Two online residential lenders, including a startup and a newly acquired firm, hope to shake up the home-lending process. Another recent mortgage-related transaction involves a correspondent rural lending business.
Birmingham, Michigan-based Lenderful Inc. says on its website that it has a revolutionary, but “crazy” sounding concept: create a mortgage process that puts prospective borrowers in control of the transaction.
“Let’s be honest, buying a mortgage isn’t rocket science, or at least it shouldn’t be,” Lenderful says. “But, traditional mortgage companies want you to think it’s complicated so they can push you into the loan they want.”
The company was recently founded as an online lender by 73-year-old Peter Karmanos Jr., the Detroit Free Press reported last month. Karmanos was the co-founder of Compuware, the former namesake of the building that now houses cross-town online lending rival Quicken Loans Inc.
On Monday, Tysons Corner, Virginia-based First Guaranty Mortgage Corp. announced that it acquired the assets of online lender goodmortgage.com.
Charlotte, North Carolina-based goodmortgage.com was founded in 1999 and operates in 18 states.
It’s 45,000-square-foot headquarters supports a “live-work-play” environment, FGMC said.
“goodmortgage.com is designed to be faster, less cumbersome and considerably less stressful than typical, off-line loan services,” FGMC said in the news release. “By utilizing the Internet and advanced technology processes, goodmortgage.com enables consumers to obtain purchase and refinance loans from the convenience of their own homes.”
goodmortgage.com will operate as a separate division of FGMC and maintain the goodmortgage.com brand.
Freedom Mortgage Corp. announced last month that it reached an agreement to acquire the correspondent origination assets of JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s rural housing business. The current team at the unit will be kept in place.
“This decision was part of Chase’s overall strategy of simplifying our business and streamlining our programs to help us deliver a positive customer experience,” Chase B2B Business Executive Greg Beliles said in a notice to the company’s correspondent clients.
Freedom Mortgage Chief Executive Officer Stanley C. Middleman noted in the news release that the business has
“a proven team of experts who thoroughly understand the unique requirements of rural housing customers.”
Beliles said that the transaction is expected to close on June 30.
