Murky Details in Florida Home Loan Lender Demise

This much is clear: a Florida home loan lender headquartered in Clearwater is laying off employees.

This much isn’t clear: the total number of lost jobs and where the Market Street Mortgage employees were based.

About 20 employees got the ax in July in Clearwater and an undisclosed number lost jobs at other Florida offices.

The Florida mortgage company’s vice president of marketing, Joyce Frustaci, was thin on the details.

“We did indeed have a layoff regarding mostly administrative functions to adjust our staffing models,” she said.

Market Street, which originated $3.2-billion in mortgage loans last year, is a subsidiary of troubled NetBank.

NetBank trades for 6 cents per share and is being acquired by Jacksonville’s EverBank.

Also, under whose control Market Street Mortgage and the Florida mortgage lender’s 600 employees end up in is still uncertain.

But one thing’s for sure - don’t hold your breath waiting for the Florida real estate market to rev up.

Wachovia economist Mark Vitner says that the state’s housing market may be approaching a bottom, but it won’t improve appreciably until 2009 or later.

One in every 431 households in Florida is in some stage of foreclosure, according to RealtyTrac. The good news: That’s not as bad as it was in June.

Foreclosures fell 9 percent in Florida while rising 9 percent nationally. Nevada’s situation is the worst in the country.

SOURCE: St. Petersburg Times