360 Mortgage Group: Delivering the “Gold Standard” of Responsible Lending to the New Mortgage Broker Community An Interview With Mark Greco, President of 360 Mortgage Group
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JANUARY 2013 v
OREGON MORTGAGE PROFESSIONAL MAGAZINE
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ark Greco is the president and founder of 360 Mortgage Group LLC, a privately-owned mortgage bank with a 100 percent focus on the wholesale mortgage lending channel. Based in Austin, Texas, 360 Mortgage was founded in August 2007 as a retail lender. However, Mark quickly realized the opportunity to enter the wholesale channel. In early 2010, 360 Mortgage made the strategic decision to exit the retail channel and committed all its resources to wholesale lending. Since that time, the company has successfully expanded its wholesale lending platform from coast to coast, most recently entering the Southeast Region of the U.S. 360 Mortgage is an approved Fannie Mae seller/servicer and GNMA issuer and is actively building a servicing portfolio, which will provide the Company with greater stability and financial growth opportunity. Today, 360 Mortgage is focused on delivering the “Gold Standard” in responsible lending through the new and improved mortgage broker community by delivering on its value propositions of consistent, competitive pricing, extensive product knowledge, and best-in-class technology and service. In addition, 360 Mortgage strongly believes that mortgage brokers are now well positioned and poised to regain market share. National Mortgage Professional recently sat down with Mark to get a progress briefing on the state of 360 Mortgage. Could you start by providing our readers with some background on 360 Mortgage and its operations? Mark: 360 Mortgage Group was originally founded in 2007 as a retail lender. In 2007, when the mortgage industry began collapsing, several big lenders pulled out of the third-party origination (TPO) segment of the industry. When we witnessed these companies abandoning the mortgage broker channel, we saw an opportunity for
360 Mortgage. With my background and years of experience as a loan originator, I felt I had a strong knowledge base of the mortgage broker community and was convinced that there were still many high quality brokers out there. Because of this, 360 Mortgage’s business model was modified to serve the mortgage broker market. In April 2008, while the majority of lenders were focusing on retail, we transitioned our business to focus 100 percent on the wholesale channel. This has allowed us to partner with some of the top mortgage brokers in the nation and serve them in what they do best – originating loans with a very high touch approach. How do you define the “Gold Standard” in responsible lending? Mark: Lending criteria is based on three major elements: a borrower’s ability to repay a loan, a borrower’s willingness to repay a loan, and the collateral that backs a loan. The most important aspect is the repayment of a loan. Going through a downturn, can really test the theory of who can pay a loan and who will pay a loan. The borrowers that have been able to maintain their payments during times of adversity are the borrowers that we are looking to work with. HARP 2.0 has opened the doors to many of those borrowers. The “Gold Standard” of mortgage lending is a loan that performs. Our entire company and process is based on delivering this “Gold Standard” to all stakeholders throughout the lending value chain. It takes the right borrowers, the right brokers, and
the right wholesaler working together to deliver the “Gold Standard.” Can you walk us through 360 Mortgage’s business model? Mark: A significant part of our business model is focused on identifying quality mortgage brokers. The industry as a whole has gone through a purging over the last six years. By and large, the majority of lending professionals that are still in this industry today are high quality mortgage professionals with significant experience. Our model is to partner with those professionals, to serve an underserved sector of the lending industry—the mortgage broker— and to make sure we work with the highest quality professionals in the wholesale channel. 360 Mortgage’s objective is to enable mortgage brokers to operate efficiently within a model based on service, speed and sustainability. We can deliver on these value propositions because we have a complete understanding of the mortgage business and how to execute in secondary marketing, risk management, communication, and marketing. Who are some key members of the senior team, and what attributes and experience do they bring to the company? Mark: 360 Mortgage has put together an impressive senior team of mortgage professionals and individuals of character. This team is an extremely collaborative team and has worked tirelessly to build 360 Mortgage into a growing company with a reputation of service and integrity.
For background, I ran a retail mortgage banking operation for about 15 years. This role not only gave me significant mortgage experience, but also made me very empathetic towards the challenges that mortgage brokers and originators face every day in our industry. The industry is more challenging than ever, and it takes people who are very knowledgeable and insightful to perform well. I founded 360 Mortgage in 2007, and I have served as president throughout that time. Andrew WeissMalik, our chief operating officer, has been in the industry for 12 years. Andrew handles all of our capital markets and the technology development. He has facilitated the efficiencies that we bring to the industry and to our customers. Andrew is recognized as an industry leader in mortgage-technology innovation and he utilizes his past experience in capital markets, mortgage-product development, and efficient operations to enhance the lending value chain at 360 Mortgage. Using Andrew’s technology, we believe 360 Mortgage Group employs the most advanced wholesale origination and operations platform in the industry. Al Crisanty, who joined us about a year ago, is our vice president of national wholesale production. Al was formerly the EVP of national production at American Brokers Conduit. When Al joined American Brokers Conduit, they had a very small wholesale presence, and Al was a major reason ABC grew it to one of the largest wholesale lenders in the nation. What lines of business is 360 Mortgage focused on today? Mark: 360 Mortgage is 100 percent focused on the wholesale channel. We exited the retail channel in January 2011 when many other lenders were entering this channel. This strategy was consistent with the contrarian’s approach that we have implemented since first opening our doors. The wholesale channel allows us to expand without overextending ourselves. Coupled with the fact that the wholesale channel is continued on page 53