Mortgage firm extends reach into New Jersey

In the financial services sector, the downside of a business cycle can be an opportune time for a smaller player to expand.

Competitors are scaling back. Experienced managers and salespeople are on the move.

David Wind, CEO of White Plains, N.Y.-based Guaranteed Home Mortgage, recently seized upon such an opportunity.

After Ameriquest Mortgage Co. closed all of its 289 retail sales offices in May, including 14 in New Jersey, 3,800 employees were out of a job, including more than 200 in New Jersey.

Wind hired 10 of them to establish a branch in Ramsey.

"Guaranteed doesn't normally choose a location, we usually choose a staff," Wind said Wednesday during an interview in the Ramsey office, which opened last month. "We're very peoplecentric."

Branch manager Michael Blasius of Ramsey, a former regional manager for Ameriquest, chose the location because it's close to his home. He picked an office park on Lake Street, next to Commerce Bank's North Jersey headquarters. Rent is "on the high side," Blasius said, "but it's where we want to be."

Guaranteed Home Mortgage, a New York State registered mortgage banker, makes loans from 63 locations in 27 states, according to Wind. It makes its profits from loan fees and from the sale of loans to investors, including banks.

In New Jersey, the company has had a sales office for years in Ocean County. It now employs more than 100 people and has contracts with 300 independent sales agents companywide, Wind said.

Wind says he also has relationships with 132 private investors in the secondary market, and they have different purchasing standards, allowing him to offer many types of mortgages to customers with good or bad credit.

Since the business started in 1999, "we've never not been profitable," he said, adding that revenue last year was around $20 million.

Wind does not sell loans to government-sponsored agencies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the nation's largest buyers of residential mortgages. The private secondary market is "more accommodating," he said, allowing him the flexibility to approve more loans.

The company uses cold calling, direct mail, open houses and radio and TV ads to lure new business. It also visits financial planners who provide referrals. It allocates between 10 percent and 15 percent of its operating budget to advertising.

Amid rising interest rates, refinancing activity has slowed nationwide, and demand has shifted from variable-rate to fixed-rate loans. "There are a lot of folks in loans that need to get out of them," Wind said.

"We believe New Jersey has an excellent business environment," he added. "Real estate values seem to be stabilizing and that will give us a more healthy and sustainable growth rate."

Wind, who is a lawyer, started the business in 1999 in Manhattan. After the Sept. 11 attacks he moved to White Plains, where he now has nearly 6,000 square feet of space in two offices and 22 full-time employees.

He has plans to add offices in Iselin and Parsippany.