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Special Reports
Recruiting & Training:
Renaissance Professionals
Opteum, Formerly Homestar, Growing via AE Hires
The company characterizes its growth as 'strategic.'
PARAMUS, NJ -- The former Homestar Mortgage Services here, which is renaming
itself Opteum to reflecting the broadening range of financial services it offers, has seen "pretty incredible
growth" in the residential real estate finance area over the last four years, company executive Joe Amoroso
said.
The company has recruited a number of wholesale account executives in recent years,
said Mr. Amoroso, who has managerial responsibility for the company's eastern region.
Mr. Amoroso joined the company in 2000 when he it was "largely retail."
Mr. Amoroso was brought on board primarily to start a wholesale division in the
Northeast.
He said the company offers its on-staff AEs and broker business partners it has
recruited a work environment in which growth is characterized as "strategic instead of just putting carried
away like some companies have as far as technology."
The automation Homestar is designed to make doing business easier for loan brokers
by allowing them to, for example, lock their own loans and get pre-approvals while online, he said. The company
also offers access to AdWiz, a technology product that is designed to assist brokers with advertising and marketing,
to third-party originators it works with, Mr. Amoroso said.
"It's not just what we can do for them, but what they can do for themselves,"
he said of the technological support that Homestar offers the brokers it recruits.
Homestar Mortgage Services is an independent, privately owned company. In addition
to being an originator, the company has more recently become a securitizer, something that it believes is giving
it a competitive edge. It closed its first securitization of more than $308 million in March and in early May,
the company closed its second securitization at approximately $387 million. Most recently, the company on July
1 closed its third securitization, totaling more than $414 million. Citigroup Capital Markets underwrote all three
securitizations.
"We've been able to access the capital markets three times in four months
with securitizations that are increasing in size," said Peter Norden, chairman and chief executive officer,
in a recent press release. "This clearly sets Homestar apart from the competition in our class because there
are few, if any, other companies of our size doing the same."
Homestar opened its conduit unit in late 2003 as part of the company's overall
strategy to diversify. "Our goal is to spread our business across our three channels, which include retail,
wholesale and conduit," said Mr. Norden.
Mary Glass, senior vice president and head of the conduit operations, noted that
the company recently registered for another shelf totaling approximately $2 billion.
"Our knowledge of the alt-A business combined with our products and services
have resulted in our ability to gain market share in a short period of time," she said.
Homestar was named one of the top 15 alt-A lenders and one of the top 15 wholesale
lenders in the country during the first quarter of this year, according to this publication's statistical affiliate.
"We're focusing our growth in areas where we believe there is the most potential,"
said Mr. Norden.
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