Update 2007-08-16:

Many have written in to inform us that FlexPoint Retail has also ceased lending operations. One informant notes:

Retail & Wholesale are both completely shut down, the building is vacant and the doors are closed.

Original 2007-07-07:

Irvine, CA-based FlexPoint has apparently shut down its wholesale lending operations. FlexPoint was initially brought to our attention on May 3rd, when a note to the company's brokers announcing the cessation of all non-hard-money lending was forwarded to us:

FlexPoint Funding Corporation as of May 1, 2007 is strictly originating Hard Money/ Deep Subprime loans to 70% LTV with our Flex Zero Product. This is a great opportunity to close more loans in these turbulent times. All loans already submitted under any other programs will be honored but, we will not be accepting additional applications for any products other than our Flex Zero product.

Late June, we began hearing about FlexPoint again, except as a complete wholesale shutdown. Here is one message we received from a broker:

Well Folks, as good as I thought it was, I guess I was wrong. I was just informed that FlexPoint is no longer accepting new applications and that we will just be funding out the current pipeline and shutting the wholesale doors. Again, it was a great pleasure working with all of you in the past months. I hope that we can all cross paths again.

This contributor later added:

I know they were pretty huge, Previously the were ALT A (I had closed deals with them when they were ALTA) and then last month I got an email from them saying the alt a market was volatile so they were switching over to Hard money and now there going out of business, No one answers the phones when you call but here is there website www.fpfloans.com which is still up.

P.S From what I heard is Dan [Rawitch] from Own It joined them a few months ago and decided to start expanding and he opened offices in Encino and Florida and other cities and just kept hiring when there was no money and that's when the financial problems started (Most of own it transferred to flexpoint a few months after they closed down)

In fact, the web site fpfloans.com is no longer up, giving a "page unavailable" when accessed. Flexfunding.net, which appears to be the company's retail site, is still up. We are unclear whether that business is still operating normally, however.

A little further digging yielded this extensive article about the company at BrokerBanker magazine. It says FlexPoint originated about $1 billion in 2006, and that the sub-500 FICO market (the company's focus) was about $50 billion a year (at that time). The article states they are in more than 30 states.

For corrections or additional information on FlexPoint, please email us.

Additional Information: 2007-07-09

We received some additional information in the mailbag regarding Flexpoint this morning:

I was there when they opened their Tampa wholesale division at end of February 07 and they only had the California wholesale branch taking loans since January 07. Previously they were known for Hard Money but I believe did it only as retail not on a wholesale level. We opened up offering Sub prime using DB Bank, then offering Countrywide's Alt A at end of March, offered BearSterns product in April. The whole operation was a disaster. They approved about 10% of a 150 million in applications during that period. In the middle of April FlexPoint informed the account executives that even if we closed fewer loans in April we would still be profitable as a company, per Dan Rawitch. They laid us off on April 30 and we were able to close out our pipelines by May 15. Receiving any money after that point was fighting tooth and nail for what was already due. I hardly think that Dan Rawitch is all to blame ... Ryan Knott was the CEO. It was obvious that there was a HUGE operation failure throughout all offices. From my understanding their wholesale operations was only up and running for a total of 4 months.