Metrocities Mortgage LLC, a national lender with a large presence in so-called “white-label originations,” said Wednesday in an email to brokers that it has decided to exit third-party originations. “Based on current market conditions, Prospect Mortgage / Metrocities Mortgage, LLC, has elected to exit the Wholesale lending space,” a letter to brokers read. “Today’s ratesheet will be the last ratesheet we publish.” Calls to Metrocities officials for comment and verification of the email’s contents were not immediately returned. Metrocities is owned by Northbrook, Ill.-based Prospect Mortgage Co., which in August acquired the majority of Indymac Bancorp’s 80 retail mortgage branches, a deal that was inked ahead of the bank’s failure in late July. Prospect specializes in acquiring midsized residential lenders, and is backed by Sterling Partners, a multibillion-dollar private equity fund based in Chicago and Baltimore. Metrocities said in the email that it would accept locks through Wednesday, and would “work to close our existing locked pipeline, as smoothly as possible.” The size of the company’s wholesale broker operations were not known when this story was published, but a company Web site noted that the company closed over $10 billion in loans during 2005 and $5.7 billion in 2006. A look at the company’s wholesale mortgage marketing materials show a heavy emphasis on FHA and VA originations. The company’s broker channel, however, is likely to be much smaller relative to Metrocities’ core business in so-called “white label” originations — what the company calls “in-house lending programs,” targeting credit unions, home builders, and the like. Metrocities is one of the nation’s larger joint venture specialists in the mortgage banking space. For more information, visit http://www.metrocitieswholesale.com.

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