William Lyon Homes (NYSE: WLH) on Monday announced the formation of ClosingMark Financial Group, LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary under which the home builder intends to operate a full suite of financial services offerings, including title agency, settlement and mortgage services, for the company’s home buyers and other retail customers under the ClosingMark™ brand.
ClosingMark has recently commenced its title agency services in the Central Texas, Arizona, Colorado and Nevada markets, and expects to expand its title and settlement services operations into virtually all of the company’s home building markets over the course of the next two quarters.
In addition, ClosingMark has acquired, through one of its subsidiaries, South Pacific Financial Corporation, recently rebranded as ClosingMark Homes Loans, Inc., an independent retail mortgage banking company based in Irvine, California, which will serve as the platform for building out ClosingMark’s mortgage-related services. CMHL is currently licensed in all of the company’s existing home building markets and has all of the GSE seller and servicer approvals, as well as Ginnie Mae authorization, to efficiently enable the company, through ClosingMark, to expand into providing these services to its home buyers with minimal net cash outlay. The company expects to integrate its existing mortgage joint venture operations and loan pipeline into this platform under the ClosingMark brand over the course of the coming months.
“We are excited to take the next steps in the strategic evolution of our ancillary financial services business, following up on our hiring of Brian Hale, a 35-year veteran of the mortgage business, last year to optimize and build out our financial services group, and putting us in position to have a full suite of in-house financial services available to our home buyers by the end of the year,” said Matthew R. Zaist, William Lyon Homes president and CEO. “Under Brian’s leadership, ClosingMark will be committed to providing competitive financial services and outstanding customer service to support the needs of our home buyers and complement our home building operations, while providing an additional source of earnings for the Company. Brian and I are thrilled to welcome the CMHL team members as an integral part of the foundation upon which to build out the ClosingMark operations for years to come. We would also like to thank our existing lender partners for their partnership over the past several years and collaboration in this integration process.”
