Frontier Investment Co. - Hard Money, Agency, FHA, Jumbo

We'd been watching for news about Rainland Mortgage Company when the Register-Guard newspaper reported:

"Frontier -- a fully-owned subsidiary of Selco Community Credit Union -- told its investors that it will file dissolution papers with the Oregon Secretary of State by Dec. 31.

The company will then "wind up and liquidate its business and affairs," and will discontinue collecting payments from borrowers and paying the proceeds to investors by April 30, according to the letter."

Rainland Mortgage Co., the wholesale lending subsidiary of Selco Credit Union, is actually a DBA for Frontier Investment Co. per a filing with Oregon's Secretary of State. We don't know the fate of Rainland's operation, but we had been hearing their days may be numbered and Frontier's announcement was pretty final. "One of my reps stopped in their office and the employees told her they were done and just finishing out their pipeline" a tipster wrote. Wholly owned by Selco Credit Union in Eugene, OR and doing business in OR, WA, ID, and UT, Rainland Mortgage Co. first crossed our radar in mid-June when an AE contacted us with the following:

"Keep an eye on Rainland Mortgage... They have 3 full-time underwriters and the staff to go with them, they are closing about 5 mil/month. SIVA/SISA to 75%, conforming, FHA test case period, jumbos with horrible pricing, pull-through of about 28% and last but not least, underwriting is 4 days out!

The biggest month they ever had was around 20 mil. In October of 07, the new prez told the board of Selco that they would be closing 30 mil by the end of the year. Volume went the other way. Peak employee count was about 40. Down to about 31."

That sounded like a pretty good-sized team for such a small volume, and we were provided with an old directory listing to support the tipster's information. Selco Credit Union acquired Frontier Investment Co. in September of 2005. Prior to that, average monthly volume was reported at $26.8 million in 2004 - more recent info reported under Frontier Investment indicates average 2007 volume around $12.5 million but it was not clear if that was from a combination of the operations.

Several calls to Rainland went unanswered, and representatives at Selco Credit Union were unable to answer our questions about Rainland's operations. If you can provide additional details, please don't hesitate to contact us.