Citizens Mortgage to close last offices

Sunday, Feb. 20, 2000 | 4:16 a.m.

Citizens Mortgage Inc. executives were unavailable for comment on the reasons for Thursday's closure.

But in a January interview with the Gardnerville Record-Courier, company executive vice president James W. Gibbs Jr. cited a slump in home-loan refinancing due to higher interest rates.

"A lot of our business came from refinancing, and people aren't doing that as much now with the higher rates," he said.

"There'll be a lot of consolidation in the whole industry. These are cyclical trends that we're used to - interest rates come and go."

The company was founded in June 1989 and moved its headquarters from Bloomington, Minn., to Minden in October 1998.

At that time, there were 33 Citizens Mortgage offices across the country with 250 employees. By last month, only 16 offices remained with about 120 employees.

The company also slashed the number of employees at its Minden head office from 33 to 14 in recent months.

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