Name: Mike Allen
Title: CEO
Company: Crown Mortgage Co.
Location: 6141 W. 95th Street in Oak Lawn
Company Type: Mortgage bank
Founded: September 1975
Web: www.crownmortgageco.com
Employees: 53
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My goal from Day 1 of starting Crown was to build the best mortgage company in the business.
I realized immediately that I had to control the entire mortgage process if I was going to guarantee world-class service. I also realized I needed to collect the house payments, and own the loans, if I was going to make sure clients were happy with the service after closing.
You can’t depend on someone else for the mortgage money if you are going to have satisfied clients who refer their friends and family.
I envisioned Crown as the Cadillac in a field of Yugos. Crown had to give instant approvals, accurate appraisals, flawless loan processing and quick, efficient closings.
I researched all the requirements to become a full-service mortgage bank. I made appointments with the presidents of three local banks to set up lines of credit to close my own loans. I made appointments with the head of FHA and VA to discuss getting direct loan approval. I met with the head of the Federal National Mortgage Association to get secondary market security and servicing approvals.
After six months of 18-hour days, six days a week, I had a list of what they all required if I was to become a mortgage bank. The next 18 months of 18-hour days were filled with classes and tests to become a principal broker of securities, an appraiser, a real estate broker, an FHA/VA/FNMA loan underwriter and qualified to issue mortgage-backed securities and collect loan payments. Now Crown could control the whole mortgage process and compete with the best.
The marketplace must have needed what I envisioned because, after a few more years of hard work, Crown had grown to become one of the area’s largest mortgage lenders.
Clients liked the fact that there is ownership at Crown. Someone is here who can solve their problems. Our competitors were companies from New York with payments in California, or from Wisconsin with toll-free numbers that were never answered. Crown continued to grow.
My wake-up call came as we lost market share to small mortgage brokers.
In a discussion with my wife, I said I couldn’t understand why people would work with someone who just collects their papers.
My wife said, “Look at their prices.”
It was a blinding flash of the obvious. Clients won’t pay for product or service that they don’t know is better. I had to inform customers of differences and to change Crown to consistently deliver extremely competitive prices.
A few of the differences: Crown is the lender–we actually give them the money and customers make their payments to Crown. Crown uses its own appraisal firm, it closes loans at the title company closest to the home and it collects payment directly from clients, so if there is a problem we are there to help.
The only way to do all this and still give the most competitive price was to reduce overhead while increasing volume. Ten offices were consolidated into one–with no layoffs, I’m proud to say.
Operating savings were put into marketing making sure current Crown clients understood Crown’s added value, which increased volume dramatically.
Systems and technology eliminated redundancy and inefficiencies and increased productivity.
Today Crown is a lean lending machine, delivering world-class service at the best price, and still never sells its loans.