Throughout this year, HomeStreet Bank shifted away from the mortgage business, selling off much of its retail mortgage origination business, along with nearly all of the mortgage servicing rights associated with the loans originated in those retail outlets.
That move included selling a sizable piece of its origination business to Homebridge Financial Services, and selling more than 70% of its MSR portfolio to New Residential Mortgage and PennyMac.
But the bank isn’t done shedding the mortgage-related pieces of its business quite yet.
HomeStreet announced Thursday that it sold off all of its ownership interest in WMS Series, which does business as Penrith Home Loans.
Penrith operates in the Pacific Northwest and was an affiliated business arrangement between one of HomeStreet subsidiaries and franchisees of Windermere Real Estate, which has 300 offices and more than 6,500 real estate agents throughout the western part of the U.S.
Through the partnership, Penrith operated mortgage businesses within certain Windermere offices.
And that arrangement will continue going forward, as HomeStreet sold its interests in Penrith to a subsidiary of Windermere Services, the parent company of Windermere Real Estate.
Under the new agreement, Windermere Services will continue to operate Penrith, in conjunction with the Windermere Real Estate franchise owners, under a new structure.
According to the companies, HomeStreet Bank will provide “certain transition services on arm’s length terms to Penrith for a period of time following this sale.”
In a release, HomeStreet stated that the completion of this sale “further reduces” its interests in mortgage origination.
“We at HomeStreet have had the good fortune to have been in business with Windermere for over twenty years and it has been a successful part of our overall business,” said Mark Mason, CEO and president of HomeStreet. “As we continue to focus on the growth of our commercial banking operations, we felt it was the right time for HomeStreet to exit this business, but we wish Penrith all the best and expect it will continue to be a successful business as an independent company going forward.”
