The wholesale lending arm of the company formerly headed by the Mortgage Bankers Association’s chief executive officer is doing away with mortgage broker business. The company will instead focus its origination resources on real estate agents.
The wholesale operation at Walker Jackson Mortgage Corp. is being closed down, a news release Tuesday said.
The Chantilly, Va.-based firm will move its focus entirely to retail lending and expand its efforts to serve real estate agents.
“With significant success in our retail business model, we have made the strategic decision to exit the wholesale business and focus exclusively on providing high-touch, focused service to real estate professionals and their clients,” Walter Jackson President Tom Teeple said in the news release. “We have a comprehensive plan to fulfill all of our outstanding obligations on the wholesale side of our business, which we anticipate will be completed by the end of the year.”
A spokeswoman didn’t immediately respond to a request for information about the number of employees who are impacted by the wholesale unit’s closing.
Walker Jackson, which says it lends in 18 states located in the eastern half of the country, is a sister company to Prosperity Mortgage and FM Lending Services.
All three firms are part of The Long & Foster Companies, which was headed by the company’s former president and CEO David H. Stevens before he joined the Obama administration in 2009 as Federal Housing Commissioner.
Stevens left the government earlier this year to replace John A. Courson as president and CEO of MBA.
Coincidentally, an unrelated announcement today indicated that Courson was named president and CEO of the Home Builders Institute.
