Countrywide Financial Expands Presence in the South Florida Housing Market
Countrywide Home Loans, the nation’s largest mortgage banker, has added two offices in upscale sectors of Miami-Dade County and plans to open several more South Florida housing market offices this year.
It is expanding locally, even though some analysts expect overall residential lending will decline this year amid the subprime lending contraction and tighter underwriting by some lenders.
“As some [lenders] struggle and some small ones go out of business, we see an opportunity to expand our market share,” said Anthony Giglio, VP and area sales manager for a group of Countrywide branches in Miami-Dade and Broward counties.
Countrywide’s size, its focus on prime Florida home mortgage loans and its diversity in products and locations are enabling it to expand and remain profitable, even though it is facing subprime problems, said Frederick Cannon, an analyst in the San Francisco office of Keefe, Bruyette & Woods. Cannon expects Countrywide will continue its recent years’ pattern of adding branches in Florida and other states with strong long-term growth prospects.
In mid-February, Countrywide opened a branch at 9538 Harding Ave. in Surfside. In early March, the company opened a branch at 19495 Biscayne Blvd. in Aventura. That gave Calabasas, Calif.-based Countrywide 21 South Florida home loan branches, to which it plans to add at least two Broward locations this year, Giglio said.
Realtors, law firms and builders in Surfside and neighboring towns had been referring borrowers to other Countrywide offices, according to Grace Dionne, branch manager for the company’s two new offices.
“Aventura is a large market where we wanted to be, and where we feel we can build those relationships,” Giglio said.
Countrywide also has several South Florida satellite offices, which have just two loan officers and report to branches.
Countrywide does not provide state breakdowns on its lending. In its 2006 10-K report to the SEC, parent Countrywide Financial Corp. said Florida mortgages made in the state had unpaid principal balance of $97 billion at the end of last year. That accounted for 8 percent of the company’s unpaid balance of $1.3 trillion.
Countrywide is among lenders that are concerned about possible increases in foreclosures on subprime mortgages.
About 7 percent of loans Countrywide made last year were subprime, said Sanford Samuels, an executive management director for the company, during a March 22 hearing of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs.
Countrywide made $495 billion in residential mortgages in 2005 and $463 billion last year, placing it first in the nation, according to Inside Mortgage Finance, a Bethesda, Md.-based newsletter.
Samuels told the Senate Committee that, starting with loans made in 1997, Countrywide’s annual average of bad credit home loans that have gone through foreclosure was 3.4 percent. The company’s highest rate was 9.9 percent, for subprime loans made in 2000.
Citing declining Florida home prices and rising rates on adjustable rate mortgages, a big part of the subprime market, Countrywide expects foreclosures on subprime loans it made last year could approach or exceed the 2,000 mark.
