by Michele Newbern Gillis
Staff Writer
When you enter Capital Hill Mortgage’s office you are greeted with large comfy couches, ocean scenes, candles and plants - making you feel immediately at home.
Which is exactly what the Hill family wants their customers to feel when they decided to open their own mortgage brokerage business.
“Our approach to customer service and our theme centered around a small family-owned and operated business where customers would come in and feel like they were being made members of the family,” said Arthur. “They could sit on the couch and enjoy a cold drink while we got the paperwork ready.”
The family consists of Arthur Hill, licensed mortgage broker and president; his wife Cathy, vice president and receptionist; son Erik Hill, licensed mortgage broker and executive vice president of sales and marketing; his wife Christie, vice president and loan processor; and Dave Duncan, licensed mortgage broker opened the company two months ago to handle residential, conventional and VA loans.
If they get a request for a commercial loan, they have an outlet to refer them to. Erik said he would like the company to get into commercial loans in the future.
Being a close-knit family helps also as they gather each Sunday for church at Ft. Caroline Baptist as well as afterwards for pool parties at Erik’s home.
“We have never worked together before but we all get along very well,” said Arthur. “We are a very close family. We spend a lot of time together in the office and outside of the office, so we know each other pretty well.
“I think we also respect what each other’s expertise is. When Erik tells me to do something on the origination side, I don’t worry that my son is telling me what to do. He knows what he is doing. He’s got a good reputation and a lot of credibility in the industry for getting things done on that side. He knows that I know what I am doing when it comes to budgets, accounting, general ledgers and operational aspects of running an office.”
Their office is located at 3545 St. Johns Bluff Road and is very visible to the traffic in the area.
“We wanted to be in an area where we thought all the building would continue to occur,” said Arthur. “We were looking primarily in the Southside, St. Johns Bluff area and found this space. This was occupied by a certified public accountant that was moving around to the back of the building. We looked at it and it was exactly what we were looking for. It had good exposure on the street and a good location.
“It’s also right in between where Erik lives near Hidden Hills and we live in Mandarin. Once 9-A was finished, it would be like 10 minutes to work.”
Though they have never worked together before, they have talked about it for a long time.
When Arthur was downsized from Fidelity Information Services at the end of 2003, he and Erik sat down and starting coming up with a plan of action.
“I have 33 years experience as a mortgage servicing manager and a commercial loan operations manager,” said Arthur. “Erik has six years experience originating loans in the Jacksonville area. What we decided to do is to combine our expertise and have a well-rounded operation. Instead of him running the operation, he could be out doing the marketing, which needs to be done in order to get loan applicants to come in. And I could be here primarily running the operations and supporting the efforts he puts out there and his loan officers to originate loans.”
In addition to the backgrounds of Arthur and Erik, Christie has 30 years experience in processing and Arthur’s wife has 30 years experience in office administration. Duncan worked for Arthur at Fidelity and was downsized a few years before Arthur.
“He wanted to stay in banking so he got his mortgage broker’s license and has been originating loans for a couple of years at various companies,” said Arthur. “When Erik and I decided to form this company, I asked him if he wanted to join us as a loan officer.”
Even though the company is mostly relatives at this point, they are planning on adding more people to office. Arthur said they are interviewing to add four more loan officers to join the company.
Starting a new company is scary business, but since Erik previously had owned his own company, Tropical Mortgage of North Florida, he brought a lot of business with him.
“We go out to Realtors and builders and try to get them to send us their business,” said Arthur. “Erik has built a nice active pipeline over the years, so he gets a lot of referrals.”
Since the Jacksonville market is so saturated with mortgage brokers, Arthur said they are concentrating on the areas lying just outside of Jacksonville such as Palm Coast, Palatka, Spring Hill, Yulee and Callahan.
He said it is very hard to go into a Realtor’s office and ask for business when so many already have preferred lenders.
“We want to become a preferred lender for some of them,” said Arthur. “We started with the approach of ‘Give us your fallout. Give us a chance on something you can’t get done. Watch what we do and you will send us more business.’ For a new company we are doing fairly well. We closed $1 million in loans our first month.”
They have become involved in the Northeast Florida Builder’s Association’s Sales and Marketing Council meetings, Mortgage Bankers Association and Mortgage Broker’s Association meetings, Northeast Florida Association of Realtors and the Better Business Bureau.
Arthur is the vice president and treasurer of the Mortgage Bankers Association of Jacksonville and will be president next year.
The name of the company came from someone Arthur worked with at his previous job.
“She came up with it and it sounded right, so we took it right away,” he said.
They have a patriotic theme.
“We’ve passed out a lot of little American flags and flag pins and our flyers have flags on them,” said Erik.
Also, at closing, they have been presenting the buyers with a real American flag and flagpole that they can set up at their new house.
The company will be holding a grand opening on Oct. 6 at their office from 4-7 p.m. The company website is www.chmi.web-loans.com.