#1 Box Home Loans

   Call them square, but Lindon-based Box Home Loans, a division of Republic Mortgage Home Loans, doesn’t think outside the box. For this fastest-growing company in Utah Valley, it’s all about what’s inside — and they’ve proven good things come in small packages. In 2006, mortgage companies across the country were belting, “No money down!” and “Bad credit? Who Cares!” But Aaron Brown and his business partner, Jeff Reeves, put a lid on it. Their mortgage lending company would buck the trends and lend exclusively to those who fit “inside” their box — those with great credit. “Our goal,” Brown says, “was to make this traditional, vanilla ice cream loan sexy to people with great credit.” When the mortgage industry collapsed a year later — and that vanilla ice cream loan was among the only survivors — being boxed in never looked so good.

In early 2006 we looked at the market. At that point all the rage was alternative lending — interest-only ARMs, no money down — all the wacko things that led to the mortgage collapse. And we thought, “Why don’t we create a company that goes in a whole different direction? Instead of lending to everyone, why don’t we lend to the cream of the crop and reward those people who have great credit?” Loans for the perfect borrower.

We’d do one kind of loan over and over — the vanilla ice cream fixed rate loan. In so doing, we could create the kind of efficiencies that would allow us to make money on ridiculously low margins — and those low margins would be passed on to the consumer in terms of lower rates and fees. 

We launched in the fall of 2006, and we did it with in-your-face marketing. Slogans like, “Why pay for your neighbor’s bad credit?” or “Are creditors calling for late payments? Don’t call us, we’re NOT your lender.” We were appealing to the ego of the person who had great credit — and we got a ton of hate mail for it. We had one guy call in and say, “If I ever get my credit up, I’m never getting my loan with you blankers!” We knew we were on the right track when people were ticked at us.  

But it clicked with people. They started saying, “Now this makes sense. I pay my bills on time and I should get a discount for being a good borrower.” Our company gained traction.

Then the whole industry went off the cliff. In the past three years, 359 major mortgage companies have gone out of business. Isn’t that nuts? Man. But what we’ve been able to do is make that 30-year fixed rate loan better than anyone else. Since we only lend to the cream of the crop, we’ve been able to eliminate as many variables as possible.

We wish we could say we knew the mortgage industry was going to collapse — and that’s why we went the direction we did. But when 2007 hit, we were simply in the right spot. We were thankfully focused on the right borrower and the right loan product. So 2007 was a great year, 2008 was better, 2009 was incredible and 2010 was off the charts.

Our model is rooted in a Jet Blue-like strategy. If you decide who your customer is, limit what you do, and don’t try to be all things to all people, you’re golden. It can be tempting to go off in all kinds of directions, but don’t forget who you are. 

Another way we’ve tried to set ourselves apart is through customer service. We’re so committed to the client that we have them rate us online — and then we post the results unedited on our website. Frankly, it’s scary. But it keeps us accountable.   

Explosive growth can really tax you. But we’d be lying if we said it wasn’t a great problem to have. It sure beats the alternative. 

It’s been fun to create jobs, we’ll tell you what. It’s been cool to build something and see employees take ownership. This all started from an idea of being different, and to think that we funded $101 million of loan volume in December is just crazy. 

In the next five years, we are going to become a household name similar to Countrywide. Except … people are going to smile when they say our name.