Our History

Heritage of AFC First Since 1947

AFC Reverse Mortgage, a local reverse mortgage lender, is the latest reincarnation of a Lehigh Valley based lending business founded in 1947 by John and Anna Krajsa that has reinvented itself multiple times over the last sixty years. The company started out as a local small loan lender, grew into statewide wholesale mortgage banking, and then became a Fannie Mae energy loan lender offering low rate home improvement loans through over five hundred dealers in ten states.

But the history of small businesses owned by the Krajsa family in the Lehigh Valley started in the 1920’s with Joseph F. and Agnes Krajsa who had emigrated to Allentown around 1906 from what is now the Slovak Republic. Joseph and Agnes epitomize the American Dream. They left Europe for a better life. They arrived penniless and could not speak English, and Joseph worked as a laborer in a wire mill. But they ended up owning a grocery store in Allentown and sending all three of their children to college.

Joseph extended a lot of credit to his customers over the years, and it was this part of the grocery business that John and Anna Krajsa found attractive. The lending business they started, originally known as Allentown Finance, offered consumer loans in amounts as low as $300 at a time when banks and other lending institutions limited their lending to commercial loans and consumer loans over $5000.

As banks entered the consumer lending business and innovative products such as credit cards came to dominate the small loan market, the next generation of Krajsas came on the scene, and the company moved into the mortgage business changing its name in 1980 to Allentown Financial Corporation (AFC).

In addition to operating as a mortgage lender, John Krajsa Jr and Peter Krajsa soon had the company funding the bulk of its growing portfolio through its own state registered public offering of investment certificates registered with the Pennsylvania Securities Commission.

Later in the 1980’s the company completed its first mortgage banking transaction and by the early 1990’s AFC was closing 30 to 40 mortgage loans per month for mortgage brokers around the state. In 1995 the company changed its name again, to AFC First, in recognition of the fact most of its business was now coming from outside the Lehigh Valley. AFC began offering FannieMae energy loans in 1997.

In 2003 FannieMae introduced the Krajsa brothers to the FHA HECM Reverse Mortgage which is also funded by FannieMae, and the AFC Reverse Mortgage program was born. AFC Reverse Mortgage, Inc. is now a free standing company with a product offering limited to reverse mortgages. AFC First continues to offer energy loans.

“We have survived nearly sixty years by being adaptive to changing markets while providing quality products that we produce in house. By keeping it local and controlling the process through the closing we can provide the level of service our customers expect,” according to Tiffany Shutta, processing coordinator, who has been with AFC for over twelve years and now works with AFC Reverse.

Key to being adaptive is awareness of changes in the marketplace. The Krajsas participate actively in state and national trade associations, such as the Pennsylvania and American Financial Services associations. In the reverse mortgage world memberships include the National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Association (NRMLA), the National Council on Aging (NCOA) and the National Aging in Place Council (NAIPC). AFC First was a founding member of the Lehigh Valley Aging in Place Coalition.