PORTLAND, Ore. -- Unitus Community Credit Union Mortgage LendingManager Dawn McCarn reports that delinquencies there are very lowat less than .10% and just four loans were even late inOctober.
|"We're not experiencing a high amount of members seeking relieffrom subprime or resetting ARMs just yet, at lease in our area. Butwe'll try to do a work out loan for them and get them into a fixedrate if we possibly can. Then, we'll be sure to keep the loan inour portfolio," she added.
|Unitus does its mortgage marketing and lending through asubsidiary (not a CUSO, but a dba) called Unitus Mortgage. "Wedecided to brand our mortgage operation rather than promotemortgage lending from inside the credit union itself. We did that ayear ago and it's worked very well for us. Often, if you say'credit union' then realtors don't understand. Rather than havingto tell them all about credit unions as home lenders we justdecided to brand the mortgage operation separately. So far, it'shelped us to develop business with real estate agents," saidMcCarn. (See related story on ACUMA's booth at the NAR Convention& Expo, which is designed to counter real estate agents'unfamiliarity with credit unions.)
|Unitus has assets of $675 million and a total first mortgagebalance outstanding of $252,400,985 including held and soldloans.
|"Although we do our best to offer competitive mortgage products,we chose to not offer non-traditional mortgage products, such asoption ARMs," McCarn said. "We do, however, offer interest-onlyARMs, but the size of that portfolio is less than $2 million, whichequates to a very small percentage of our portfolio."
|For McCarn, that means Unitus is not in the subprime mortgagebusiness and the bulk of its mortgage loan portfolio is classifiedas low risk. "We are in a very stable market; Portland has notsuffered from significant home price declines, and although we willlikely see
|some depreciation over the next year or so, it will beinsignificant."
|McCarn said Unitus is having a great year. "Our production hasincreased 47% over 2006 production levels and I look forward tothat increasing even more as we get the word out that a creditunion is a great place to get a mortgage loan."
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