Southern Land Company Launches Mortgage Division

Forty years after its founding as a Tennessee developer, Southern Land Company is writing a new chapter.

The Nashville-based development firm has launched an in-house mortgage division, SLC Lending, aimed at complimenting its homebuilding and sales operations, Commercial Observer can first report. 

The platform will look to help Southern Land Company further scale its master-planned single family home communities portfolio through offering loans to homeowners in these developments amid a higher interest rate environment. 

“After 40 years of successfully building communities and developments we have the capital to do unique things and expand,” Tim Downey, founder and CEO of Southern Land Company, told CO. “As we expand into other master plan communities throughout the country we’d like to bring the new mortgage group along to every one of them and we’d like to help our customers bridge the affordability gap.” 

While Southern Land Company’s master-planned single-family residential communities have largely been clustered in the Sun Belt region, Downey is hoping to scale to other parts of the country including  a project at the Mare Island naval shipyards in Vallejo, Calif. 23 miles outside San Francisco. 

The company currently operates master-planned home developments, multifamily and condominium properties  in 12 states. 

The SLC Lending division will be led by Bobby Frank, who built up a wholesale lending business at Franklin American Mortgage Company prior to Citizens Bank‘s acquisition of the company in 2018. He led Citizens Bank’s lending unit for five years before it exited the channel in late 2023. 

Frank noted that Southern Land Company’s strategic move into in-house lending reflects a broader industry shift away from preferred lender arrangements toward more fully integrated platforms underscored by Rocket’s acquisition of Redfina and Douglas Elliman’s launch of Elliman Capital. He said the ultimate goal is to become a loan servicer. 

“It’s a very unique opportunity and I think the sky’s the limit on what we can do,” Frank said. “We’re going to stay focused right out of the gate but at some point down the road we’d love to retain and service our loans.”

Andrew Coen can be reached at acoen@commercialobserver.com.