Earlier this week, PHH announced that it plans to exit its joint mortgage venture with Realogy Holdings, ceding the business to Guaranteed Rate as PHH continues to shift its business focus, but that’s far from the only change for the company.
The announcement was just the latest in a series of moves made by PHH as it works to address its struggling mortgage business.
Late last year, the company announced that it plans to exit its private-label origination business, stating that intended for the process to be substantially complete by the first quarter of 2018.
At the time, PHH didn’t share a lot of details about the company’s exit from private-label originations, but now, some of the company’s private-label plans are being revealed, thanks to the company taking over a piece of the business.
LenderLive announced Thursday that it reached a “definitive agreement” with PHH Mortgage Corporation to assume its private label fulfillment operations in Jacksonville, Florida.
According to LenderLive, the deal should “facilitate a smooth transition for both PHH employees and clients.”
Under the terms of the agreement, PHH will outsource loan processing, underwriting and closing activities to LenderLive until the contracts with its current clients that are served out of Jacksonville have been transitioned and/or completed, the companies said.
LenderLive said that it agreed to service these accounts from the operations center in Jacksonville and to hire approximately 250 to 300 employees of PHH to work out of that location.
Then, over the course of the year, LenderLive plans to transition the clients requiring outsourced fulfillment services from PHH to LenderLive.
Additionally, the Jacksonville operations center, which is capable of supporting nearly 700 employees, will provide LenderLive the opportunity to expand its operations to meet the significant demand for services from LenderLive’s current and future clients, the company said.
According to LenderLive, the boards of directors for both PHH and LenderLive have approved the agreement. The company said that the deal is expected to close at the end of the first quarter.
At that time, the transitioning PHH associates will become LenderLive employees and the operations center in Jacksonville will be rebranded as LenderLive.
“We are excited about the opportunity of adding a significant number of talented mortgage professionals and establishing a new operations center for LenderLive in Jacksonville,” said Rick Seehausen, chief executive officer of LenderLive.
“The arrangement accelerates our long-stated imperative of driving scale and operating leverage in our private label mortgage solutions business,” Seehausen continued. “We look forward to welcoming our new associates and demonstrating the benefits of our platform and business model to PHH clients. This is a win-win for everyone involved.”
