Orange County, CA may be in trouble. The OC is home to the subprime lenders of America. The subprime mortgage market is collapsing like a bluff on a beach in a tsunami. Bubble bloggers dance on the graves of the fallen.  What I find amusing is that nobody feels bad for a collapsed lender.  I mean, come on, everyone knows that it's just a bunch of rich people playing with the Wall Street's money, right?

Now Main Street's whitewashed windows and vacant stores
Seems like there ain't nobody wants to come down here no more
They're closing down the textile mill across the railroad tracks
Foreman says these jobs are going boys and they ain't coming back to your
hometown
Your hometown
Your hometown
Your hometown

Lyrics from My Hometown by Bruce Springsteen 

Well, let me tell you a story of the real estate industrial complex of Orange County.  It may not have a happy ending.  Most lending employees are not highly-paid.  Sure, I've mentioned that the subprime wholesale account executives were paid like starting pitchers for the Angels but the bulk of the folks who crank out the loans are the rank and file, clock-punching, lunch-box carrying, worker bees. These are folks who were tossed into an industry some five years ago, learned their jobs by their wits and excelled during booms.  They stayed late, worked on weekends, and sacrificed vacations, to get the job done.

Now they won't have jobs.  "The Boss" opined in the mid '80s about industries leaving small towns and the effect on the local economy.  You have to wonder about the effect on the subprime mortgage capital of the country, Irvine in tony Orange County.  Most of the employees came from the Southern California counties of San Diego, Orange, and Los Angeles.  The subprime mortgages were not only originated there, they provided affordability for the starter homes in those counties.

Let's look at the ripple effect:

(1)- lending guidelines tighten so residential mortgage capital is becoming more scarce. 

(2)- loans default in record proportions in a lighting-quick time frame

(3)- lenders announce massive layoffs or simply close the doors

(4)- home building starts drop

(5)- construction jobs become less plentiful 

I think it's quite possible that we could see an exodus of young, non-college educated people from the coastal Southern California counties to areas like San Bernandino, Riverside, And Kern counties.  The average family needs an income of close to $100,000 to afford a starter home in the coastal counties.  The inland counties provide housing options for a family with a $65,000 income.

I know most people won't shed a tear for the "worker bees" that worked for lenders.  I, however, thank you all for your hard work, dedication, and professionalism during a trying decade of lending.  I wish you the best of luck no matter what you pursue.