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Special Reports
Recruiting & Training:
Renaissance Professionals
First Magnus Aims to Be the Best of Both Worlds
By Bonnie Sinnock
TUCSON, AZ -- First Magnus here has been looking to recruit mortgage originators
based on its ability to offer the kind of resources associated with large, publicly traded companies in combination
with the flexibility more frequently seen at small private companies, chief operating officer Karl Young said.
The privately owned company - which was ranked as the 18th largest wholesaler
in the second quarter by the Washington-based statistical affiliate of this publication and which Mr. Young said
has been transitioning to a large, custom-built headquarters to accommodate its growing staff - appears to be having
some success with its origination business strategy.
That success is further magnified if one removes lenders that specialize in niche
products from the list of the top 20 lenders and looks at the company's progress in the context of those that are
"true national lenders with broad product offerings," Mr. Young said.
"Really there [are] 10 national leaders in that arena and we're one of those.
The other nine are ... household names ... gigantic, publicly traded conglomerates. We're competing with all of
[them] but we're a privately held company and we again have only been around for eight years," he said.
"We run this company very much like a small company. Clearly we're not [a
small company] but that's a big part of our culture and a big part of First Magnus' personality within our operations,"
Mr. Young said.
"The way we look at it is we want to find the very best people out there
and just support them in every way we can to help them be as successful as they can in their marketplace,"
he said.
Among ways that First Magnus supports the originators it works with - be they
loan brokers on the wholesale side, or affiliate or corporate branches on the retail side - is through technology,
Mr. Young said.
Automation has been "a big part" of what has allowed the company to
grow from a small regional operation with 10 employees to a business with a nationwide presence and a few thousand
staff members over the past eight years, he said.
"Technology is a core competency at First Magnus," said Dominick Marchetti,
chief technology officer and one of 10 people who have been with the company since its inception.
"We design systems that [are] really focused on productivity of our staff
[and provide] efficiency for our staff. ... We've actually created all of our systems internally ... all the intellectual
property that's been created as a result of generating these systems has been retained in-house," he said.
Because the company is relatively young and retains in-house technology staff
that can constantly improve and update its automation as it goes along, it has not ended up with the kinds of "legacy
system" issues some older companies with outdated technology have, Mr. Marchetti said.
"We've hired the best software people we can possibly get our hands on. We
join them with our staff that we believe are the best mortgage professionals in the industry that have lots of
experience. We put them together to come up with a system that will benefit us by making the lives of 3,500 [employees],
as well as our 10,000 brokers much more efficient," he said.
The technology, as well as both fiscal and organizational involvement with the
National Association of Mortgage Brokers at the national, state and local levels - the company was NAMB's "affiliate
company of the year" in 2003 - has been among the forms of support the company provides to brokers, said Gary
Baraff, director of business development.
Mr. Baraff and Brandi Shoemaker, corporate training manager, said that among the
aspects of the company's technology that have proved particularly attractive to brokers are the following:
- First Magnus' Product Finder, which matches borrower criteria with potential
loan products and is "completely integrated" with the company's other mortgage processing website functions.
- Pipeline reports, which include loan status notifications sent to brokers as
the loan moves through the various stages of processing.
- Automatic, three-day lock expiration notification sent to brokers as part of
the pipeline reports.
- Real-time information that helps ensure all users viewing the data are both literally
and figuratively on the same webpage.
First Magnus makes technology training available to brokers in various ways. Generally
the company trains its wholesale account executives to use the automation and in turn makes them available to brokers
as trainers.
A Web-based demonstration of First Magnus origination technology conducted by
a staff member takes a minimum of about a half hour to review, although Ms. Shoemaker advises trainees to set aside
at least an hour in case they have questions or there are technical issues to work out.
Training can be "self-paced" through a Web-based application as well
as done in conjunction with a staff member, she said.
First Magnus also provides other kinds of training in support of its brokers.
These include seminars with underwriters on Federal Housing Administration loan issues and business development
education covering topics such as how to reach first-time buyers and building relationships with Realtors, Mr.
Baraff said.
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