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ResMae Mortgage Sets Move, Expansion With Olen Pointe Brea Deal

A startup mortgage company earlier this month leased 80,000 square feet at an office building under construction in Brea,a sign subprime lending continues its dramatic expansion here.

Residential Mortgage Assistance Enterprise LLC said it plans to double its local workforce to 350 people in the next few years with the move.

The company, which goes by ResMae Mortgage Corp., is set to move from its 40,000-square-foot headquarters at 3350 E. Birch St. in Brea in about a year’s time.

Newport Beach-based Olen Properties Corp. is developing the 130,000-square-foot office building at 6 Pointe Drive.

The developer started work in October and expects to finish late next year, according to Todd Frye, Olen’s director of marketing and leasing.

ResMae is on a major expansion drive in a hot industry. The company is set to make $2.5 billion in loans this year and expects to double that figure next year, according to Edward Resendez, co-chief executive.

Subprime lenders make loans to people with imperfect credit. Customers typically swap hefty credit card debt for a refinanced home loan or second mortgage.

Five of the nation’s top 10 subprime lenders are based in Orange County, led by Orange-based Ameriquest Mortgage Co. and Irvine-based New Century Financial Corp.

Resendez said ResMae wants the extra office space to set up a servicing unit that handles paperwork, interest and principal payments related to a loan.

ResMae acts as an intermediary, funding loans initiated by brokers and selling them to investors, who would pay a fee to ResMae to manage them under the expansion plan.

The company’s on track to post $60 million in revenue this year, Resendez said.

Resendez founded the company with partners Jack Mayesh, chairman and co-chief executive, and Bill Komperda, who is not active in day-to-day management.

The trio previously headed Orange-based Long Beach Financial Corp., a former Ameriquest unit that went public in 1997 and was bought in 1999 by Washington Mutual Inc.

“We have a history of building companies,” Resendez said.

Last year the partners received $25 million in venture capital funding. Investors include New York-based TH Lee Putnam Ventures, a private equity firm affiliated with Thomas H. Lee Partners LP, and Putnam LLC, a unit of Marsh & McLennan Corp.

Resendez said that money hasn’t been touched. It’s used as collateral to get lines of credit from banks that are used to fund ResMae’s loans.

The partners built a loan servicing division at Long Beach Financial and are set to do the same with their new venture, according to Resendez. They also are looking at opening retail branches and buying loans from smaller operations, he said.

“It will be a fully integrated mortgage bank,” Resendez said of ResMae.

The value of ResMae’s lease with Olen Properties wasn’t disclosed.

Sources said Olen cut ResMae a deal to get an anchor tenant for its building. The lease deal is rumored to begin at about $2 per square foot per month and rise to nearly $2.40 in the next 10 years, with the average around $2.15 or so,not bad for new class A space.

Indeed, the lease deal means 60% of the building is spoken for more than a year before it’s set to finish construction,a boon to Olen.

Still, the lease is not without risk. ResMae is a young company in an industry that could be severely impacted if falling home prices crimp borrowing.

“They are a quality tenant,” Olen’s Frye said. “It is a mortgage company. But we have a very high level of comfort with their financials and their leadership.”

Olen Properties is run by Chief Executive Igor Olenicoff (see related story, page 3) and his son Andrei Olenicoff, a vice president.

The building marks the final phase of the company’s Olen Pointe Brea development. The building previously was pegged as a $20 million project, but a hike in the cost of concrete and steel this year may have raised the price tag.

In the past, the developer has lured major tenants to Olen Pointe Brea.

In 2002, Ventura Foods LLC, maker of Hidden Valley salad dressing, leased 130,000 square feet there. That deal filled the void left by Sweden’s Ericsson Inc., which scaled back after a downturn in the wireless industry.

As for ResMae, co-chief Resendez said even if the subprime market contracts his company still can grow via expansion into new markets.

The company has offices in California, Florida, Texas and Illinois, and makes loans in 16 states. ResMae is looking to expand into the Northeast, Hawaii and possibly Colorado, he said.

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