BLOOMFIELD, N.J.–One week after it announced it would be pausing all of its mortgage originations, Reverse Mortgage Funding, LLC has laid off 80% of its staff.
The company told NationalMortgageProfessional.com that it has not closed, however.
More than 400 employees were laid off during conference calls earlier this week, a source told the publication.
While the company is headquartered in New Jersey, it has corporate offices in New York and California and field offices throughout the United States.
“RMF did file a notice with California state employment officials under the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act, which requires companies to provide 60-days advance notice of a mass layoff,” NationalMortgageProfessional.com stated, adding the notice said the layoffs will be permanent."
RMF also filed WARN Act notices in New York and New Jersey, the source said, but those notices were not immediately available.
The layoffs came a week after the company emailed a letter addressed to its “partners” stating that it was pausing its mortgage origination activities, NationalMortgageProfessional.com stated.
‘Challenged’ by Rates
In an emailed statement about that decision, a company spokesperson told the publication that RMF, “like many of its peers, has been challenged by unprecedented interest rate hikes and overall macroeconomic volatility. As a result, the cost of financing and securitizing reverse mortgages has made it impossible for RMF to continue originations for seniors looking to unlock value in their homes at this time.”
Established in 2012, Reverse Mortgage Funding LLC is one of the nation’s largest issuers of reverse mortgages, according to the report.