A California credit union is taking an old-fashioned, personal approach to lending by opening a branch dedicated to mortgages near San Jose, the mecca of high tech and one of the nation's hottest housing markets.

Golden 1 Credit Union in Sacramento, Calif. ($11.9 billion in assets, 942,809 members) announced May 22 the opening of its first location dedicated to home loans.

Advisors at the Home Loans Center in the San Jose suburb of Campbell will help members with the entire mortgage, refinance or home equity loan process. The home loan advisors will connect borrowers with real estate agents who specialize in the local market and offer Golden 1's Buyer Advantage program, which provides a discount on closing costs.

Michael Popp, vice president for home loans, said Golden 1 began planning about three years ago how to expand its real estate lending beyond the Central Valley into the San Francisco Bay area and southern California. The team of eight mortgage originators in the 2,100-square-foot San Jose office are the vanguard of a plan that is premised on the experiences of lenders that have shown buying a home often involves untangling unexpected problems, with more decision branches than any software can navigate.

And Popp said no group is more aware of the limitations of technology than those who design and use it most heavily.

“I can see the perception that, 'Wait a minute, you're in tech land, don't people just want to just think about getting a loan and have it magically show up in their account?' But we found that even tech-savvy customers love to sit down with a loan officer on a major transaction like the purchase of a home,” Popp said.

Online programs are efficient for refinancing, and for those who are both tech savvy and experienced home buyers, Popp said.

“We found that first-time homebuyers—which is usually the techy people, the millennials who love their computers, tablets and phones—they get very nervous with that. They want to look someone in the eye, and ask every question they have, and a lot of times you can't ask every question through a computer.”

The center is in Santa Clara County, the heart of the Silicon Valley, and home to 13,570 Golden 1 members. In Santa Clara County, the Census Bureau found that in 2016:

The median value of owner-occupied houses was $752,400, compared with $184,700 nationally.
The median cost of rent plus utilities was $1,813, compared with $949 nationally.
Median household income was $101,173, compared with $55,322 nationally.
Fifty-seven percent of households were homeowners, compared with 64% nationally.
Forty-nine percent of those age 25 or older had at least a bachelor's degree, compared with 30% nationally.
Of its 1.9 million people, 9.3% were living in poverty, compared with 12.7% nationally.

Golden 1 is the nation's sixth-largest credit union based on total assets in March. Among the Top 10, it was also among the six that had declines in first-quarter real estate originations as the volume of refinancing wanes.

Golden 1's real estate originations for the three months ending March 31 were $202.9 million, 6.8% less than during the first quarter of 2017. Other originations fell 6.1% $757 million.

However, Popp said the first-quarter comparisons include the last gasps of the refinance surge that closed in early 2017. Since March first-lien originations have been rising, and he expects originations for the full 12 months of 2018 will be $700 million to $800 million, up from $650 million in 2017.

Golden 1 ended the first quarter with $2.6 billion in first-lien mortgages on its books, up 0.4% from a year earlier, while home equity lines of credit and other second liens grew 10.1% to $362.8 million.

Callahan & Associates estimated that credit unions originated $30.6 billion in first-lien mortgages during the first quarter, down 2% from a year ago. However, the credit union share of U.S. mortgage originations rose to 8.9%, up from 8.6% a year ago and 7% five years ago.

Instant Insights /

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