From the local Lamborghini dealership to dry-cleaning shops to office cubicles, the pending sale of Countrywide Financial Corp. prompted a universal question Friday: Now what? The troubled mortgage lender is a major presence in the business and residential corridor that straddles Los Angeles and Ventura counties on both sides of the 101 Freeway. About 600 people work in the headquarters complex in Calabasas; some 4,500 more work in various operations a few miles to the northwest in Simi Valley. The fallout from that could further weaken the area's wobbly real estate markets, said Delores Conway, director of USC's Casden Real Estate Economics Forecast. She noted that earlier layoffs at mortgage firms in Orange County harmed home prices there. Commercial real estate in the Calabasas area also will suffer, she said. "Countrywide has already had some layoffs, and you will see it reflected in the office market," she said.
