First Guaranty ‘essentially shuttered’ in Dallas

Texas lender First Guaranty Mortgage laid off most of its staff Friday. The mortgage lender terminated 428 of the 565 employees who worked for its office in Dallas suburb Plano, the Dallas Morning News reported. The layoffs affect 75 percent of the firm’s staff.

First Guaranty filed a notice of the layoffs with the Texas Workforce Commission, blaming “significant operating losses and cash flow challenges due to unforeseen historical adverse market conditions for the mortgage lending industry, including unanticipated market volatility.”

In addition, the letter claimed that the company’s effort to obtain funding that could have prevented the layoffs had been unsuccessful.

Some of the terminated employees worked in other states, according to the notice.

In early June, First Mortgage announced a new second lien program for homeowners to access equity without disrupting rates. But the company stopped accepting mortgage applications, HousingWire reported last week. Two former employees said the lender has “essentially shuttered.”

First Mortgage Guaranty was founded in 1987 and moved its headquarters to Plano in 2019. Investment management firm PIMCO bought a large stake in the company in 2015. First Mortgage bought Charlotte-based Goodmortgage in 2016.

JPMorgan Chase laid off 1,000 employees last week as rising mortgage rates have driven down demand for home loans, according to the Dallas Morning News story.

[Dallas Morning News] — Cindy Widner