Layoffs

1st Alliance Lending is officially closing, but its CEO still plans to fight Connecticut's allegations that it used unlicensed personnel to take mortgage loan applications.

Santander Bank's U.S. unit will be eliminating 80 mortgage-related positions as it withdraws from the third-party origination sales channel and refocuses on producing home loans through its branch network.

After hiring half the laid-off staff from Live Well Financial, Open Mortgage plans to engineer a careful transition to operating as a larger-scale business.

Live Well Financial's creditors are seeking a court-supervised bankruptcy, but the mortgage lender is opposing the move, saying it can get more for certain assets if it sells them before filing.

Roughly 50 of the more than 100 staff members Live Well Financial let go after it stopped funding loans will join Open Mortgage, a multichannel lender in expansion mode.

Mortgage technology company Ellie Mae, which was recently bought by private equity investor Thoma Bravo, underwent restructuring and reduced its staff by 10%.

Live Well Financial, a reverse and traditional mortgage lender that abruptly stopped originating on May 3, will lay off 103 employees, according to a Virginia Employment Commission filing.

Ditech, a home loan company, will lay off what remains of its 210 employees in downtown St. Paul, Minn., and consolidate its mortgage servicing operations in other locations.

The company will shutter the offices it inherited when it bought EverBank in 2017 and focus on lending to existing customers through digital channels. U.S. Bank will assume the leases on about 25 properties.

HomeStreet Bank will attempt to sell its stand-alone mortgage business and portfolio of servicing rights, a move that comes amid growing pressure from an activist investor to exit home lending and concerns about declining demand and regulatory challenges.

Employment at nondepository mortgage companies dropped considerably in November, as the combined effects of lower volumes and seasonal slowing reduced hiring needs.

The number of workers employed by non-depository mortgage companies experienced a typical seasonal drop month-to-month, but employment remained higher than a year ago due to the persistence of competitive hiring practices.

Wells Fargo will lay off 1,000 workers primarily from its mortgage unit in the first major round of a previously announced plan to cut the bank's workforce by as much as 10% over the next three years.

Hiring by nonbank mortgage lenders and brokers ebbed in September as the housing market prepares to pack it in for the colder months.

JPMorgan Chase is eliminating 400 positions in its mortgage banking unit, the latest lender to trim staff as a result of lower-than-expected demand in 2018.

Movement Mortgage, citing the continuing deterioration of the housing market, is eliminating approximately 180 back office positions on Oct. 5.

USAA will be eliminating 265 home sales and lending positions, but it already has offered nearly 100 of the affected workers different jobs within its mortgage unit.

The cuts are part of a broader effort to trim expenses by roughly $3 billion a year by 2020.

1st Alliance Lending plans to cut up to 35 employees in Connecticut and terminate efforts to expand its East Hartford headquarters in order to prepare for an expected increase in regulatory costs.

Wells Fargo & Co. is cutting 638 mortgage employees as the nation’s largest home lender contends with a slowdown in the business.