Florida Mortgage Broker Enlists a New Ally: God

As highway billboards go, it was an attention-getter.

It wasn’t just the arresting background design. It was the whiplash-inducing message. “Covington Mortgage,” it read. “Taking Greed Out, Putting God In!”

Mortgage providers are rarely confused with temples - even less so today, with foreclosure rates on the rise and a growing number of mortgage companies accused of avarice and fraud. In such circumstances, references to God tend to be profane.

That became clear to C.J. Johns Sr. and Lisa Ross-Johns shortly after they formed the Florida mortgage company late last year and put up their first billboard along Interstate 275 South near downtown Tampa.

The ad generated dozens of calls, many of them abusive. And not a single new Florida home loan.

That’s okay, says Johns, 42. The point was to announce the Wesley Chapel business’ obedience to God. “I want to avoid coming off as, ‘I’m the holy one, and the rest of you mortgage brokers are crooks.’ But there is a certain norm that we’ve decided not to be a part of.”

How does one run a Florida mortgage brokerage in the spirit of Jesus? For Johns and Ross-Johns, it’s not about marketing, converting customers or running a charity. “Putting in God” means educating and respecting their customers, avoiding predatory loan products, and charging reasonable and transparent fees.

The couple say they haven’t charged any borrower more than 0.95 “points,” or just less than 1 percent of the Florida home loan principal.

Same for their Florida mortgage broker fee.

They say they don’t play the game of advertising interest rates, and don’t offer any semblance of negative amortization loans, which let borrowers temporarily pay very low rates at the cost of increasing the loan’s size.

The company’s pace picked up last year. The couple obtained the necessary licenses - Johns to be a Florida mortgage broker, and Ross-Johns a real estate agent.

His son moved in with them and became a full-time business student at USF. Covington Mortgage brokered the first of its Florida mortgages in December.

But God has bigger plans for the couple.

“He told me - not audibly, I’m not some kook - ‘I want you to start a bank, and I want my name outside the door,’” he says. “‘Not just on the money.’”

SOURCE: St. Petersburg Times