All Cal Financial, a mortgage brokerage based in Soquel, California, has merged into InstaMortgage, bringing the latter company up to 125 employees.
Jim Black, All Cal's founder, becomes the chief lending officer at InstaMortgage, where he will lead new product development, tech partnerships and sales growth. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
InstaMortgage is a mortgage lender based in San Jose, California, and had 68 employees when it was ranked 18th overall and fourth among small companies in the National Mortgage News 2022 Best Companies to Work For. The company was founded by Shashank Shekhar in 2008 and rebranded from Arcus Lending in August of last year.
"InstaMortgage was drawn to Jim Black and All Cal Financial because of their reputation for excellence, honesty and transparency in the mortgage industry; values true to our own nature," Shekhar said in a press release. "With Jim's reputation as a top producing loan officer and expertise with innovative lending products, we will be able to accelerate the growth of InstaMortgage and meet the lending needs of even more consumers."
For the time being, All Cal will retain its branding, acting as a "doing business as" for InstaMortgage, because of the reputation the company and staff have built in the local markets, Shekhar said in a follow-up statement. An exact transition date to the InstaMortgage brand hasn't been decided yet, he continued.
"I am excited to partner with [Shekhar] and the rest of the talented team at InstaMortgage to support our shared vision of making lending a positive and efficient process for the consumer," Black said. "We will continue to inspire, innovate and deliver custom solutions for one of the largest financial decisions in life."
Kevin Kim of Geraci LLP acted as legal advisor to All Cal Financial and InstaMortgage in the transaction.
