GreenPoint Mortgage office in Bellevue closes, lays off 41

Pacific Northwest

GreenPoint Mortgage

Bellevue office closes, lays off 41

The national closure of GreenPoint Mortgage, which is anticipated to eliminate 1,900 jobs by year's end, has hit the Northwest. GreenPoint's Bellevue office informed the state's Employment Security Department on Friday that it was immediately laying off its 41 workers and permanently shuttering its office on 120th Avenue Northeast.

GreenPoint, which had 31 locations in 19 states, specialized in no-documentation loans for borrowers choosing not to fully document their income. It has said it will honor commitments to borrowers whose loans are already in the pipeline.

GreenPoint is owned by Capital One Financial and headquartered in Novato, Calif. It cited the disruption in the secondary mortgage markets as the reason for the closure.

Farecast.com

Going on lookout for hotel deals

Seattle-based Farecast.com, a Web site that predicts when air fares will rise or fall and gives users advice on whether to buy airline tickets now or wait for a better price, is adding search tools to help travelers determine whether or not they're getting the best hotel deals.

Launched today, the beta version of Farecast Hotels lets customers narrow their search to specific locations in various cities, call up a map pinpointing the locations of various hotels, the rates they charge and how those prices compare with rates available in the past several months and 90 days into the future. Based on Farecast's analysis, a color-coded map will indicate whether a hotel at that price is a "deal," "not a deal" or just average.

Farecast Hotels lets users shop for more than 80,000 hotels in cities worldwide, but the ratings data will be initially limited to about 5,000 hotels in 30 major U.S. cities, based on prices quoted by Orbitz.com, Cheaptickets.com and Reservetravel.com.

Blue Nile

Paccar treasurer named new CFO

Online jewelry retailer Blue Nile said it named Robin Easton, now treasurer at truck maker Paccar in Bellevue, as its new chief financial officer.

Easton will join Seattle-based Blue Nile on Sept. 10.

Diane Irvine, Blue Nile's CFO since 1999 who was promoted to president in February, will fully transition to her new role after Easton's arrival, the company said in a statement.

Blue Nile previously named Scott Devitt, a managing director and senior analyst at Stifel Nicolaus & Co. in Manassas, Va., as its CFO. He had "a change of heart" influenced by the need to relocate his family, Blue Nile said.

Compiled from Seattle Times staff