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Huron Valley Financial got its start selling mortgages to people in Washtenaw County in the mid 1990s. Today it's doing the same across the country and offering a whole lot more as it grows at its fastest clip to date.

"We have had some of our best months ever in 2015," says Casey Daniels, vice president of business development for Huron Valley Financial.

The Ann Arbor-based company can now sell mortgages in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Tennessee, California, Florida, Texas, Georgia and North Carolina. It is also in the process of getting approval to sell mortgages in South Carolina. To accommodate that growth the firm has hired 18 people in sales and operations over the last year and is looking to hire another six now. It currently has a staff of 90 people.

The bigger staff and geographic footprint helps with Huron Valley Financial's growth. But its biggest gains are coming from its larger portfolio of services it can offer. Huron Valley Financial has been approved to service loans (a function it formerly had to outsource to larger financial institutions) and sell loans to Fannie Mae.

"Us getting our Fannie Mae approval was pretty big," Daniels says. "It allows us to streamline a lot of our processes."

Huron Valley Financial also launched a wholesale division earlier this month. It can now sell its mortgages and other lending products, like construction loans, to community banks and credit unions. The mortgage lender is also planning to further broaden its product portfolio, but Daniels declined to elaborate on those plans.

"We are always looking at additional products to add," Daniels says.

Source: Casey Daniels, vice president of business development for Huron Valley Financial
Writer: Jon Zemke

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