AppraiserLoft is shutting down, sources told RMD today. According to sources close to the San Diego-based company, the former appraisal management company which served many reverse mortgage lenders has shut down operations and closed its doors for appraisal management services. The closing was announced Friday after sources say a potential sale fell apart.
The company’s debt to appraisers is rumored to be in the millions of dollars, and reports say employees were told of the company’s insolvency as it closed its doors late last week. While no buyer has emerged to rescue the remaining pieces of the AMC, competitors are seeing its downfall as opportunity.
“It’s a great opportunity,” Brian Coester, CEO of Rockville, Maryland-based Coester Appraisal Group told RMD. “They had a good name with a good platform,” he said.
Coester, which just acquired a smaller East Coast AMC, says the timing is right to pick up market share from the former AMC, which last year said it was working with nine of the largest reverse mortgage lenders at the time. In 2010, the list included Bank of America Reverse, Financial Freedom/OWB, James B. Nutter and Company, Generation Mortgage, Urban Financial, Genworth Financial, LiveWell Financial, Security One Lending and 1st Mariner Bank.
In August, AppraiserLoft’s former CEO Aman Makkar stepped down from his position. Shane Copeland, the AMC’s former senior vice president of national sales took an interim leadership role at that time.
The company was founded by Makkar in 2007 and has served reverse mortgage customers in appraisal services since. When he left the position, Makkar said he would pursue an endeavor in mobile media technology that is unrelated to AppraiserLoft’s core business.
The AMC has owned an operated the industry magazine The Reverse Review for several years.
A request for comment from AppraiserLoft’s Makkar was not returned as of press time.
Written by Elizabeth Ecker
