NewHomesDirect.com Chooses MortgageSelect.com to Provide Exclusive Mortgage Center

Business Wire, June 13, 2000

Business Editors

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 13, 2000

New Home Information Web Site Now Offers Mortgage

Product And Pricing Information

MortgageSelect.com, the Internet-based subsidiary of American Home Mortgage Holdings (NASDAQ: AHMH) and one of the top ten Internet mortgage bankers, today announced that it has been chosen to provide an exclusive mortgage center on the NewHomesDirect.com Web site (www.newhomesdirect.com), a leading provider of new home real estate information online.

Under the terms of the agreement, MortgageSelect.com will provide Internet mortgage origination and pre-approval services to NewHomesDirect.com users. Through a "co-branded" mortgage center, users will have access to MortgageSelect.com tools that can be used to evaluate home finance conditions, check, shop, and lock-in rates, calculate payments and even apply for a home loan online all while taking full advantage of NewHomesDirect.com's online new home real estate services.

"In addition to providing consumers with all the information needed to purchase a new home, our site now will allow access to the best mortgage product and pricing information available on the Internet," said Kurt Robertson, vice president, sales and marketing for NewHomesDirect.com. "By adding MortgageSelect.com's mortgage center, we continue to expand NewHomesDirect.com's e-commerce applications through an additional revenue stream."

NewHomesDirect.com offers multiple services, including the ability to search for a new home in more than 90 U.S. metropolitan areas, a directory of local and national homebuilders, and the ability to transfer utilities to a new home. Using NewHomesDirect.com, consumers can quickly search by criteria such as price, size, location, number of bedrooms and/or baths, as well as by name of a particular builder to quickly find the houses that meet their specified criteria. Accompanying photos, floor plans, and other visuals provide added information about the homes, as well as the communities.

"Strategically, this is an ideal partnership for MortgageSelect.com as NewHomesDirect.com reaches a large audience of consumers searching for new homes, and the purchase market has always been our main focus," said Scott Messina, senior vice president of sales and marketing for MortgageSelect.com. "NewHomesDirect.com users now can utilize the Internet to find the perfect home as well as access the NewHomesDirect/MortgageSelect.com mortgage center to secure the perfect mortgage."

About NewHomesDirect.com

NewHomesDirect.com specializes in gathering the most complete, accurate and up-to-date new home community and listing information and making that information available through its web site. NHD's web site is the outgrowth of over 18 years of success in traditional channels, including hard copy publications and software applications.

NHD's concept is unique in that it offers a free listing service to builders, Realtors and marketing firms trying to sell new homes. This no-cost approach assures that NewHomesDirect.com provides the consumer with the most complete source of new home information available.

Consumers and real estate professionals interested in new homes can visit NewHomesDirect.com directly at http://www.newhomesdirect.com. In addition, as a leading provider of new home content on the Internet, NHD has established distribution partnerships with Cox Interactive Media (a subsidiary of Cox Enterprises), CyberHomes (NASDAQ:VINF) Excite's Classifieds2000, Homeseekers (NASDAQ: HMSK), Iown.com, Microsoft's Homeadvisor (NASDAQ: MSFT), RealtyOnline.net and Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO).

About American Home Mortgage and MortgageSelect.com

MortgageSelect.com, launched in the first quarter of 1999, is the Internet-based subsidiary of American Home Mortgage Holdings (NASDAQ: AHMH). Located in New York, American Home Mortgage is one of the nation's largest Mortgage Banking firms with more than 700 employees.

Of the top ten Internet mortgage origination services, MortgageSelect.com is the only one focusing on the real estate purchase market. Eighty percent of the firm's business volume comes through purchase mortgages rather than refinancing.

Because mortgages for home purchases typically close in a timely way, the company's specialization stabilizes its income stream. Refinancing mortgage companies, on the other hand, often find their closings delayed - and their incomes diminished - when rising interest rates persuade borrowers to forego or delay closing their refinancing loans.

Like a mortgage broker, MortgageSelect.com offers customers the ability to compare thousands of mortgage programs and rates from hundreds of the nation's leading wholesale lenders. As a mortgage banker MortgageSelect.com can also directly lock-in, accept and fund any loan program a customer selects.