A home closing on which three other transactions were contingent hit a snag.  Moving vans were packed and ready to go, but by the midnight hour, an oil tank leak that occurred some time prior still hadn't received final clearance from the State DEC.  All came to a standstill until soil and water testing could be completed to meet all necessary requirements.  The parties involved seemed certain there wasn't much concern, but the mortgage couldn't be cleared to close without formal resolution—stalling the closing of this deal and the others that rested upon it.

“Two families had their furniture on the truck when we got word that the loan had not been cleared to close,” said Rye brokerage manager Judi Smith, whose office handled the transactions.  “And we were on the brink of July 4th weekend."

Painfully cautious lenders were not in a position to foresee what our agents and the homeowner knew and they didn’t want the risk of the uncertainty on their hands, placing the chain of transactions in jeopardy.  Time was critical.  Even knowing clearance was ahead, waiting for it wasn’t an option.

Communicating closely with the clients and our Rye office, and having cause to be reasonably confident the tank would be cleared, Thoroughbred Mortgage made the decision to move forward with the loan, allowing the deals to close.

Less than two weeks later, the DEC stamped the tank with a clean bill of health.  The deals had been saved, and all were happy.

"There's not a bank out there that would have closed a loan under those circumstances," explained our CEO, Stephen Meyers.  "The beauty of having our own mortgage company is that we can make judgment calls in ways ordinary banks can't because they don't understand the real estate transaction the way we do.”

Our longstanding role as a market leader is well known in real estate, but lesser known to some is that Houlihan Lawrence also comprises two wholly-owned subsidiaries whose interests are closely aligned: Thoroughbred Mortgage and Thoroughbred Title. By extending our core values across this trifecta of companies, we're able to stay consistently on the same page and offer a tailored experience to our clients, easing the often cumbersome burdens that arise at all levels of the moving process.

Enid Pinto, one of the Houlihan Lawrence agents associated with the deal, added "If we didn't have Thoroughbred as our in-house mortgage company, this deal never would have closed so quickly."