NEWPORT BEACH, CA—Commerce Mortgage has appointed Shabi Asghar as president of its wholesale real estate financing division. In his new role, Asghar will be responsible for maintaining the company's quality of service while introducing cost-effective options to mortgage lenders and borrowers.

Before joining Commerce, Asghar served as CEO and president of companies with cumulative originations totaling more than $50 billion. Most notably, he co-launched Encore Credit Corp. in 2002 with $5 million of private capital, resulting in a $750-million initial public offering in only three years. Commerce's wholesale division represents Asghar's fifth start-up company. He has 28 years of experience in the industry.

According to Mario De Tomasi, CFO of Commerce, “Our executive team is excited to appoint Shabi Asghar as president, spearheading the company's wholesale lending division and supporting the company's vision of moving forward with a reviving market by offering products backed by a team of professionals with the utmost integrity and knowledge of the industry.”

As GlobeSt.com reported earlier this month, despite a contraction of space from the mortgage-lending industry in recent years, other industries are picking up the absorption slack in Orange County's office market. Curtis Ellmore, SVP at JLL, tells GlobeSt.com that life-insurance and healthcare companies, as well as banks and financial firms, are taking up much of the space the mortgage industry has left behind.

According to a report from JLL, although the local economy has undergone a significant diversification a significant diversification process over the past five years, Orange County is as heavily tied to the mortgage-lending sector today as it has historically been. While, two years ago, many of these firms were aggressively expanding local operations, as GlobeSt.com previously reported—including Cash Call and Greenlight Financial, who each signed multiple expansion deals in 2012—today the growth that had been fueled by refinancing business stimulated by record-low interest rates has all but ceased. In fact, some tenants have begun to make payroll cuts and market space for sublease in response to the decrease in business. This includes Cash Call, which is currently working toward downsizing its 400,000-square-foot footprint by more than half.