The $3.5 billion Lake Michigan Credit Union is working onopening a mortgage lending office near Naples, Fla., according toone of the cooperative's mortgage executives.

Eric Burgoon, SVP for mortgage lending at Lake Michigan in GrandRapids, Mich., said a significant number of members had movedto Florida either full or part time. They started asking if thecredit union had mortgage originators who could help them finance aFlorida purchase.

“Some of them certainly could be snow birds,” Burgoonsaid. “But others also might be people who moved to Floridato pursue economic opportunity.”

Lake Michigan had already gained some experience in mortgagelending outside its home state when it opened a mortgage office inthe greater Detroit area last year, according to Burgoon. TheFlorida office will be an extension of the same type of effort, headded.

Burgoon said Lake Michigan was also prompted to make the move bythe low numbers of other credit unions making mortgage loans in thesouthwestern region of the Sunshine State.

“We ran market reports and saw that the ten top mortgagelenders in that part of Florida are all banks,” he said.

One credit union in the top 20 mortgage lenders in the area inquestion had almost exclusively refinanced existing loans whereasLake Michigan's expertise lied more in purchase money lending, henoted.

Lake Michigan was of the top three credit unions in the countryfor originating loans to lower and moderate income borrowers in 2013,according to HMDA data

The 243,000-member, Grand Rapids, Mich.-based, credit unionserves the state's entire lower peninsula as well as peoplewho support the Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Association ofMichigan.