Mortgage Industry Trends

Here is a listing of Mortgage operations that have closed operations recently:

Acoustic-the quiet bank. Tied in, I believe, with Metrocities Mortgage, who also own/operate No Red Tape and Zero Down.

Act Mortgage Capital closed down in June/July of 2007. Earlier that year, I had talked with the CEO, Nelson Haws about adding a wholesale operation in Southern California. It turned out, they had just opened up a branch office, and at the time, January 2007, were starting to fund a nice level of Alt A production. Odd how quickly things can change.

Ameritrust closed down their subprime wholesale business March 5th, 2007 when WAMU stopped buying their loans.

Alterna Mortgage-NJ based wholesale and correspondent alt a mortgage bank. Evidently hit with an extreme level of buy backs.

Bluetrust Capital, LLC- A small wholesale operation based in Florida, closed up shop in late 2006. The CEO was Manuel Sicre, and their initial effort was to serve the Hispanic community.

Central Pacific Mortgage/Ivanhoe- Before they were able to sell some assets to The Mortgage Store Financial, they missed payroll, couldn't fund loans and closed operations. I guess being the president of the MBA takes a lot out of you. As one No CA mortgage banker put it, he never really ran into CPM as a competitor. Now, no need to ever worry again.

Coastal Capital-closed down their NJ based subprime business and scaled back significantly, retaining a retail and small wholesale operation on Long Island funding around $10MM per month.

DeepGreen Financial- One in a series of wholesale second providers that went belly up- including the wholesale operations of
Secured Funding and 123Loan, LLC.

Evertrust Home Loans- I'm not sure when these guys closed up shop- just got a bounced back email that I tried to send Tyler Dang who used to work in their secondary dept.

First Horizon closed their subprime business, citing thin margins and lackluster bids in the secondary market.

FlexPoint Funding – Today, on August 1st, 2007, National Mortgage News is reporting they have closed down their wholesale operation. For confirmation, I emailed them, and the president, Ryan Knott, confirmed they have in fact shut down wholesale. As of April 2007. Nothing like breaking news. Their retail business continues on solid footing.

FMF Capital-They got hit making loans to a lot of uncreditworthy rust belt borrowers.

Funding America-closed recently. They were a relatively new shop, headed by some former Aegis people, including Neil Notkin. Their main backer was Ocwen which pulled the plug after a few million in buy backs hit them. Evidently they were funding around $250MM annually with around 50 AEs. Ocwen retains the rights to the Funding America name, even though Neil tried to buy it. Great name, wonder if Ocwen will ever use it again in the future.

Harbourton Mortgage- no sooner do they implement Portellus' decisioning technology, and poof, out of business (I AM KIDDING about Portellus being connected to their closing). I heard it was large buy backs- but then that is what I have heard with everyone that has been shut down.

Homefield Financial closed their wholesale platform as well. They maintain a retail operation.

Innovative Mortgage Capital- This CA based wholesaler also recently closed up operations.

Lancaster Mortgage Bankers - This NJ based mortgage banker recently closed up shop June 1st. James Pettit was their secondary manager and ran a well-oiled operation.

Liberty American Mortgage, Roseville, CA. Closed operations on November 9, 2007.

Ownit Mortgage- I'll put words in Bill Dallas' mouth: Screw Merrill Lynch! No, Bill, they screwed you!

ResMAE Mortgage - $308MM in buybacks?! Are you kidding me! They are in BK and in the process of being bought by a hedge fund, Citadel Group.

Millenium Mortgage- Not to be confused with Millenia Mortgage.

Nevis Funding: Small wholesaler in CA. Scott Cohen was the owner. They appear to be closed. They had been working with Bear on some special option arm type programs, or something similar.

Southstar Funding, LLC. They closed around the same time as Sunset. No idea why. Evidently, they had a sizeable net worth.

Sunset Direct, sued by DLJ Capital, a division of Credit Suisse, March 30th.

People's Choice is in the midst of a bankruptcy restructuring, with their entire pipeline of $500+MM of loans out for bid (April 5th). Will these otherwise fine loans trade at 95 as many performing, freshly originated pools of subprime loans have traded?

Vulcan Financial - They were providing outsourced banker services to mortgage brokers. I'm not sure when they went out of business, but got a bounce back from an email I sent to Johnny Wong who was my secondary contact there for the few scratch and dent loans they had last year.