Regions Financial Corp. is closing its warehouse lending operation — though it is boosting its mortgage sales force.
The company recently announced it was closing the unit due to a waning mortgage market.
“The mortgage market has just been so volatile lately that we are examining all of our mortgage businesses,” spokeswoman Linda Childs told MortgageDaily.com in a brief phone interview. “We did make the decision to close the funding business.
“We are extremely committed to providing residential mortgages to our customers through other markets and right now, in fact, we are aggressively expanding our sales force to that end.” she said.
The move displaced about 30 employees whom Birmingham, Ala.-based Regions is trying to place in other areas within the company, she said.
The company declined to discuss the number of customers affected, the amount, volume or type of loans that made up the warehouse line portfolio, but Childs did confirm that there were about $350 million in outstanding lines and that they are trying to find lenders for all of their customers.
“We tried to look at what parts of the mortgage business are the most important to us,” Childs said. “And we are focusing on residential lending.”
Regions, a full-service banker, says it is one of the nation’s largest banks and that it is a member of the Standard & Poor’s 100 index. Last March, the company sold EquiFirst Holdings Corp., a non-conforming mortgage origination affiliate for about $76 million, according to company filings.
Earlier this month, Regions was listed in the top ten for best loan servicers by J.D. Power and Associates.
The company also recently made news for receiving over $1.3 million in Affordable Housing Program grants and subsidies from the Federal Home Loan Bank of Atlanta to help build, buy or repair approximately 120 units for very low- to moderate- income homeowners and renters in the Southeast.
