Dover Mortgage Company - Wholesale - Wholesale - Agency, FHA/VA

On Friday, 2010-10-22 a memo was sent out to brokers with the announcement that Dover Mortgage Company was shutting down its wholesale operations:

"Due to drastic changes in the industry, however, including increased regulatory and compliance pressure and scrutiny, we have decided to discontinue our wholesale lending operations and concentrate more resources on growing our retail mortgage division. Unfortunately, this decision will prohibit us from accepting loans from you after October 29, 2010. Additionally, all of your loans currently in our pipeline must be funded by November 30, 2010."

The Charlotte, NC based lender had significantly downsized its wholesale division earlier this year, which we reported in a 2010-04-02 member newsletter (subscription required). Wholesale had accounted for roughly 75% of the company's overall production, which we're told peaked at around $50 million in monthly volume. At that time six of the company's 60 personnel were let go. Speaking once again with Dover Mortgage Company President Harvey Goldberg, we learned that the wholesale division had still been doing roughly 30% of its previous volume, or about $15 million per month. Recent rate sheets indicate there were 4 Account Executives, which Goldberg said were the only employees let go as a result of the decision to exit wholesale.

Goldberg, himself a long time reader of this site, borrowed a term quipped by one forum poster and called this a "reg-plosion." Citing pressures brought on by the plethora of recent legislative changes, he noted that pull through had become "abyssmal" due to loan quality. Trying to do business as a wholesaler in the current environment had simply become untenable.

Dover Mortgage Company is an operating subsidiary of CommunityOne Bank in Asheboro, NC. and continues to operate as a Retail and Reverse Mortgage lender across 9 states in the Southeast, Mid-Atlantic and Northeast.

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