American Commercial Starts Mortgage Division

An upturn in the Ventura County housing market has not gone unnoticed by officials at American Commercial Bank.

The Ventura-based institution, which up to now has concentrated on serving the local business community, has established a mortgage lending division. Through the new division, the bank will aggressively pursue home loan clientele for the first time since its founding in 1973.

The creation of the division coincides with an increase in home sales and new housing developments. Peter Hart, vice president in charge of the new division, said those factors, combined with a decline in interest rates as the economy strengthens, add up to an expected increase in the need for home loans.

And Hart expects American Commercial Bank now to be able to handle the demand.

“We’re starting to see a pickup in the real estate market,” said Hart, a former independent mortgage broker in Ventura County who joined the bank in May. “The pendulum is starting to swing the other way. The bank has always offered equity lines for its customers and for certain customers, when necessary, we would do a short-term loan, but they weren’t the conventional-type mortgage.”

The minimal number of home loans were made through a local mortgage broker. Under its new plan, American Commercial Bank has itself been approved to offer the loan programs of Chase Manhattan Bank and 11 other leading real estate loan companies. Hart said he is continuing to pursue other loan programs.

“Having several mortgage bankers we draw upon gives us more flexibility,” he said. “Some of them have their own overriding characteristics where they may be a little more stringent with income-to-debt ratios, whereas another lender that we have may have the same program at the same rate, but be more flexible.”

Hart said the present collection of loan companies represents a variety of loan options, including the conventional 30-year home mortgage, adjustable-rate programs, programs for those with poor credit, Veterans Administration loans and a first-time buyers program.

The bank offers the loans at the assigned interest rate plus an average of about 1 point.

Jim Beeninga, president of American Commercial Bank, said the institution has been working on designing a home loan division for some time and expects the program, once it is fully operable, to create new business in a number of areas.

“It’s going to bring additional customers into the bank,” he said. “They come into the bank for a mortgage loan and they’ll probably want to do their banking here.”

American Commercial Bank has three branches in Ventura and one in Camarillo.