From the LA Times.com:
A few weeks ago, Kristi Beason and her colleagues at a Countrywide Financial Corp. branch in Bakersfield had two surprise visitors. The executives from the regional office had bad news: The office on Camino Media would be closed, and nearly all of the 15 workers there would lose their jobs.
"They gave us our final paychecks and told us to clean out our desks," said Beason, who worked for the company for four years, most recently as a loan processor. "They had a cleaning lady there with boxes waiting for us."
Beason, 27, said the layoffs were unexpected, even though she knew the business was turning sour.
With home sales slowing, fewer people needed loans. Lenders had also tightenedstandards, denying mortgages to people with shaky credit in reaction to risingdefaults.
Other mortgage companies had ordered layoffs and some had gone bankrupt. But Countrywide, as the biggest U.S. mortgage lender, didn't seem likely to be laying people off, Beason said.
"Being with a company for that long, it was just a shock," she said. "I wasn't really sure what to do.
"In retrospect, however, the signs of trouble were there. The Bakersfield office closed just 12 loans in the month leading up to the layoffs, compared with about 50 a month when the market was doing well, she said.
8 comments:
I want the Calabasas cardboard box concession.
Bakersfield Bubble - Without a lot of boring explanation, I just want you to know that your web site has saved me a lot of grief.
Thanks xs10shell!!
I have to say thanks as well Xs10shell. I've been an avid reader (but new poster) of this site and it's great to get a point of view other than the reporters at the Californian and such. Taken from the paper today : “Once investors see appreciation slowing, they may look elsewhere, said Delores Conway, an associate professor with the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business.” Honesty did they really have to call a professor and have them explain this? Give me a break! It’s like saying “When my gas gauge is on E I start looking for a gas station”. Good work Californian… They must be hiring the dropouts from Lyles beauty college down the street. Most of the posts I’ve read come from people who actually have a clue about markets, real estate, and reality. I mean does it take a genius to figure out this market was going level out. You baby boomers (remember I’m just a bubbleboy) have driven our economy for my entire generation. I wrote a really long explanation of baby boomers and our economy but cut it out guessing you guys are on the same page as me :)
Calabasas cardboard boxes.
Remind me of HomeCrete "boxes" in the RTO biz.
What was that old song: "little boxes, little boxes, little boxes all in a row.......
little boxes full of ticky tacky, little boxes all in a row"
something like that. Whoever wrote that must be aaughing now! (or spinning in his grave)
Check out www.eyeoncountrywide.info, an independent consumer resource examining sub-prime lending and Countrywide Financial Corporation
Just a clarification. Countrywide Home Loans on Camino Media DID NOT CLOSE. From what I've been told, only their subprime division at that location closed. The entire office did NOT.
Thanks for the clarification.
I wonder where the LA Times got their information from, probably a disgruntled ex-employee...
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