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March 17, 2011

 
New American Mortgage and Paramount Lending Merger Expected to Create 130 New Jobs in Charlotte

Charlotte Chamber of Commerce President Bob Morgan announced today that Charlotte-based mortgage companies New American Mortgage and Paramount Lending have merged and expect to create more than 130 local jobs over the next three years. The new company will maintain the New American Mortgage name.  

New American Mortgage, launched in 2008 by former Carolina Panther Casey Crawford (2000-2001) and his business partner Toby Harris, is a full service mortgage company with corporate headquarters and a call center located in Ballantyne. The company has a total of 12 retail locations throughout the Charlotte area. With more than 50 offices in nine states and a business model of co-locating with real estate companies, New American expects to close more than $1B in loan volume and $50M in revenue this year.

Paramount Lending, founded in Charlotte by Jessica Babinski in 2007, specializes in online lead conversion. “According to the National Association of Realtors, 93 percent of home buying begins on the internet,” said Babinski. “At Paramount, we realized this early on and built our business model around ‘Raving Fan’ customer service to Internet leads using our call center.” As part of the merger, she will become New American’s E-Leads Executive. 

"Paramount Lending is the partner we’ve been seeking to maximize the overwhelming number of online leads generated for us by our real estate company partners,” added Crawford. “We are excited about the opportunity to integrate Paramount’s call center expertise and online lead conversion strength with our loan processing power and premier real estate company relationships.”

New American has 30 employees in Charlotte and another 25 in the surrounding areas of Concord, NC and Fort Mill, SC. The merger will combine New American’s 280 employees nationwide with Paramount’s 20 employees for a total of 300. New American plans to hire an additional 30 people by the end of the year within the call center and another 150 over the next 24-36 months. More than 100 of those hires will be mortgage loan originators and call center specialists located in Charlotte with another 50 support personnel to be added in Virginia Beach, VA, where New American’s loan processing center is located.

As both are privately-held companies, financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

For more information, visit www.newamerican.com.
Please click here to read New American Mortgage’s official release.