Atlanta-based AmeriSave Mortgage Corp. exited the wholesale channel this week, a decision that comes after the mortgage lender has imposed rounds of layoffs across the company, according to former employees and business partners.
HousingWire sent multiple requests to the company’s leadership for comments, but they did not respond.
This week, brokers received a message stating that AmeriSave Wholesale Mortgage Solutions (AWMS), the company’s wholesale channel, is closing doors immediately but will honor the existing pipeline. Later, the company posted a message on its website.
AmeriSave will not register new loans starting on Sept. 1. All loans in the pipeline must be locked by Sept. 2, closed and funded by Oct. 31. The message states that “a team will remain in place to work through the pipeline with you from an operations standpoint.”
Amid a shrinking mortgage market and fiercer competition, mainly from UWM and Homepoint, some originators have exited the wholesale channel to focus on other more vital divisions. The list includes loanDepot and Mountain West Financial.
For AmeriSave, the wholesale division shutting down follows at least two rounds of layoffs across the company, including in the wholesale and retail divisions and affecting underwriters, account managers and closers, according to a former employee at AWMS.
The first round of layoffs happened in July. After that, the former employee said staff “were told that we wouldn’t have to worry about a second round of layoffs as they laid off more people than they anticipated.”
In August, the retail division was also a target of a workforce reduction. At least 20 employees in the engineering team were let go, according to a former employee who was laid off on Aug. 22. Positions included project managers, business analysts, engineers, a senior vice president and an executive vice president.
“They hired aggressively in April and May,” the former employee said.
AmeriSave operates in 49 states and D.C. (the lender does not originate mortgages in New York), according to its website. The company offers a standard mix of vanilla products, including conventional, jumbo, FHA, VA, and USDA loans.
According to Inside Mortgage Finance, the lender funded $7.8 billion in mortgages in the first half of 2022, down 65.5% compared to the same period of 2021. AmeriSave allows its customers to “self-serve” their loan transactions with its software, which it claims drives speed and greatly lowers the cost of producing a loan.
