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Tuesday, March 20, 2007

People's Choice Home Loan BK, LoanCity Closes Shop

by Calculated Risk on 3/20/2007 02:32:00 PM

Tiffany Kary at Bloomberg reports: People's Choice Home Loan Files for Bankruptcy

People's Choice Home Loan Inc., ... filed for bankruptcy protection.

The Chapter 11 filing today in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Santa Ana, California, comes as delinquency rates on so-called subprime home mortgages hit a four-year high. ...

People's Choice, based in Irvine, California, is the fourth subprime lender to file for bankruptcy since December, joining Ownit Mortgage Solutions LLC, Mortgage Lenders Network USA Inc. and ResMae Mortgage Corp.
...
Filing the same day as People's Choice Home Loan was People's Choice Funding Inc. The companies are subsidiaries of People's Choice Financial Corp., a real estate investment trust.
And apparently LoanCity is finished (hat tip Anthony):
LoanCity is closed for business. Today March 20, 2007 is the last day we will be funding loans.
LoanCity closed seven branches in February, so this must be the remaining five branches.
Mortgage lender LoanCity closed seven branches recently, leaving it with five nationally, BankNet360 has learned.

The San Jose, Calif.-based lender closed offices due to a “softer market and improved technology, which allows for better load balancing among branches,” according to a company spokesman.

LoanCity originated about $5 billion of loans last year, which includes prime, alt-A and jumbo mortgages.
The Mortgage Lender Implode-O-Meter is going to be busy.