A Conversation with Mary Beth Gillis, Midland Mortgage

By Alan Cooper

 

The incredible story behind Midland Mortgage, a woman-owned company that has been in business for 34 years.  All said and done, Mary Beth Gillis has been in the mortgage business for 47 years and it has all been within an eight block radius in downtown Columbia. The company has now expanded to Camden, Spartanburg, Greenville and Charleston.  The key to success: “I love helping people make the dream of home ownership a reality. It’s that simple.”

 

MidlandsBiz:
What is your education?

Mary Beth Gillis:
I have a high school education. I had a few months at college, but I really didn’t care for it. If I was going to be doing so much work, I felt that I might as well be getting paid for it. I had always wanted to be in a care giving role, so I applied for a job at the State Hospital.  They wanted me to do a blood test at the hospital and I was terrified of needles.  The same day, I had an interview across the street at a mortgage company. They didn’t require the blood test, so I took the job with the mortgage company.

MidlandsBiz:
Talk about those early years in the mortgage business.

Mary Beth Gillis:
In 1969, I went to work at Cameron Brown as the receptionist and I quickly fell in love with the mortgage business.

Back then, there were mortgage companies and savings and loans.  Cameron Brown was a mortgage company, not owned by a bank.  Savings and loans loaned money out of their own portfolio and did mostly conventional loans.  A mortgage company generally sold Freddie and Fanny loans, making a loan and passing it through to larger investors.  Cameron Brown was doing mostly Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loans, which are mortgages issued by qualified lenders and insured by the FHA.  FHA loans are designed for low-to-moderate income borrowers who are unable to make a large down payment.  We also did VA loans, loans guaranteed by the Department of Veteran Affairs.

What appealed to me about the business was that I really felt that I was helping people fulfill their dream of owning a home.

Back then, the average loan amount was $18,000 and a jumbo loan with the government was $30,000.

Remember, this was the late 1960’s and women were not allowed to be loan officers.  We were supposed to be the secretaries, take dictation, and get the coffee.  I remember campaigning within the company for the right for women to wear pants at work.  When a making a loan, the women had to sign a sworn statement that they would not have a baby within the first year of the loan, otherwise, we were not allowed to count their income in putting together the loan.  Women have come a long way from that time.

I stayed with Cameron Brown for seven years, then I went to Mortgage Corp of the South for two years, then to Chemical Bank of New York for four years.

I have now been in the mortgage business for 47 years and it has all been within an eight block radius in downtown Columbia, SC.

MidlandsBiz:
When did you decide to start your own business?

Mary Beth Gillis:
I was the manager of Chemical Bank’s mortgage department when interest rates hit 18% in the early 1980s.  The bank sent telegrams to everyone telling us that they were going to shut down the mortgage operation.  Not having a college degree, I knew that banks were not going to hire me to be a loan officer.  I had some friends in the real estate business in Columbia who encouraged me to open up my own business. Two attorneys in Columbia offered me an office on the condition that as soon as I could afford to pay them rent, I would. That was in 1982.

I started making loans and after a short while, decided to hire my first employee.  The woman I was looking to hire told me that she would only be able to commit to six months. I told her that was fine because… I honestly didn’t think that I would last that long. I was just excited to be in a business that I loved and my early goal was simple.  Make enough money to make my car and house payments.

In 1983, I approached Jim McCall at Bank of America about getting a ‘warehouse’ line of credit so that I could close my own loans.  And that is how I started – with a $300,000 line of credit.

I worked hard. I arrived at work every morning at 7:00 am and worked straight through to midnight, seven days a week. I figured – if you have an opportunity, you have to run with it.

There were ten mortgage companies in Columbia at the time.  There was a survey done every month about who closed the most loans. We reached number one on that list.

MidlandsBiz:
What is your core business?

Mary Beth Gillis:
We are home loan experts; we help people purchase a home. We also do construction to permanent loans where people borrow money to build on their own land or buy a lot with a goal of building their own home.  We offer a good service and a competitive interest rate.

The biggest advantage that Midland Mortgage offers is the ability to come in, sit down, talk to an experienced loan officer, and get your questions answered.

MidlandsBiz:
What happened in the years leading up to 2008?

Mary Beth Gillis:
A lot of people got into the mortgage business for the money and didn’t understand the background of what it was supposed to be.  It was like the wild west for about four years.  People were doing ‘stated income’ loans.  Borrowers would tell you what they earned and that is what went onto the mortgage application. If your loan got rejected because they told you that you needed $4,000 a month to qualify, you could just walk across the street and tell the next place that you earned $4,000 a month. Brokers didn’t have to be licensed.  Unless you did government loans, there was nobody auditing you at all.  It was crazy.  Lenders justified the loans by claiming that it was the underlying property that mattered, not the person’s income.  If you can foreclose and get the property back, who cares?

MidlandsBiz:
What is the difference between a mortgage broker, a mortgage company and a bank?

Mary Beth Gillis:
There are several levels of mortgage companies.  You have mortgage brokers.  They have no assets, no back room capabilities (underwriting, processing, closing).  They have no obligation if the loan goes bad.

Then you have mortgage bankers (like us here at Midland Mortgage).  We are not a bank and we are not owned by a bank.  When something goes wrong with a loan that I sell, I have an obligation to repurchase it, therefore, the quality of our loans should be better than a broker’s loans.

Then you have the banks.

MidlandsBiz:
How did the 2008 financial crisis impact your business?

Mary Beth Gillis:
The fallout of the financial crisis was obviously the Dodd Frank Act.  We have had to put systems in place to make sure that our loans are in compliance with the law. It has been an adjustment, but It has improved the quality of loans.

After 34 years of owning a business, there isn’t a whole lot that shocks me anymore.  I built my company to survive the bad times.

MidlandsBiz:
Talk about the future.

Mary Beth Gillis:
We do mostly purchase of homes, but we also represent credit unions in a number of different states where we do their back room and processing for them.  We also specialize in bankruptcy cases in different states where people who have filed bankruptcy can purchase a home again.  That line of business has expanded.

We have about 60 employees now.  We have expanded into several new markets over the past couple of years and we now have offices in Camden, Charleston, Greenville, and Spartanburg.  We are getting ready to open an office in Northeast Columbia.  We are licensed in eight states now so we have a lot of room to grow.  We don’t just pick a territory and decide to open an office.  We look for opportunities to partner with the right people who will fit into the culture of our office.

You have to be a sales person to work for Midland Mortgage.  You have to understand the programs and go out and generate your own leads. We earn a living by who walks through the door every day.

MidlandsBiz:
What advice would you offer to home buyers heading in to 2017?

Mary Beth Gillis:
The first thing you need to do is get pre-qualified.  Once you are pre-qualified, don’t go and make any major new purchases like a new car or furniture for the new house because that will negatively affect your credit score. You have to run a credit report at the day of closing and a lot of loans fall through because someone has gone and bought something.  We often work for customers for six months so that we can get them qualified for a loan.

Second, go with a reputable company that will get you to the closing table with the rate you were promised.  If you are going to build a house and it is going to take six months, make sure that the rate that you were quoted on the front-end will be the rate that you receive at the back-end.  Don’t go with the cheapest company.

MidlandsBiz:
What is your favorite business book?

Mary Beth Gillis:
I am a voracious reader, but I don’t read business books; I read historical fiction. When I read something, I want to be entertained and get my mind off of business.

MidlandsBiz:
What are you most proud of?

Mary Beth Gillis:
We have been locally owned and operated for 34 years. Some of our new applicants for loans are the grandchildren of the people that we loaned money to 34 years ago.  That makes me very proud.  Nothing thrills me more than seeing someone walk through our doors and say that they want to get a home loan.  Appointment, or no appointment, it doesn’t matter.

I don’t see myself as an executive or important business owner.  I see myself as a support person for all the wonderful people I have working for me at Midland Mortgage.

MidlandsBiz:
What advice would you have for young entrepreneurs?

Mary Beth Gillis:
My dad told me that I needed three things in order to be successful in business.  I have lived by that ever since.  1) You need to know your business. You need to know what you are doing. 2) be honest with everybody, and 3) work hard.  Those are the three things that I live by.

You have to have heart; that’s my whole philosophy.  You have to care about people and what happens to them.  You have to love helping people.  I love helping people make the dream of home ownership a reality.  It’s that simple.

 

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