Calif. loan-servicing firm expanding in Tucson, adding 150 jobs

A California-based loan servicing company is expanding its presence in one of Tucson’s landmark buildings, with plans to add about 150 jobs.

Advanced Financial Company, which provides consumer loan servicing and customer service for the timeshare resort industry, plans to add 152 jobs over the next five years in a major expansion of its operation at the historic 5151 East Broadway building, where it opened a small office in 2020.

The company plans to invest $2 million in building out part of the historic building, and the economic impact of the plan is estimated at $135 million over five years, said Sun Corridor Inc., the Tucson region’s main economic-development agency.

Advanced Financial plans to move into its new space Dec. 1, expanding on the sixth floor of 5151 East Broadway to about 8,000 square feet from 2,600 square feet, and has options to take up the entire floor of 18,000 square feet, said Kyle Kolsky, Advanced Financial’s chief operating officer.

The new local positions include customer service agents, trainers and supervisors with responsibility for solar and home improvement loan servicing, billing and payment processing and other financial services roles.

Interested applicants can contact Delbert Reed at dreed@advancedfinco.com; veterans are encouraged to apply.

Advanced Financial, which is based north of San Diego in Carlsbad, Calif., set up a small office at 5151 E. Broadway in 2020, after pivoting to remote work during the height of the pandemic.

The company allowed some employees to relocate to markets outside of California, including Tucson, where the company recruited and trained employees as part of a pilot program.

After an enthusiastic response from its local manager, company officials became convinced Tucson was a great place to attract talent and build a strong business location for a major operation, Kolsky said.

“We wanted to be close to home, and there are a lot of similarities between Tucson and San Diego,” Kolsky said. “They’re both kind of border cities in the south, they have strong cultural heritage and a lot of Mexican Americans.”

Tucson is home to several major customer-service call centers employing thousands of workers, with operators including Geico, Citi, Intuit and OptumRx.

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Kolksy said he was pleasantly surprised when the company’s demographic study of the Tucson market showed there were more than 20,000 skilled call-center staffers here.

Advanced Financial essentially “exported” its pay scale from California to Tucson, he said, so its pay is near the top of the local market.

The company’s entry level pay is $17 to $19 an hour with potential to climb up to $30 an hour, plus full benefits including medical and dental coverage and 401(k) savings plans.

Advanced Financial now employs about 50 people in Carlsbad and 25 in Tucson, where the staff is focused on consumer-loan servicing mainly for solar and home-improvement loans, Kolsky said.

The company is affiliated with Grand Pacific Resorts, a Carlsbad-based resort management and development company that manages 24 properties in California, Hawaii and Utah.

Though the company projected its hiring over five years, Kolsy said the company “honestly could be on that entire floor in 18 months,” citing the strong market for rooftop solar and home-improvement loans.

The Arizona Commerce Authority, Pima County and the city of Tucson partnered with Sun Corridor to attract Advanced Financial.

The company looked at several other communities including Baltimore, Austin, sites in Northern California and Phoenix, before selecting Tucson for its expansion, said Sun Corridor President and CEO Joe Snell.

“This company is an important part of our corporate portfolio of high-quality, industry-recognized brands who have chosen Southern Arizona,” Snell said. “Our strategic location and talent pool continue to make us attractive to many companies’ high-growth plans.”