Craig Brown celebrating 25 years of doing business in Rancho Bernardo

Question:   You started Rancho Financial in 1984. What are some of the biggest changes or developments you’ve seen in your industry?

Craig Brown

Answer: One thing has not changed in 25 years. Customer Service is the key to success in our industry.

The tools that we use to provide that customer service have changed dramatically.

In 1984, when I first started Rancho Financial, my most important pieces of equipment were the selectric typewriter and the copy machine. We had to hand type each loan application and we couldn’t make mistakes because “white out” was not allowed. We created advertising posters by cutting and pasting and making copies.

It’s hard to believe that just 25 years ago, there was no e-mail, no computers, and no cell phones. We didn’t even have fax machines.

In the beginning, I would complete a loan application, get in my car and rush it to its destination. Now all of that is done electronically.

The biggest benefit of the revolutionary technological changes is the increased time available to spend working with customers to help them organize their thinking and prioritize their needs.

Question: Aside from the current economic turmoil, what were some other challenging times in your history, and how did you meet those challenges.

Answer: The wholesale mortgage industry was birthed in the mid-eighties, just about the time I started Rancho Financial.  In the first few years, in the mid-eighties to the early nineties, business got better and better. There was expansion and liberal lending until real estate hit a trough around 1992 and 1993.

But our business is cyclical, and it recovered from that period, and beginning in 2000 went into a prolonged five-year expansion to be followed by the current steep contraction we all have been experiencing.

To succeed, you have to keep your powder dry and know in good times that they won’t be forever. You have to save for that down time. And, in those down times, you have to be confident that there will be a rebound.

Managed prudently, Southern California real estate will always be a good investment.

Question: What are some of the biggest misconceptions about your industry? And what should consumers know?

Answer: Most people simply don’t understand the complexity of this business.

Most everyone knows that it is no longer possible to go to a bank, talk to someone you know, get a loan approved, and have that loan be held by the same bank until a mortgage burning party 30 years later.

Today that friendly banker has been replaced by a variety of mortgage investors who have changing products and loan guidelines in a volatile market.

To most of my customers, I am that ‘go-to’ guy who is the personal face of the process, but in reality I work with a wide range of partners in customizing  the best situation for each client and then placing the loan with the best funder with the most attractive rate available at any given time.

Every day, every customer and every solution is different.

Question: What are the three most important qualities for a loan officer to have?

Answer: An ethical pedigree, personal chemistry, and access to a ’soup-to-nuts’ diversity of financial products.

Question: How has Rancho Financial Mortgage elevated what many consumers regard as a commodity – mortgage lending – into a more value-based service offering?

Answer: The hallmark of Rancho Financial is our ability to help our customers navigate their mortgage planning. That is now as essential as financial planning has always been.

There is a lot more to our service than simply selling a loan.

Up until two years ago many people were looking for short term financing because the times were so dynamic and values were rapidly rising. But now people are reducing their expectations and looking at longer horizons because the market is far more sobering.

In good times and in not so good, people tend to forget the cyclical nature of the business, and a professional is a good counselor to help make rational, not just emotional, decisions.

Question: How do you explain your firm’s continued success when so many others in your industry have been failing?

Answer: We have been a ‘right-sized’ company. In the good times, we did not overextend and try to become a multiple branch network. I never wanted to be the biggest company. And, in 2008, what some would say was a counter-intuitive decision, we expanded so that we could maintain a level of production that is critical to our success. Our plan is to have a sustainable company that can successfully accommodate our industry’s predictable contractions and expansions.

Question: Looking back what would you change?

Answer: Well, one thing I certainly wouldn’t change is the decision to locate the firm in Rancho Bernardo. The community is a ‘village-like’ environment. Whatever you do, and however you do it, everyone knows. Good work is recognized and rewarded. It was a great and fortuitous choice.

Tags: craig brown, Rancho Bernardo, RB Business, SDNN

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