Subprime Mortgage Collapse Eviscerates California Headquarters
By Daniel Taub
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=alOjASNOLKcQ&refer=home
March 28 (Bloomberg) -- The words ``New Century'' used to flash several times a day on caller ID at Taleo Mexican Grill in Irvine, California, where diners wash down Salmon Veracruz with $7 hand-shaken margaritas. Reservations were often for 10 or more.
Not anymore, said Nic Villarreal, the owner of the restaurant, located two blocks from New Century Financial Corp.'s headquarters. ``We don't get any.''
In Irvine, where just nine months ago office vacancies approached a three-year low, home prices were at an all-time high, and unemployment was less than the national average, at just 3.6 percent, the unraveling subprime mortgage market is ruining the recent prosperity.
Hometown lenders including New Century and Ameriquest Mortgage Co. already have fired more than 3,000 people, house and condominium prices are down 17 percent since June and office vacancy rates are poised to double this year, said John McDermott, regional manager for Orange County at commercial real estate broker Sperry Van Ness.
``It's a huge engine that has been shut off,'' McDermott said. ``I don't know where the new influx of jobs are if you take the lending market out of the equation.''
At Phillips Auto in nearby Newport Beach, California, no one from the mortgage industry is shopping for Porsches these days, said Theresa Seradsky, the dealership's general sales manager. Instead, they're putting their Porsches up for sale through the consignment program, she said.
No Buyers
``Two years ago, every other day we had somebody coming in to buy,'' Seradsky said. ``In the last two weeks, we've had nobody.''
New Century, Irvine's second-biggest employer, may be forced to seek bankruptcy protection after the lender to people with bad or limited credit said New York-based Morgan Stanley and UBS AG of Zurich were among the companies that cut off access to $17.4 billion of credit lines. New Century is supposed to be the anchor tenant of an almost-complete, 20-story office tower being built by Maguire Properties Inc.
``We don't have any comment on industry rumors or speculation,'' said New Century spokeswoman Laura Oberhelman. ``There has not been a bankruptcy filing.''
The collapse of the subprime industry probably will affect everyone from printer-paper suppliers to office-maintenance companies to retailers who depend on employees of lenders including New Century for sales, said Jacquie Ellis, president of the Irvine Chamber of Commerce. Before its collapse, New Century had 7,400 employees, compared with 8,600 at the University of California, Irvine, she said.
`Massive Layoffs' Coming
``There are going to be massive layoffs and maybe something worse than that,'' Ellis said. ``You wonder what impact it's going to have on other companies as well.''
Cracks in the mortgage market began to appear last year. U.S. subprime borrowers fell behind on their payments at the highest rate in four years during the fourth quarter, according to data compiled by the Washington-based Mortgage Bankers Association.
The Center for Responsible Lending in Durham, North Carolina, expects the foreclosure rate for subprime loans to exceed 22 percent in California metropolitan areas including Irvine, Merced, Bakersfield, Vallejo-Fairfield, Fresno, Stockton, Santa Ana, Anaheim and Riverside.
Half of the 20 biggest U.S. subprime lenders are in California, including three in Irvine, and about 13 percent of the nation's subprime loans are in the state, according to the Washington-based Mortgage Bankers Association and industry newsletter Inside Mortgage Finance of Bethesda, Maryland.
More than two dozen mortgage lenders have closed or sought buyers since the beginning of the year. Irvine-based People's Choice Home Loan Inc. filed for bankruptcy protection last week. H&R Block Inc. is trying to sell its Irvine-based Option One Mortgage Corp. unit. Accredited Home Lenders Holding Co., based in San Diego, has offices in Irvine, and Ameriquest is based in Orange, just north of Irvine.
Home Prices Fall
For Irvine's 190,000 residents, the median price for new and resale houses and condominiums was $641,500 in February, down 17 percent from last June's peak of $775,000, according to La Jolla, California-based DataQuick Information Systems. The city's median home price is still almost triple what it was a decade ago.
New buildings with about 2.5 million square feet of space are set to open this year in Irvine, which may boost the city's vacancy rate to about 22 percent from 11.2 percent now, according to a Sperry Van Ness analysis of data from CoStar Group Inc. The rate was at 7.9 percent, close to a three-year low, as recently as the third quarter.
Office Vacancies
Increasing delinquencies in the subprime market may be hardest on Irvine's biggest office owners including closely held Irvine Co. and Los Angeles-based Maguire Properties, which last month agreed to pay $2.88 billion for 22 office complexes in Orange County and two in downtown Los Angeles that Blackstone Group LP acquired in its February takeover of Equity Office Properties Trust, Sperry Van Ness's McDermott said.
New Century leases about 267,000 square feet of space in two buildings at Maguire's Park Place project in Irvine, and agreed to lease about 190,000 square feet, or more than a third, of the space at the new 20-story office building that Maguire plans to complete in the third quarter.
Maguire has said New Century's leases at existing buildings and the new site are at below-market prices and could be replaced at higher rates. Maguire also is trying to sell 11 Orange County properties with about 3 million square feet of space that were formerly Equity Office sites.
Bill Flaherty, senior vice president of marketing for Maguire Properties, said while it may be ``a little choppy in '07,'' even with a worst-case scenario of subprime companies abandoning space, Orange County still will have an office vacancy rate of about 10 percent or 11 percent.
`Some Chop'
``At 10 percent, we're building in those markets, as are our competitors,'' Flaherty said. ``That doesn't mean there won't be some chop, but this isn't a risk-free business we're in.''
Taleo Mexican Grill is in the same Michelson Drive retail- and-office park as Maguire's new building, and restaurant owner Villarreal had prepared for the influx of lunchtime customers from the about 600 New Century workers that would have been there. Instead, lunchtime business is down by as many as 60 people a week, he said. New Century used to call with reservations of 10 to 20 people two or three times a week.
Sales at Baguette Time, a sandwich shop across the parking lot from Taleo, are down about 10 percent in the past several weeks, said owner Mo Khataw. The shop used to get walk-in customers from New Century and made $80 to $100 deliveries to the company once or twice a week.
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By Daniel Taub
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=alOjASNOLKcQ&refer=home
March 28 (Bloomberg) -- The words ``New Century'' used to flash several times a day on caller ID at Taleo Mexican Grill in Irvine, California, where diners wash down Salmon Veracruz with $7 hand-shaken margaritas. Reservations were often for 10 or more.
Not anymore, said Nic Villarreal, the owner of the restaurant, located two blocks from New Century Financial Corp.'s headquarters. ``We don't get any.''
In Irvine, where just nine months ago office vacancies approached a three-year low, home prices were at an all-time high, and unemployment was less than the national average, at just 3.6 percent, the unraveling subprime mortgage market is ruining the recent prosperity.
Hometown lenders including New Century and Ameriquest Mortgage Co. already have fired more than 3,000 people, house and condominium prices are down 17 percent since June and office vacancy rates are poised to double this year, said John McDermott, regional manager for Orange County at commercial real estate broker Sperry Van Ness.
``It's a huge engine that has been shut off,'' McDermott said. ``I don't know where the new influx of jobs are if you take the lending market out of the equation.''
At Phillips Auto in nearby Newport Beach, California, no one from the mortgage industry is shopping for Porsches these days, said Theresa Seradsky, the dealership's general sales manager. Instead, they're putting their Porsches up for sale through the consignment program, she said.
No Buyers
``Two years ago, every other day we had somebody coming in to buy,'' Seradsky said. ``In the last two weeks, we've had nobody.''
New Century, Irvine's second-biggest employer, may be forced to seek bankruptcy protection after the lender to people with bad or limited credit said New York-based Morgan Stanley and UBS AG of Zurich were among the companies that cut off access to $17.4 billion of credit lines. New Century is supposed to be the anchor tenant of an almost-complete, 20-story office tower being built by Maguire Properties Inc.
``We don't have any comment on industry rumors or speculation,'' said New Century spokeswoman Laura Oberhelman. ``There has not been a bankruptcy filing.''
The collapse of the subprime industry probably will affect everyone from printer-paper suppliers to office-maintenance companies to retailers who depend on employees of lenders including New Century for sales, said Jacquie Ellis, president of the Irvine Chamber of Commerce. Before its collapse, New Century had 7,400 employees, compared with 8,600 at the University of California, Irvine, she said.
`Massive Layoffs' Coming
``There are going to be massive layoffs and maybe something worse than that,'' Ellis said. ``You wonder what impact it's going to have on other companies as well.''
Cracks in the mortgage market began to appear last year. U.S. subprime borrowers fell behind on their payments at the highest rate in four years during the fourth quarter, according to data compiled by the Washington-based Mortgage Bankers Association.
The Center for Responsible Lending in Durham, North Carolina, expects the foreclosure rate for subprime loans to exceed 22 percent in California metropolitan areas including Irvine, Merced, Bakersfield, Vallejo-Fairfield, Fresno, Stockton, Santa Ana, Anaheim and Riverside.
Half of the 20 biggest U.S. subprime lenders are in California, including three in Irvine, and about 13 percent of the nation's subprime loans are in the state, according to the Washington-based Mortgage Bankers Association and industry newsletter Inside Mortgage Finance of Bethesda, Maryland.
More than two dozen mortgage lenders have closed or sought buyers since the beginning of the year. Irvine-based People's Choice Home Loan Inc. filed for bankruptcy protection last week. H&R Block Inc. is trying to sell its Irvine-based Option One Mortgage Corp. unit. Accredited Home Lenders Holding Co., based in San Diego, has offices in Irvine, and Ameriquest is based in Orange, just north of Irvine.
Home Prices Fall
For Irvine's 190,000 residents, the median price for new and resale houses and condominiums was $641,500 in February, down 17 percent from last June's peak of $775,000, according to La Jolla, California-based DataQuick Information Systems. The city's median home price is still almost triple what it was a decade ago.
New buildings with about 2.5 million square feet of space are set to open this year in Irvine, which may boost the city's vacancy rate to about 22 percent from 11.2 percent now, according to a Sperry Van Ness analysis of data from CoStar Group Inc. The rate was at 7.9 percent, close to a three-year low, as recently as the third quarter.
Office Vacancies
Increasing delinquencies in the subprime market may be hardest on Irvine's biggest office owners including closely held Irvine Co. and Los Angeles-based Maguire Properties, which last month agreed to pay $2.88 billion for 22 office complexes in Orange County and two in downtown Los Angeles that Blackstone Group LP acquired in its February takeover of Equity Office Properties Trust, Sperry Van Ness's McDermott said.
New Century leases about 267,000 square feet of space in two buildings at Maguire's Park Place project in Irvine, and agreed to lease about 190,000 square feet, or more than a third, of the space at the new 20-story office building that Maguire plans to complete in the third quarter.
Maguire has said New Century's leases at existing buildings and the new site are at below-market prices and could be replaced at higher rates. Maguire also is trying to sell 11 Orange County properties with about 3 million square feet of space that were formerly Equity Office sites.
Bill Flaherty, senior vice president of marketing for Maguire Properties, said while it may be ``a little choppy in '07,'' even with a worst-case scenario of subprime companies abandoning space, Orange County still will have an office vacancy rate of about 10 percent or 11 percent.
`Some Chop'
``At 10 percent, we're building in those markets, as are our competitors,'' Flaherty said. ``That doesn't mean there won't be some chop, but this isn't a risk-free business we're in.''
Taleo Mexican Grill is in the same Michelson Drive retail- and-office park as Maguire's new building, and restaurant owner Villarreal had prepared for the influx of lunchtime customers from the about 600 New Century workers that would have been there. Instead, lunchtime business is down by as many as 60 people a week, he said. New Century used to call with reservations of 10 to 20 people two or three times a week.
Sales at Baguette Time, a sandwich shop across the parking lot from Taleo, are down about 10 percent in the past several weeks, said owner Mo Khataw. The shop used to get walk-in customers from New Century and made $80 to $100 deliveries to the company once or twice a week.
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