In Mortgage Loan

Job cuts loom in the East Bay and elsewhere in the Bay Area, as Wells Fargo & Co. and NovaStar Mortgage Inc. cope with mortgage ailments that have afflicted the struggling housing market.

San Francisco-based Wells Fargo has decided to chop 71 jobs in Concord, part of a total reduction of 444 positions being eliminated in a bank operation that specializes in high-risk home mortgages, sometimes dubbed subprime loans.

Wells Fargo will jettison the positions because it has decided to tighten its lending standards for offering mortgages to people who have a less-than-stellar credit status. The bank told the 444 employees in late February about the pending staff reductions.

In all, 514 Wells Fargo employees involved in home financing activities have recently lost their jobs or will soon be discharged by the company.

550 Maguire Refinance Funds

LOS ANGELES-Maguire Properties has completed a $550 million refinancing of its Wells Fargo Tower in Downtown Los Angeles that will provide $225 million in funding toward Maguire's $3 billion purchase of a portfolio of Southern California office buildings from Equity Office Properties. The new loan on the 1.4-million-sf Wells Fargo Tower is a 10-year fixed rate, interest-only financing at a rate of 5.68%.

Maguire will realize net proceeds of the refinancing after repayment of an existing $250 million mortgage loan and payment of defeasance costs on the Wells Fargo Tower. Closing costs and loan reserves total approximately $290 million in the deal.

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Security Reverse Mortgage Offers a Way for Non-FHA Approved ...

(PRLEAP.COM) Security Reverse Mortgage has launched a new program aimed at individual loan officers and small to mid-sized mortgage brokerages. The Affiliate Broker program allows mortgage originators the ability to offer FHA's Home Equity Conversion Mortgage to their clients. Now they can earn fees on reverse mortgages without being approved through HUD. Security Reverse Mortgage has an answer for a slower mortgage market. Mortgage originators can now increase income and stabilize their business by offering reverse mortgages to their clients. "With Reverse mortgages expected to grow a staggering 455% by 2009 any originator would be wise to integrate reverse mortgages into their business." Said Tane Cabe, President of Security Reverse Mortgage. Most originators and loan officers are feeling the pinch of a slower market.