May 15 average daily rates in Orange County for 30-year fixed loans with one-point fee: Conforming up to 5.943%, Jumbo up to 7.239% and Conforming-Jumbo up to 6.827% (Note: conforming-jumbo rates are for loans from $417,000 to $729,750, while conforming is up to $417,000 -- both types are sold to GSEs. Jumbos here are above $417,000 and not sold to GSEs.)
Source: Newspaper Chart Services 
Ameriquest to shut down
August 31st, 2007, 6:54 pm · 8 Comments · posted by Matt Padilla, Register Reporter and Blogger
The day has come.
Ameriquest Mortgage, once one of the largest subprime lenders in the country, will be shut down, the company said today.
The retail company stopped accepting loan applications on Aug. 1, said spokesman Chris Orlando.
Citigroup Inc. said it’s buying the wholesale operation, known as Argent Mortgage, and the loan servicing unit of ACC Capital Holdings in Orange. The deal closes tomorrow.
The terms of the deal were not disclosed, except to say the servicing portfolio totals $45 billion of loans.
The deal comes as most investors are shunning all but the safest mortgages.
Danielle Romero-Apsilos, a spokeswoman for Citigroup, said Argent is still making a small amount of loans.
“We will restart the origination business slowly and it will be under new management and we will have a new brand,” she said.
Citigroup plans to keep the Orange office as well as three other operation centers that will report to New York, she said.
The company is picking up about 2,000 employees nationwide from ACC and plans to keep most of them, she said.
August 31st, 2007 at 9:23 pm
[…] The OC Register’s Mortgage Insider now has a post on this, which provides some details about Citigroup’s plans for Argent: Danielle Romero-Apsilos, a […]
August 31st, 2007 at 11:34 pm
[…] from the OC Register on Citi’s plans for employees here in town: Danielle Romero-Apsilos, a spokeswoman for Citigroup, said Argent is […]
September 1st, 2007 at 5:21 am
Thanks Matt
September 3rd, 2007 at 7:36 pm
big suprises from big banks.
September 4th, 2007 at 12:53 am
Bye thieves.
September 4th, 2007 at 11:34 am
The Ameriquest down fall started with the hiring of Aseem Mital
September 4th, 2007 at 4:53 pm
It’s about these crooks get put out to pasture as a former you don’t know how much we went through to make these questionable loans “perform” Predatory lending, ARM’s written to people on fixed income that couldn;t afford them, I am not surprised-Good Riddance-And most of all by Roland Arnall!
September 11th, 2007 at 5:50 pm
Good luck Citi. You say you’re going to keep most employess well my advise, keep only the good ones. You should and hopefully will remove all of those in senior, upper-level decision making positions. They are the ones who created the mess. Adios crooks. I hope you sit in front of Congress some day and have to answer to the mess you and the rest of sub-prime has made of the economy in this country. I hope you have to give back the fortunes you made while riding on the coat tails of those you destroyed. Poor ACC? HUH! I laugh at your demise. Don’t go crying looking for a bail out now.