VIRGINIA BEACH, VA: Approved Financial Corp. will begin construction this fall on a $10.1 million, 90,000 square foot headquarters facility in Corporate Landing Business Park in Virginia Beach. The new facility, to be built on 10.34 acres of lakefront land in the park, will include a customer service center and will be located close to the GEICO insurance complex which broke ground this past spring.

"The main reasons we have chosen to remain and expand in Virginia Beach are the incentives offered by the city -- including an incentive package for infrastructure improvement and utility upgrades," said Thomas Smith, asset manager for Approved Financial. "The area's growing employment base was a winning factor as well," Smith added.

Approved Financial specializes in making home loans to high-risk borrowers in more than a dozen states in the Southeast and in the Mid-Atlantic region. Two years ago, the company bought a small thrift in Northern Virginia and moved it to Virginia Beach. It became Approved Federal Savings Bank, and thereby provided a source of funds for the buying of home loans. A rapidly growing business in recent years, Approved Financial is in the process of expanding its mortgage broker network into the Midwest and Southwest.

Its current, cramped headquarters hampered Approved Financial's ability to process a deluge of first and second mortgage loan applications. Currently, the firm has 220 employees in Hampton Roads and will be adding 389 additional workers to its roster.

The average salary for the 600 Approved employees, in jobs ranging from loan processing to telemarketing, will be around $30,000, plus benefits. The City of Virginia Beach can expect to receive $115,000 in real estate and personal property taxes annually from this new corporate headquarters facility.

The city, together with Gresh Wall and Vivian Turok of Divaris Real Estate, worked with Approved to ensure that it was in the company's best financial interest to remain here.

Robert J. Ruhl, business development manager for the city of Virginia Beach says of this project, "This is an outstanding retention and expansion opportunity."

Other South Hampton Roads cities were under consideration, as was Tampa, Florida, which offered similar incentives. Though Approved Financial has business interests there, as it does here, Virginia Beach was the place that best met the company's needs on all fronts. "The city's desire to keep us here won us over," says Smith.

The city of Virginia Beach is aggressively promoting Corporate Landing Business Park, when showcasing the city's business opportunities. With the space Approved required for its corporate center, and Virginia Beach's desire to keep growth on the move at Corporate Landing, this is a very good match.

According to Allan D. Wyckle, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Approved Financial, "The average loan in 1997 was $56,000. Rates generally range from seven to 12.9 percent." Whereas conventional mortgage lenders have only a small range of leeway in the rates they charge because they sell the majority of their mortgages to government-chartered Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the 'sub-prime' lenders such as Approved, charge interest rates they feel reflect the risk factor in a given loan.

As a result of the successful negotiation for the purchase of land for the new corporate headquarters, Approved Financial has appointed the Investment Sales team of Divaris Real Estate's Virginia Beach office as the exclusive sales agents for its two existing office properties on Holland Road in Virginia Beach, Virginia. One property is a 20,000 square foot, two-story office building located between Lynnhaven Parkway and Rosemont Road. This building, The Green Run Medical Center, is listed at $1.2 million. The second listing is a 14,800 square foot, single-story office building adjacent to The Green Run Medical Center. It is for sale for $850,000.