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Crescent Mortgage Company, an Atlanta-based correspondent and wholesale lender that’s licensed in 48 states, will close up shop next month and lay off 65 workers.
In a WARN Act notice filed with Georgia officials Monday, Crescent Mortgage said that the entire company will close and cease business operations on March 29, with all of the affected employees to be laid off at that time.
Founded as a wholesale lender in 1993, Crescent Mortgage and claims more than 2,000 community bank, credit union, and mortgage broker partners. The company was acquired in 2003 by Carolina Financial Corp., the parent company of CresCom Bank — which was itself acquired by United Bankshares in a 2020 merger.
According to records maintained by the Nationwide Multistate Licensing System (NMLS), Crescent Mortgage employed 29 registered mortgage loan originators and sponsored two more.
A spokesperson for United Bankshares did not respond to a request for comment by publication time. United Bankshares subsidiary United Bank also offers mortgages through another subsidiary, George Mason Mortgage, which also came under the bank’s umbrella as part of the Carolina Financial merger.
Based in Fairfax, Virginia, George Mason Mortgage employs 85 registered mortgage loan originators who work out of eight branch locations, according to NMLS records.
In a Jan. 26 earnings announcement, United Bankshares said its subsidiaries, Crescent Mortgage and George Mason Mortgage, originated $1.5 billion in mortgages in 2023, down 48 percent from the year before.
Income from mortgage banking activities was down 38 percent from a year ago, to $26.6 million, “mainly due to lower mortgage loan origination and sale volume and a lower margin on loans sold,” the company said.
While the pace of layoffs was not as fierce as in 2022, a number of lenders and mortgage service providers downsized last year, including Better, loanDepot, Blend Labs, Dovenmuehle Mortgage and Wells Fargo. Real estate franchise giant Keller Williams sold a majority interest in its mortgage division, Keller Mortgage, to Mutual of Omaha Mortgage.
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