Caliber Home Loans
Caliber Home Loans is an Irving, Texas-based home mortgage originator and servicer established in 2013 by the merger of Caliber Funding and Vericrest Financial.
The firm is owned by affiliates of private equity fund manager Lone Star Funds.
Leadership
Caliber Chairman and CEO Joe Anderson is a former manager of Countrywide Financial’s Consumer Markets Division. Caliber’s Chief Operating Officer, Chief Financial Officer, and Executive Vice President of Operations are former Countrywide executives.
The United States Department of Justice alleged that Countrywide's Consumer Markets Division "engaged in a pattern or practice of discrimination on the basis of race and national origin" from 2004 to 2008. In 2011 the DOJ settled the allegations with Countrywide’s then-owners for $335 million.
In 2014 the Department of Justice reached a $16 billion settlement that in part covered DOJ claims of "origination of defective residential mortgage loans by Countrywide’s Consumer Markets Division" and "the fraudulent sale of such loans to the government sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac."
Growth
Caliber’s servicing portfolio has grown from $6.5 billion in March 2012 to $75.2 billion in June 2015. Caliber’s growth has been fueled in part by its purchase of non-performing loans from the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development and government-sponsored enterprises like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Housing advocates and borrowers have criticized Caliber for reportedly foreclosing on struggling borrowers, and selling their homes to affiliates of Lone Star Funds. The New York Times reported in September 2015 that "the acquisition of distressed mortgages by Lone Star is the engine in a well-oiled securitization machine that assumes that foreclosure and resale of the homes are inevitable components of the process."
Senator Elizabeth Warren and Representative Michael Capuano have criticized HUD and the Federal Housing Finance Agency's sale of non-performing loans to companies like Lone Star Funds.
In October 2015, the New York Times reported that New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman had opened an investigation into Caliber Home Loans after receiving a "surge in consumer complaints."