Bucking the mortgage tide
Amid the nationwide credit crunch, Manhattan-based mortgage banker and brokerage Guardhill Financial Corp. is expanding its New Canaan offices and planning to open two new offices in Greenwich and Westport.
The company is also seeking to open at least one office in Westchester County, said CEO Alan Rosenbaum.
The company, founded in 1993, had opened offices in locales across the country over the years but didn”™t expand into the northern New York suburbs until opening the New Canaan office earlier this year.
“We were already in places like Boston, Palm Beach, Beverly Hills,” said Rosenbaum. “We thought, ”˜Why go to Chicago ”“ we can do business in Fairfield County, Westchester County or Bergen County (N.J).”
He said for many years, Guardhill did not expand to these areas because the company thought it could generate the suburban business from its New York City-based office.
“But there”™s a lot of loan officers who would rather work out of suburbia than New York City,” he said. “It depends on where there is talent and demand.”
Rosenbaum said Guardhill has established relationships with more than 100 investors and lending institutions.
One reason that the New Canaan office has prospered, he said, is because “banks aren”™t lending” unless it”™s to customers with top credit ratings.
“(Fairfield) is a very affluent marketplace, we bring the top A-plus customers (in terms of credit rating),” he said. “Good credit is key in this current time.”
In fact, Rosenbaum said Guardhill had its best quarter in five years, a major reason why it is opening two more offices in Fairfield County.
Further, Rosenbaum said breadth of talent to recruit from in Fairfield and Westchester counties also makes them ideal locations for Guardhill.
“There are many mortgage professionals in the Fairfield County marketplace,” he said.
Though there is no timetable, Rosenbaum said the company will likely be opening an office in Westchester County in the near future. He has no specific location currently in mind, but the company would probably look at the middle or southern part of the county.
“The market is very strong here,” he said.
Rosenbaum said Guardhill seeks to carve out a niche by providing a “service-oriented advisory role you would find with private banking services” with wholesale mortgage rates.
“Even with this credit crisis, we”™ve done pretty well,” he said.
According to company literature, Guardhill”™s average loan size is $1 million and it has approximately $2 billion annually in mortgage originations.