What does selling mortgages have in common with community service? Quite a lot, if you ask Gary Habeeb, president and CEO of Middleburg Heights-based United Mortgage Group.
“We help people on a daily basis,” Habeeb says. “We’re dealing with the largest investment of their life, and most often, we’re helping them achieve the American Dream, which is home ownership.”
If it’s not a first home, United Mortgage refinances a homeowner’s current loan.
“We help people across the board,” Habeeb says. “That’s why my people are so apt to step up to the plate and give, because they’re giving on a daily basis.”
That attitude is a far cry from what some would assume to be the sales culture of a mortgage office, where everyone would be more concerned with commissions than communities.
“Obviously, we’re all paid as individuals, but it’s a group setting, and it’s a team effort and a total team concept,” he says. “It’s the same way in community service; it’s everybody lending a helping hand. The whole group did it, and that carries right on through.”
United Mortgage’s community service efforts are employee-driven. This year, 40 employees renovated, did yard work and cleaned the home of an elderly Akron woman who lived alone and couldn’t perform the tasks. Employees have also come to Habeeb with ideas like hosting a golf outing to support the Susan B. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation and donating room air conditioners for a grade school.
“My employees know they can walk into my office at any given time, bring up the charity they want to support, for whatever reason,” Habeeb says. “If I feel good about it, and most of the time I do because everybody brings great ideas, I open it up to the whole group to support it.”
During the colder months, Habeeb takes employees to the steps of St. Malachi’s Church on West 25th Street in Cleveland, where a number of homeless people sleep.
“We’ll bring them blankets, a sandwich and coffee, and buy some coats,” Habeeb says. “Instead of giving your money and wondering whether a certain percentage is going to go to administrative costs, we jump right into the heart of things and see it happen.” How to reach: United Mortgage Group, (440) 260-2392.
