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Home Loan Consultants, Inc. - Retail - Agency, FHA, Reverse

2009-03-18

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Founder and (former) President John Butcherine has confirmed with us that Home Loan Consultants, Inc. has officially ceased operation, and the transition of the remaining employees to Golden Empire Mortgage branch is complete. The web site (view cached) now displays the message "Please come back later."

Mr. Butcherine sent us the following statement:

"Our final date of operation was January 15th 2009. We tried everything possible to keep the company open. The high payroll and lack of loans led to a small losses that the warehouse lines were not willing to tolerate and thus did not renew our line. On top of this our other two warehouse lines went out of business--so much for a backup plan. As a matter of fact the warehouse line that did not renew us is now having problems and the closing of our banking business would have been inevitable. The loans we did close were solid "A" paper full doc loans with low LTVs. This has truly been the best learning experience in my life and I wish everyone the best of luck and success."

From the Ailing/Watch List - 2008-01-05: We were contacted by HLC President John Butcherine, who provided us with the following:

"Our loan officers have been paid up to date and we hold a good relationship with our current staff of loan officers. The cases mentioned originated from "independent branches" and is no way a reflection of our corporate offices. The independent branch agents are being held liable for these court cases.

We are currently in operation, my full staff is here in the office today and originating loans under Home Loan Consultants, Inc."

Butcherine told us Home Loan Consultants saw a peak of about 150 employees and had 22 net branches at one time (one of which was in Newport Beach, CA). A strategic decision was made to withdraw from the net branching model and bring all originations in-house in mid 2007, he said. While HLC had been exploring different options to achieve a greater economy of scale, Butcherine noted the arrangement with GEM was not yet finalized, and Home Loan Consultants Inc. would be maintaining its licenses and investor relationships.

Original Listing - 2009-01-05: From a recent tip we received, Home Loan Consultants, Inc. of Newport Beach, CA reportedly notified employees on Wednesday, December 31, 2008 that they would no longer be in operation. According to the source, founder and CEO John Butcherine made a decision to shutter the company and "re-emerge as a net branch to GEM mortgage (Golden Empire Mortgage, Inc.)." The office, located at 6815 Flanders Drive, #150 in San Diego, CA now appears on the list of GEM branch locations as "Carlsbad 951." More from the tipster:

"John Butcherine, has decided to take the money and run. With a pending judgment from an Arizona case, Mr. Butcherine chose to stop paying his debts and take the proceeds from the last 3 months of production... said he would be abandoning his current facility at the end of January."

We have not been able to verify these specific allegations, but there were a number of cases filed in San Diego County against Home Loan Consultants, Mr. Butcherine or others throughout 2006 to 2008, including one collection and another for "breach of contract." Public records show at least five more lawsuits naming Home Loan Consultants originated from the news reported on 2008-04-28 by Cnet when Lending Tree announced it was suing Home Loan Consultants and several other mortgage lenders for an alleged security breach, saying "Several former employees of LendingTree are believed to have taken company passwords and given them to a handful of lenders who then accessed LendingTree customer data files."

Our source indicated Home Loan Consultants, Inc. was doing as much as $60 million per month at one time. According to an "Entrepreneur Profile" about John Butcherine on Dun & Bradstreet's AllBusiness.com, the company reported revenues of $15 million in 2006, with 25 employees.

Pending additional verification, we are placing this company on the Ailing/Watch List for the moment. Contact us if you have more details or feel free to leave your comments below.

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Comments:

georgia at 04:53 2009-01-09 said:
Butcherine and his group deserve to go down. I had the misfortune of dealing with his staff and him personally. bait switch and delay would be too kind. Days to get phone calls returned, files continually lost .. promises continually broken .. Almost lost a great deal because of failure to meet an originally reasonable deadline .. Mind you this was a full doc loan meeting all parameters. Finally went to a local broker and got loan closed in three days .. Beware and good riddance Permalink
loangirl09 at 11:51 2009-01-09 said:
Georgia you sound like a loan officer posing as a borrower. HLC does not deserve to go down. As a matter of fact we are coming back stronger than ever. You want to talk about who deserves to go down , its these loan mod companies that tell borrowers to skip there mortgage payment and then collect an up front fee of $3,500 and dont do anything that the borrower couldnt do themselves. Its part of the reason that we continue to be in this mess. Permalink
loangirl09 at 11:57 2009-01-09 said:
Its very SUNNY out here and probably tough to find a job--We have openings for loan officers if you want to work in the SON. Permalink
georgia at 07:36 2009-01-12 said:
Nope jsut a victim of your shady practices and disingenuous and incompetent people. you might want to find a real job with a real company unless you want to be a bernie madoff look a like Permalink
CA at 04:27 2009-01-28 said:
I have never posted a comment on a forum or even blogged. Fortunately, I have time to do so today.

I see and understand both parts of this discussion. As a former employee, I worked with a very friendly and hard working staff. However, after being in this business 11 years I began to notice most of the staff was inexperienced and lacked an organized management team. I believe the company did their best and most volume when mortgages were much easier to finance- back when Stated/Stated loans and No Income No Assets loans existed. When our business turned back into the "full doc" industry is when the staff showed its true knowledge and understanding of a true full doc loan. Point in fact- they did not know how to structure a full doc loan, they did not know what documentation to ask for, what type of appraisal was acceptable, even how to calculate income. That's not to say they didn't work hard. This deficiency of knowledge stemmed from poor training by the management team. The core management team was made up of a husband and his wife. For the most part they (the husband and wife) seemed to go about their day with normalcy however their public fights far out weighed any type of normal work environment. When I say public I literally mean, fighting and shouting and arguing in front of the staff. This made for a very awkward and uncomfortable work atmosphere. There were several times when one or the other would leave the office because the fight was too much for them to handle. Now, I realize there are office politics in every office but in my 11 years I have never experienced a work environment that reminded me of watching someone’s parents argue. While the managers were open to LISTENING to new ideas and appeared enthusiastic about new procedures, eventually they would all fall by the waist side. The old non-efficient procedures would come back in to play. I would venture to say it was their way or the highway- even if it was the most inefficient and non profitable way. In all I think HLC had good potential and had a hard working staff. I just think they worked harder Not smarter- the exact opposite of their favorite quote 'worker smarter, not harder'. They lacked the organization and knowledge of an experienced management team. The management team was far to concerned with how many applications they had in the pipeline- Rather than how the applications were being taken and how many applications were truly loans they could actually fund and close. Quantity is great but you got to have quality or you will have no loans to close! Most of the loan applications they were taking ended up not closing. Which if your a borrower is very alarming!

I wish their staff the best. I personally will never ever refer a client to them again. And I will NEVER work for them again. I am blessed to now have a great job where I don’t have to hear a husband and wife argue and have a staff of well trained loan officers, underwriters and processors. Permalink

bankmgr at 09:17 2009-02-13 said:
I've known of HLC for 2 years and they are a VERY shady group. I personally know a couple people that worked there and they are doing all kinds of shady lending practices. The owner and his wife are the terrible two who lead that place with lies and horrible lending practices. The loans they are doing cannot be done anywhere else and that is why our economy is torn due to brokers like this. The employees are treated like dirt by the cocky owners all while they are lied to about how the company is run. As I said these people deserve nothing more than to find a new line of work, like selling used cars. The rumor is that they are joining another company called JEM OR GEM so keep an eye out consumers as they were on thier way under but a different name doesn't mean that the unhealthy business practices will stop. John Butcherine is a selfish business owner who is more concerned about being right rather than doing the right thing. This guy seems to be miserable in life which relects in how he treats his employees. Permalink
loangirl09 at 09:35 2009-02-27 said:
I guess everyone that is on this implode meter didnt know what they were doing. Or could it have been because of the worst credit crisis in history that we have this website. There are very few who are still in the business. The owners did everything they could to keep everyone happy and the company going. I know that they went several months not even paying themselves in hopes that the market would turn around and they could begin a growth strategy. Again, worst credit crisis since the depression. Im sure people are upset that they got layed off or lost there job and the posters here are venting. That is OK but I have known the owners for 5 years and they are hard working, honest people that were just trying to get ahead in life. The owners do know how to put toghether a full doc loans and saying that they dont is crap. They used to work for a large institution that all they did was full doc loans. As far as fights with the between the owners I can say that I did experience a few , a few over 5 years is not bad. There is always stress in running a business and people argue all the time. I know that they would wish everyone all the success in the world as they did for me. They went so far as helping me find a new job, create a resume and put them down as a reference. I am greatful for my experience at HLC it has given me a ton of experience and skills that I can carry into ANY lending institution. Permalink
loans4ever at 04:02 2009-03-04 said:
Loangirl09 appears to be the co-owner trying to pass herself off as a client and former employee in past comments posted. Permalink
peanuts at 04:39 2009-03-04 said:
I have been reading these blogs for months now and never felt the need to chime in until now. I am the ONLY former employee that worked at HLC for 5 years, loangirl09 seems to be writing on my behalf and that is where I feel I need to draw the line. For the record, I DID leave on the best possible terms that anyone EVER has left HLC on, however, it was not SONshine and roses like she made it out to be. I will not go into what happened during those 5 years that I worked there, I feel that I am above all that. However, I will not allow someone else to falsly pretend to be me and speak on my behalf. So please disregard Loangirls last comment as it is not true in the slightest. I am no longer HLC's "angel" and have no need to fight their battles. I hope everyone knows by my user name who this really is. If not, then this response does not apply to you anyway. Permalink

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Important: This company is on our list of lending operations that have "imploded". However, please note that "imploded" is a somewhat subjective and does not necessarily mean operations are ceased permanently: it can mean bankruptcy filing, temporary but open-ended halting of major operations, or "firesale" acquisition. All information here is provisional, and may contain inaccuracies (especially newer information). If you are planning on doing business with this company or any other one listed on this site, you should inquire with them directly on whether they can still meet your needs. Many are still operating in some capacity.