California Home Loan, California Home Loans, Home Buyers, Refinancing, Equity Loan, Debt Consolidation, Refinance, New Purchase

Wachovia (nyse: WB - news - people ) is at it again, striking its third deal in two days, this time for a Southern California company that specializes in residential mortgages.

The $83 million deal, for San Diego-based American Mortgage Network, is a pittance for Wachovia, a bank with a $73 billion market cap. But it is yet another entry into the high-growth California market. Until this week, Wachovia had no on-the-ground presence there.

But Monday, Wachovia unveiled a $3.9 billion plan to buy Westcorp (nyse: WES - news - people ) and WFS Financial (nasdaq: WFSI - news - people ) of Irvine, Calif. Westcorp has 19 branches in affluent Orange County and a $12 billion auto loan portfolio, which will make Wachovia the nation's ninth largest car lender.

Wachovia has been scouring for deals to build up its lending operations, and its executives have talked about wanting to jump back into the credit-card business. But earlier this summer it lost out on the crown jewel of the credit card industry, MBNA Corp. (nyse: KRB - news - people ), which agreed to a $35 billion merger with Bank of America (nyse: BAC - news - people ). Meanwhile, HSBC Holdings (nyse: HBC - news - people )' U.S. consumer finance unit agreed to buy Metris, and Washington Mutual (nyse: WM - news - people ) was snapped up Providian Financial (nyse: PVN - news - people ).

What's a bank to do? Auto and mortgage lending are still hot markets, despite prognostications of a big market downturn around the corner. In auto lending, especially, banks see an opportunity to catch up with the finance units owned by the big auto makers. Ratings crunches at the car companies have crimped their ability to offer more-attractive loan deals to customers than the banks can offer, opening the doors to more competition.

But perhaps more tantalizing for Wachovia is that the most recent deals all give it a base of operations in California. The company's executives say they are going to start building from there. Ben Jenkins, the head of Wachovia's general bank, said Monday that "we're going to take a measured, steady look" about expanding. "Between now and year end, we'll have a much better feel for it."