In 1980, while he was working for the city of Boston, William Mullin was recruited by the Provident Institute of Savings to oversee the bank’s Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) efforts. At the time, the Provident was the oldest savings bank in the country, started in 1816. The CRA, which was passed to ensure banks lent to lower-income neighborhoods, had just been passed in 1977, and banks were still working through compliance of the law.

“I figured out pretty early on that if you were going to be involved in CRA, you had to be involved in the lending as well, so I kind of matriculated into the lending area of the bank,” Mullin said.

Mullin worked there for five years. He was invited to run Cambridgeport Bank’s mortgage company, and after seven years there moved on to run Hunneman Real Estate’s mortgage arm. Hunneman was bought by the National Realty Trust (NRT), and later merged with DeWolfe Real Estate. Mullin was named president of the combined operations.

“Then we had to try to come up to with a name, which was really difficult, which is why we have this fairly awkward name, NE Moves Mortgage,” Mullin laughed. “It works for us, though.”

William Mullin
Title: President
Company: NE Moves Mortgage, LLC.
Age: 60
Experience: 29 Years

What was it like going through several layers of merger?

I think it’s just typical of the business world these days. Those kind of cyclical changes are not at all uncommon. Some mergers are easier than others. There is a certain amount of pain associated with all of them; there is no question about that. When you take different cultures and you put them together, it takes a little while for them to settle.

Do you find that being tied in so strongly with Coldwell Banker, are there things that limit you at all?

We are huge proponents of what Realogy calls the value circle – we’re big proponents of one-stop shopping. First, last and always, we are tied in with our partners at Coldwell Banker Real Estate. We have about 70 loan officers now in five New England states. The only one we’re not in is Vermont, and that’s because Coldwell Banker NRT is not in Vermont. So we’re licensed in all five of those states, and Coldwell has about 140 offices in those five states, and our loan officers cover those offices.

There was a lot of talk about whether Realogy could stay afloat with so much corporate debt. Has that affected your loan officers?

It doesn’t affect us in the least. Realogy and Coldwell Banker and NRT have been around for a good bit of time, and we fully expect it to continue to be. They are selling more houses in New England than anybody else, and we fully expect that will continue. I have not heard any issues with our sales force at all. Actually, this has been a great year for us so far. Last year, we closed $1.267 billion. Through June we’ve already closed $885 million, so we’re going to blow past last year. We’re several hundred million past last year’s pace.

We’re beginning to see some increased purchase business which I think is great. It’s tough, but the last couple of months, particularly last quarter, have been positive in the number of purchase deals we’re doing.

Some of that stuff is bank-owned stuff coming back on the market. We’re financing that and we’re financing some short sales, which is not really our stock and trade. But the real estate company is selling more and more houses, and that’s great news for us.

Have you had to retrain people to deal with REOs and short sales?

I would say yes, but it’s not and probably will never be a big part of our business. The lending is the same; it’s more coaching the buyers that the process is a little more difficult. So we work with our loan officers to help them understand the process is a little longer and a little more drawn out. It’s not any different, in that we’re not changing our lending criteria in any way, shape or form, but when you have the bank as a seller, or where there is a short sale situation, there are just more actors involved and it’s harder to move the loan through the process. It just takes longer, and of course that just increases the stress for everybody involved.

Bill Mullin’s Five Places To Travel:

1.) Ireland: You fall in love with the country. It’s beautiful.

2.) Paris: It’s just a beautiful city. Everything about it. The museums, to the restaurants, the history.

3.) London: I’ve always enjoyed London. The history comes through in London, and it’s amazing how big London is.

4.) Florence: It’s beautiful, along with the Tuscan countryside. And the art is amazing.

5.) Rome: Again, the history is great. And I don’t think you get a bad meal in Italy.