Mortgage lender Aspire Financial’s affiliate files for bankruptcy

There’s another victim in the mortgage lending industry bloodbath.

Dallas-based mortgage originator TexasLending.com filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy on June 13 after downsizing last year. The lender is part of Aspire Financial. 

In the filing, the lender estimated it had assets valued at between $50,001 and $100,000, and liabilities between $1 million and $10 million. 

The paperwork was filed by CEO Kevin Miller, who founded Texaslending.com in 2001 and appears in the company’s TV commercials. 

The lender underwest downsizing last year. Between March and April of 2023, the number of loan officers sponsored by TexasLending.com decreased from 40 to 10, National Mortgage News reported. 

TexasLending.com was among lenders accused of unethical behavior as layoffs ravaged the industry in late 2022, National Mortgage News reported. 

A former loan coordinator told the outlet they were terminated on the last day of the month, meaning their health insurance expired on the day of their termination. 

While the company downsized, Miller announced on LinkedIn that the lender was also reducing its physical footprint. In 2017, the company leased a nearly 25,000-square-foot space at The Center, an 11-building office park in the DFW suburb of Farmers Branch. The lease was brokered by Stream Realty. 

The plunge in mortgage originations has hurt the mortgage lending industry hard. 

Residential lending activity plunged 68 percent between the first quarter of 2021 and the fourth quarter of 2023, according to ATTOM data. 

With less work to do, residential lenders are struggling; layoffs and bankruptcies among this sector are on the rise. 

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For example, Plano-based mortgage lender First Guaranty Mortgage filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2022 – just six days after laying off 428 of its 565 employees. 

In a roundup of lenders that experienced layoffs in 2022 and 2023, 10 were Texas-based shops: UpEquity, Stearns Lending, Open Mortgage, Mr. Cooper, Homeward, First Guaranty, Envoy Mortgage, USAA Federal Savings Bank and Texana Bank. 

TexasLending.com operates in Texas, Oklahoma, Florida, Michigan, Missouri and Colorado. The mortgage banker and broker specializes in home purchase loans, home equity loans, refinance loans and reverse mortgages.