Ideal Mortgage Bankers To Exit Wholesale Lending Business

Will focus on expanding Lend America its rapidly growing direct-to consumer retail platform - Company expects to be a top five FHA lender by early 2009

Ideal Mortgage Bankers, Ltd (Company), one of the country’s fastest growing FHA lenders, announced today that it would exit the wholesale lending business, which operates under the name Ideal Mortgage, to concentrate on expanding Lend America its rapidly growing retail lending platform. The Company joins a growing list of banks and mortgage companies to abandon the wholesale lending model, such as Wachovia, Washington Mutual and National City.

The Company believes job losses in the wholesale lending business will be limited to outside account executives. Many employees will be redeployed within the Company’s retail channel Lend America. The Company will accept submissions until Thursday July 31, 2008 and will honor all commitments, and close its wholesale pipeline in the normal course of business.

“After conducting an extensive review of our wholesale operations and taking into consideration the inherent risk in the current environment and the direction of the mortgage industry, we have decided to exit the wholesale lending business after approximately a year in operation,” commented Michael Ashley, Chief Business Strategist. “Our core competency has historically been as a direct-to consumer retail lender, which is validated by the enormous success over the last two years of Lend America our rapidly growing retail platform. With the new housing bill on the horizon, and the momentum that Lend America continues to demonstrate, we have made a strategic decision to refocus 100% of the Company’s energy and resources on building on the success of our retail platform.”

According to Inside Mortgage Finance, in the first quarter 2008 the Company was the nation’s 12th largest FHA lender in the United States. Lend America, the Company’s direct-to-consumer FHA retail platform, generated approximately 85% of the Company’s FHA production volume, compared to only 15% by the wholesale business.
Lend America has been operating its business through a centralized model to control the customer experience to better meet their needs, create a more efficient loan process, manage risk and drive profitability. Lend America operates its centralized origination and marketing platforms from its new 63,000-square-foot facility in Melville, New York, where the Company currently employs over 300 highly trained mortgage consultants in FHA lending that are licensed to do business in over 40 states. Lend America is also the originator of the successful nationwide broadcast television educational seminar programs, titled The Mortgage Loan Network.

Mr. Ashley, added, “Lend America offers a compelling value proposition and is positioned to help a significant number of borrowers today and in the future. With our recent approval to issue Government National Mortgage Association (Ginnie Mae) mortgage-backed securities (MBS) and our partnership with the RainyDay Foundation to offer borrowers education, counsel and financial protection if needed, we believe we can assist a larger pool of creditworthy borrowers who might have past credit issues, but have verifiable income and qualify for a fixed-rate FHA mortgage.”

“We are extremely proud of the success of our retail platform and believe that we can leverage the brand and operational strengths of Lend America to become a top ten FHA originator by year-end 2008 and be ranked in the top five by early 2009,” concluded, Mr. Ashley.

About Lend America

Lend America, a National Mortgage Banking Organization and one of New York’s largest privately owned direct lenders, has proudly served the residential mortgage marketplace for over 20 years. The company is one of the most successful direct to consumer lenders in the United States and is the region’s largest and most well known FHA direct lenders and is a GNMA approved mortgage backed securities issuer. Lend America is also the originator of the successful nationwide broadcast television educational seminar programs, titled The Mortgage Loan Network “MLN.” Lend America offers a wide range of home purchase and refinance programs to meet their clients’ individual requirements. Lend America employs approximately 525 employees and is located at 520 Broadhollow Road, Melville, New York, 11747. For more information on Lend America, visit www.lendamerica.com