don’t succeed, well, then we won’t either,” Mr. Date said in an email to DealBook.

The acquisition of Ethos, which is based in San Francisco, is part of a broad effort on the part of Fenway Summer and Date to “rebuild consumer finance on a foundation of trust.” It is worth noting that a company called Ethos Mortgage LLC was a different lender, based in Orlando and incorporated and licensed in 2007. The lender had its licenses revoked in 2012 and 2013.

But I digress. The main point is that to see interest in the mortgage industry percolating when home loan originations are at their lowest level in 14 years in the United States is, well, “interesting.”