US Mortgage is located at 24 Cathedral Place in downtown St. Augustine. Chris Snow and Tim Tyson are the branch managers of this location and both licensed mortgage lenders.
FRANCHISE?
Snow and Tyson bought the US Mortgage franchise for St. Augustine. US Mortgage usually puts two offices in each state. The other is in Boca Raton. They opened five months ago.
WHAT DO THEY EACH DO?
Tyson handles the operations, training, underwriting and processing. Snow handles marketing, brand awareness and gets them in front of the customers.
VIRTUAL OFFICE?
They have 17 loan officers who work from virtual offices in Jacksonville, Orange Park, St. Augustine, Palm Coast, Starke and Amelia Island. “Most of them work off laptops. Our motto is that wherever the application is, we will go to get it. In other words, we are not bound to a desk like some companies. If you need us to come make a decision at your open house on Saturday, we are open for that, where other banks are closed. That’s kind of how we do things.”
WHO ARE THE LOAN OFFICERS?
Jimmy Smith, Travis Belcher, Doug Freer, Heather Kemmerer, Fernando Smith, Terry Kelly, Mike Eason, Mike Tsataros, Kevin Snow, Suzan Rogalski, Thomas Davis, Lori McLeod, Ruben Antonio, Tessa Kauffman, David Sparks, Sam Smith, Mike Farah, Noah Bailey, Joan DeGrande, Loise Trivette and Teresa Mercurio.
HIRE EXPERIENCED LOAN OFFICERS?
“No, We see value in bringing in people who are outside of the industry who may have a good personality and a good business mind,” said Snow. “I think they are good employees to bring on because we can teach them the way we want to see them to work. If they are coming to us with experience, as much as we can verify what they’ve sold, we can’t verify what their work habits are. So, if we have someone coming in and we are training them, we train them based on things that we’ve done wrong and different things to avoid.”
“Some of the best people we’ve hired were not even considering this line of work,” said Tyson. “Many of them were working 40 hours a week and started with us part-time. If they have a good personality and are willing to learn, we will definitely consider them.”
HOME OFFICE?
Pinebrook, N.J.
WHAT DOES THE OFFICE DO?
Residential mortgages and some commercial.
HOW DID THEY GET TOGETHER?
Tyson owned Lighthouse Lending with a partner on Sunbeam Road for three years. He met Snow when Snow came in to get a loan to buy a house. Tyson and Snow talked and Snow came to work for Tyson. Tyson decided to leave Lighthouse Lending, which is still in existence today. Snow and Tyson decided to team up and open their own company.
WHY CHOOSE TO OPEN A US MORTGAGE?
“They required the most out of us including five years experience and things like that,” said Tyson.
WHERE DO YOUR CUSTOMERS COME FROM?
All over the United States. “We take the applications anywhere,” said Tyson. “Our furthest away closing right now is in Connecticut. We can actually close loans in 21 states.”
INTERNET CUSTOMERS
“We specialize in interest-only loans,” said Tyson. “That’s where a lot of our customers from the Internet came from initially. Since we have become an actual lender, we really like doing the 30-year fixed. We can do that in 14-15 days. That is sort of our niche here.”
GOALS?
“We want to be in front of every licensed Realtor in the area. If they use us that’s great, if not that’s fine too. But, we want them to know we are here as an option. Long term plans include having someone in each of the major growing area of Florida.”
WHY SHOULD REALTORS SEND YOU BUSINESS?
“We want to match the right product to the customer,” said Snow. “What we try to do is find out what is the person’s ultimate goal with the loan. From the Realtors perspective, we are going to close it quickly, but also we are going to put a product in the client’s hands that makes that referral worth it. If it’s a good loan, they will remember that. If it’s a bad loan, they will remember that. We want to make sure that we put the right product in the clients hands.”
AVERAGE CLOSING TIME?
“Our average is 15-17 days,” said Snow. “We used to be 37 days at the old company. We do everything up to the closing documents right here.”
WHY CHOOSE ST. AUGUSTINE TO OPEN AN OFFICE?
“St. Johns County is the ninth fastest growing county,” said Tyson. “We wanted to make sure we could service from Jacksonville to Daytona. This area was pretty centralized.”
PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATIONS?
They are members of the St. Augustine/St. Johns County Board of Realtors and they are considering joining the Southwest Council.
HOW ARE REALTORS IMPORTANT TO YOU?
“Realtors are important because they drive about 90 percent of our purchase business,” said Tyson. “If you have a good relationship with the Realtors, they are part of our team. We feel we are a team member with them. If you have someone come in to look at a property and you aren’t sure if they are going to qualify, call us. We will meet you at the office with the client and let you know just how much they qualify for.”
SNOW’S HISTORY?
Snow has a degree in education from University of North Florida. He started his career in the sale of bank services for three years. The then spent three years selling medical supplies until he met up with Tyson. He worked with Tyson for seven or eight months before they opened their own company. He has been married to Margaret for three years and they live in Orange Park.
TYSON’S HISTORY?
Tyson went straight out of high school to work for Winn-Dixie. He got into their management trainee program and became a manager. He then went on to work at Harris Teeter as a manager before joining the mortgage business with 1st Mortgage Group. He got into the mortgage business part-time while still at Harris Teeter. Tyson has a girlfriend, Heather, and a dog, Bailey. He lives in St. Augustine.
- by Michele Newbern Gillis