According to the Tampa Bay Times, Mortgage Investors Corp. laid off nearly 500 workers and stopped making new home loans. Fewer than 40 employees will be left at the company to help wind down operations.
Bill Edwards, a well-known local businessman and chairman of MIC, blamed the near-shutdown on federal regulations under the Dodd-Frank Act that are going into effect Wednesday. His company, one of the biggest refinancers of home loans for veterans, doesn’t have the technological capacity to comply, he said.
“It’s been a hard day, one of the hardest days of my life quite frankly,” Edwards said in an interview Monday morning. “It’s not a pretty day.”