Many lending companies wanted to get out of the housing market when home prices dropped to historic lows during the Great Recession.

However, Ringgold native Brandon Born was an exception. He and long-time friend Matt Hamilton established Platinum Financial Funding during the height of the housing crisis in June 2008.

“I got in when everyone was getting out because I understood the area’s need for a credible mortgage company to help folks make sense of the real estate market and lending in general,” Born said. “We have never done a subprime debt loan.”

Perhaps that drive to succeed even during challenging times comes from his years on the basketball court. Born played basketball for Ringgold High School and later at the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga, where he scored 1,449 points during his four-year tenure. After graduating with a degree in business management from UTC, he played basketball for the Denver Nuggets and professional basketball in Israel.

Even from the infancy of Platinum Financial Funding, the business goal was simple — to simplify the complex home-buying process, according to a media release from the company. Buying a home is one of the largest purchases that most people make, and it can also be one of the most tedious and stressful.

Headquartered on Gunbarrel Road, Platinum Financial has 25 employees across five locations in Hamilton County, Rhea County and Knox County, including locations inside RE/MAX and Keller Williams Realty.

“Platinum Financial Funding has an extensive portfolio, which means they have a wide range of skills to help our clients,” said Robert Moss, Keller Williams Realty Greater Downtown team leader/broker, who has a Platinum Financial Funding representative in-house to assist customers. “The representatives are extremely customer-service driven. They constantly work to ease the home-buying process and ensure that clients have a clear understanding of the lending procedure.”

Platinum Financial Funding is licensed in Tennessee and Georgia and also helps clients with refinancing.

“Four years ago interest rates were around six or seven percent, and now people are calling us to see how they can take advantage of lower interest rates by refinancing their homes,” Born said. “Quite a bit of our business is from people who were satisfied with our services when they purchased their home, and they called on us again to help them refinance or to help them purchase another home.”

Born and his wife, Cam, have four children — Barrett, 6, Bolton, 5, Banks, 3, and newborn son, Bennett.

For more information, visit platfund.com.