Williamston-based Timothy and Tracie Baise have taken the company they began in a tiny home office in 2002 and grown it into a 31-state mortgage and lending company with 340 employees.
They increased the revenue of their company, Top Flite Financial, by 146 percent grossing $7.4 million in 2008. Inc. Magazine took notice, and put the company on its 2009 “Top 500/5,000” list.
Top Flite ranked 2,156 overall, and number 89 in the financial services category.
“Top Flite never got into the garbage loans that afflicted some of the larger lenders,” says Tim Baise. So his company did not see the huge losses of others. More than 350 lending operations have imploded, he says.
Instead, in the last year, his company wrote 3,000 mortgages. He estimates revenue for this year at $10 million.
Yes, credit is tighter. A 620 credit score requirement is pretty universal now. But unlike others, Baise’s company works with applicants to show them ways to improve their credit scores so that maybe in 60 days they can qualify for a loan, he says.
Baise brings business acumen to the company he and Tracie started seven years ago. They moved to Williamston when he was Fitness USA’s Michigan manager.
He left there and they started the residential mortgage loan business in their 80-square-foot home office. When they were able to hire help, they expanded to the kitchen table, and then to the living room.
Now they have 22 employees in their downtown Williamston office and are begging the city to let them expand their space.
Source: Tim Baise, Top Flite Financial
Gretchen Cochran, Innovation & Jobs editor, may be reached here.
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