Setting up shop

Ravalli Republic January 6, 2010 by Jeff Schmerker

An empty cubicle waits for a new hire at Falcon Asset Management in the Ravalli Entrepreneurship Center. The company has a patent-pending process to manage so-called “distressed” assets. WILL MOSS – Ravalli Republic

The city of Hamilton is lending support to the opening of a major new local business.

The city in December agreed to help channel state Department of Commerce business development funds to Falcon Asset Management Group.

The $235,000 grant is meant to help the company hire and train new workers; the company has applied for the funds but not yet received them.

Brenda Jurgens, the company’s chief information officer, said Falcon plans to hire 47 employees and has signed a five-year lease for business space at the county’s entrepreneurial center. So far, 14 workers are on-site; more are waiting for start dates and a final 10 positions will be filled in coming months; hopeful employees may apply at the Bitterroot Job Service.

Falcon will offer management and consultant services to companies nationwide who own large numbers of foreclosed properties. The company has a patent-pending process to manage so-called “distressed” assets.

As banks go into and complete the foreclosure process, they need help – things like title checks, visual inspections and a host of regulatory compliance actions. That process is paper-heavy.

“What we said was, there has to be a better way to do this,” Jurgens said. “So we went digital – 100 percent paperless.”

The process can be used to help banks decide what to do with the assets – sell them at auction, sell them with a local broker, or hand them off to a nonprofit property aggregator interested in revitalizing neighborhoods.

Those properties also need ongoing maintenance to retain their value, make them marketable, and keep them out of trouble with local authorities. Grass needs to be mowed, snow needs to be shoveled, roofs need to be repaired, and reams of paperwork needs to be filed. Falcon will help with that, too.

While the company expects there to always be a need for the services, the current real estate crash has meant banks in particular are now the owners of vast numbers of homes, businesses, buildings and land and may not be capable of maintaining them all.

Julie Foster, director of the Ravalli County Economic Development Authority, said the company will manage all the assets nationwide from its Hamilton location, though a second location elsewhere in western Montana could be opened to meet demand.

Foster said the opening of Falcon in Hamilton will be an unparalleled boost to the local economy. The company will have starting wages around $14 an hour plus benefits and is looking for workers who are computer literate.

“It’s huge,” she said. “It makes a huge difference on so many levels. It really raises the bar for local workers.”

Tasks which Falcon says it can handle for its clients include inspections, background checks, warranty and repair services, collection services, legal work, field inspection audits, cash management, market surveys and analysis, eviction processing and real estate listing.

“What they do is streamline the paper intensive process,” Foster said. “They handle getting those tasks taken care of, but they are not the ones who are actually out there shoveling snow and mowing lawns.”

Foster said she started working with Falcon in June and while the entrepreneurship center, where the company’s offices will be located, was a factor in the choice of Hamilton as the company’s base, neither the city nor the county are giving the company any incentives.

“When Glaxo came here they raised the bar and people flocked here to try to apply for those jobs,” Foster said. “Jobs like that are not the kind we have in great supply here. And when they come here they also give their employees this amazing training that will stay with them forever.” [MORE > link to Ravalli Republic article]