Lend America, a Federal Housing Administration (FHA) lender based in Melville, New York, said it will begin acquiring its first pool of loans today from select FHA-direct endorsed lenders through its new residential mortgage lending platform, Lend America Mini Ginnie Correspondent program.

According to Lend America, small and midsize mortgage bankers have limited options in today’s secondary market while larger loan aggregators continue to move toward market dominance. The company says slow funding, loan declinations, guideline overlays, and even sudden termination are placing downward pressures on the mortgage banking sector.

“There was a time when loan aggregators and their correspondent lenders were engaged in a healthy interdependent relationship,” said Michael Ashley, chief business strategist of Lend America. “However, now the big aggregators are slowly but surely pushing out those very same companies. Relationships are terminated suddenly and without any real basis.”

Ashley explained, “We have built Lend America Mini Ginnie Correspondent to be an important solution for small to mid-sized FHA direct endorsed lenders who need a quality correspondent lending partner that they can count on before, and after funding.”

Through the companies’ established relationship, Cenlar Federal Savings Bank will serve as sub-servicer for the loans purchased by Lend America through the correspondent channel.

The minimum bulk pool size for the program is $1 million. Ashley says LendAmerica’s goal is to purchase $500 million in home loans per month by the second quarter of 2010.

Earlier this month, Lend America announced that it was jumping back into wholesale residential mortgage lending, after strategically exiting the wholesale business in 2008.