This has been a very exciting week for Guardian Mortgage Company. The 51 year old, Plano-based mortgage firm was celebrating up north as it expanded its Michigan footprint with the grand opening of its Troy location on Wednesday, April 6, 2016.
This marks Guardian Mortgage Company’s second Michigan location—with the first in Grand Blanc—and the tenth across the country. Guardian currently operates offices in Grand Blanc, Michigan; El Paso, Plano, Arlington, Richardson and San Antonio, Texas; Santa Fe and Albuquerque, New Mexico; and Scottsdale, Arizona. Several more offices throughout Texas, Arizona and Colorado are slated to open later this year. We wanted to find Guardian’s secret sauce: how can the company be making such great strides in the shadow of all the new federal regulation?
We grabbed executive vice president Marcus McCue, to ask, after saying super duper congrats on the huge swath of success you are taking!
CD: Marcus, we are so happy for you and your expansion! Curious, with TILA RESPA Integrated Disclosure or TRID, you guys are killing it! Have those new rules not slowed you down?
MM: Thank you! TRID was certainly one of the most significant changes we have experienced in the past several years. Anytime there is a change to documents, tolerances of certain fees and timing requirements of the new documents, the adjustment will be difficult. Such a change affects nearly every department, so the focus is not just on awareness, but implementation of the change with software and colleagues and then quality assurance to ensure compliance. We experienced a slowdown in November 2015, which was lessened a little in December 2015. This improvement has continued in January and we were actually able to get ahead of schedule in February and March 2016. We have not been experiencing the significant hurdles and problems that other lenders have experienced with errors and complications in implementing TRID change that have delayed or prevented delivery loans to their investors after closing.
CD: Do you think that your growth would have or could have been even bigger without some of this new legislation?
MM: There is no doubt that the resources and colleagues within our company necessary to prepare and implement the TRID changes are some of the same resources and colleagues we utilize to help support our growth in LO recruiting, production growth and adding branch locations. Without TRID, we would likely be further along in our growth plans than our current position, but we are catching speed quickly and plan to reach our strategic growth goals by the end of 2016.
CD: Why have you chosen the markets you have — I mean, I get Phoenix but Troy, Michigan?
MM: Much of our growth in locations is focused on growing metro markets like Phoenix and Denver, but some are keeping our commitment to our 50-year legacy and roots with Jack Sweet. We have a commitment to grow within Michigan, where our company was founded, and Troy, Michigan was a Detroit suburban area in which we had a location in the past. It was just natural to reinvest in that community, where our brand has equity and reconnect to that community and its real estate professionals.
CD: So from the mortgage industry’s point of view, Real Estate is still going strong?
MM: Yes. From at least the Guardian Mortgage point of view, real estate is still going strong and we are excited about our opportunity to grow and gain market share in each of the communities we serve currently, and those we will be entering in 2016.
