Mortgage Lenders Shut Down and Other Corporate Mortgage Activity

Two mortgage companies have gone out of business amid a industry slowdown, according to MortgageDaily.com, a dominant online news source for the mortgage industry.

The parent of Capital Alliance Funding Corp. announced Friday that the nonprime wholesale lender would close its doors and sell off or transfer all mortgages in its inventory. The move was approved unanimously by the San Francisco-based company’s board of directors.

QuoteMeARate.com Inc., a 300-branch operation, abruptly stopped doing business over a week ago, two of the company’s managers told MortgageDaily.com. An e-mail sent to employees “just said you guys were done,” one of the managers said in an interview.

The national net branch company, which claimed more than $1 billion in originations annually, did say in the e-mail it had begun the process of closing the operations because the “constant changing of the industry proved to be too great in the end.”

The real estate finance sector has struggled to maintain production amidst rising rates. In addition, an inverted yield curve and the pace of rate increases left many companies with sagging earnings during the fourth quarter.

But not all the news was bad, as Goldman Sachs Group was ranked as the best performing mortgage-related company by BusinessWeek. The mortgage-backed securities player was commended for its “killer combination” of businesses.

An affiliate of Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway has agreed to acquire Huff Realty, a full-service residential real estate brokerage, mortgage and title firm. Berkshire’s other mortgage holdings include Vanderbilt Mortgage and Finance Inc. and 21st Mortgage Corp.

Capital One Financial Corp. will become a mortgage player with its upcoming acquisition of North Fork Bancorp Inc. Greenpoint Mortgage Funding Inc., a North Fork subsidiary, reportedly originated $42.3 billion in mortgages last year.

Subprime lender Centex Home Equity Corp. will reportedly be acquired by an affiliate of Fortress Investment Group LLC. That deal is expected to close within four months.

Read complete corporate mortgage coverage at http://www.MortgageDaily.com/Corporate.asp?spcode=pr.