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ATLANTA, Jan. 8 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- HomeBanc Mortgage Corporation, one of the largest retail residential mortgage lenders in the Southeast, has ranked for the fourth year in a row on the annual FORTUNE magazine "100 Best Companies to Work For" list, released today. HomeBanc ranked No. 67 on the overall list of the "100 Best Companies to Work For" and No. 19 on the Best Small-Sized Company list. The complete list and related stories appear in the January 22 issue of FORTUNE, available on newsstands January 15 and at http://www.fortune.com/ on January 8. "HomeBanc is honored to be recognized again by FORTUNE as among the best places to work in the United States," said HomeBanc Chairman and CEO Patrick S. Flood. "An important part of our strategy is to build a company that attracts the best talent available. It has always been my belief that the foundation of a great business is the people who work there every day. We believe that our 2007 ranking, our fourth consecutive appearance on this list, shows we are continuing to make progress in this important part of our strategy." About 10 years ago, HomeBanc was a small Atlanta-based mortgage company with about 150 associates (HomeBanc designates its employees with this term), a single office outside the state of Georgia (in south Florida) and mortgage volume of about $500 million. Today, HomeBanc has offices in Georgia, Florida and North Carolina and will soon open an office in Nashville, Tenn. In 2005, the last year the company reported, HomeBanc originated over $6.4 billion in mortgage volume. HomeBanc offers a full portfolio of associate benefits, including health, dental, disability and maternity and paternity leave, and a wide variety of unique programs. For instance, the company's "Associate Emergency Fund" is funded by the company's own associates and designed for associates facing extraordinary needs such as unexpected medical bills, emergency travel expenses or other unforeseen circumstances. HomeBanc also offers a Corporate Chaplain in each region who is available to associates for funerals, weddings, counseling and other personal and professional matters. And to provide associates extra time off to be with families or handle personal needs, the company offers a number of "Corporate Holidays" each year in addition to standard business holidays. In 2006, HomeBanc Mortgage ranked No. 14. In 2005, the company ranked No. 20. In 2004, the first year of HomeBanc Mortgage's eligibility for the list, the company ranked No. 39. "The 100 Best Companies to Work For" list is compiled for FORTUNE by Robert Levering and Milton Moskowitz of the Great Place to Work Institute in San Francisco, based on two criteria: an evaluation of the policies and culture of each company, and the opinions of the company's employees. The latter is given more weight; two-thirds of the total score comes from employee responses to a 57-question survey which goes to a minimum of 400 randomly selected employees from each company. More than 100,000 employees from 446 companies participated in the survey this year. It asks about things such as attitudes towards management, job satisfaction and camaraderie within the organization. The remaining one-third of the score is based on an evaluation of each company's demographic makeup, pay and benefits programs and culture. Companies are scored in four areas: credibility (communication to employees), respect (opportunities and benefits), fairness (compensation, diversity) and pride/camaraderie (philanthropy, celebrations). Companies that are at least seven years old and have 1,000 or more employees are eligible for the list. Information about applying for the next list can be found at http://www.greatplacetowork.com/. "The survey process is a tremendous experience for HomeBanc," said Flood. "HomeBanc has conducted annual associate satisfaction surveys for the past eight years. The results of these surveys help guide HomeBanc's priorities in terms of benefits programs and communication to associates. Some of the new initiatives that have arisen due to associate feedback in these surveys are equity compensation programs, adoption benefits, improved associate training programs and improved health care benefits." Being a great place to work does not mean being an easy place to work, Flood notes. "Like many of the other companies on the list, HomeBanc has a very challenging work environment," he says. "We hire very selectively and we collectively challenge and performance-manage each associate to meet big goals." HomeBanc Mortgage, a mortgage banking company that focuses on originating purchase money residential mortgage loans in the southeast United States, is a subsidiary of HomeBanc Corp. (NYSE:HMB). HomeBanc Mortgage is headquartered in Atlanta and has offices in Georgia, Florida and North Carolina. For more information about HomeBanc Corp., HomeBanc Mortgage Corporation, or the company's mortgage products, contact HomeBanc at http://www.homebanc.com/. DATASOURCE: HomeBanc Mortgage Corporation CONTACT: Media, Mark Scott, +1-404-459-7452, or , or Investors, Carol Knies, +1-404-459-7653, or , both of HomeBanc Mortgage Corporation Web site: http://www.homebanc.com/ http://www.fortune.com/ http://www.greatplacetowork.com/

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