Certified Mortgage Solutions, which brokered mortgages in Grand Junction since 2002, now is LeaderOne Financial.
The change runs deeper than a new name, said Kyle Barnard, branch manager for LeaderOne.
“It’s a lateral move to conform with the times,” Barnard said as he watched Chris Walter install a new sign over his front door at 2478 Patterson Road.
At the heart of the change is way the financial world is beginning to shake out of the collapse of financial giants such as Lehman Brothers a year ago.
Certified Mortgage Solutions was a wholesale mortgage broker that worked with a variety of lenders, but that business model is quickly fading away, Barnard said, gesturing to computer screen set to ml-implode.com, and the front-page display declaring that 361 major lending institutions have “imploded” since late 2006.
Colorado has seen several mortgage brokers disappear, largely as the result of efforts by the Department of Regulatory Agencies to require brokers to post bonds and meet other regulatory mandates, Barnard said.
“We’ve seen people who were wholesale brokers get out of the business” for financial and regulatory reasons as Colorado has gone from one of least regulated states to one of the most, Barnard said.
“We’ve had a lot of used-car salesmen in this industry,” Barnard said.
CMS has not run afoul of state or federal regulators and never processed “pulse and a pay-stub” based loans, Barnard said.
As the number of lenders has shrunk, though, it makes sense to work with a single lender, Barnard said.
As a stand-alone broker, “You get a lot of sleepless nights,” Barnard said.
The Certified Mortgage Solutions group in Colorado Springs, Grand Junction and Gunnison, as well as previously unaffiliated Monarch Ridge Mortgage in Clifton, opted to join with LeaderOne Financial.
LeaderOne, based in Kansas City, was founded 1992 by A.W.Pickel, a former president of the National Association of Mortgage Brokers.
With LeaderOne, Barnard said he hopes to offer a paperless system to homebuyers that will be quicker and more efficient, Barnard said.
“It’s the new reality in lending,” he said.
Email GARY HARMON
