Longtime New London firm McCue Mortgage makes name change

Homestead Funding is the new name of Union St. company

New London — Keith Turner announced Monday that his local mortgage servicing company on Union Street, previously known as McCue Mortgage, will switch its name to Homestead Funding.

Turner, who took over the local McCue Mortgage office when his father Phil died in 2011 and is expected to be named the top Connecticut Housing Finance Authority mortgage originator in the state this year, said in an interview at his office that very little will change except for the name.

The only difference, he said, will be a speedier mortgage approval process and more liberal guidelines for receiving loans.

“It’s still going to be me,” Turner said. “We’ll just have a different sign.”

Turner said McCue decided to outsource its mortgage origination business to Homestead, though the same team will be in place in the same offices. Homestead, he said, has a solid three-decade track record in the mortgage business and is known for its advanced technology that speeds loans along, shaving nearly two weeks off the typical approval process.

“It’s a more pleasurable experience,” Turner said, “less painstaking . ... They just got it down to a science.”

Turner said Homestead will have the same access to CHFA, VA, USDA and FHA loans, plus a couple extra loan types that McCue did not offer. Though Turner and his dad had become noted as top CHFA lenders, he emphasized that the state program is only about half of his business.

“We have the whole gamut,” he said.

The Turner family has had a McCue office at 8 Union St. since 1979, he said, so the name change is a major deal even if clients should see little change.

“It’s a little bit bittersweet,” he admitted, but said it was still a good change. “It’s more of a rebranding.”

McCue had talked about introducing the new brand in March, Turner added, but eventually decided it would be good to start the new year afresh.

“We’re not losing the tradition of McCue,” Turner concluded. “We’re not forgetting about the past.

“Nothing is really changing, just really the name,” he said. “It’s still a family business.”