First thing I always try to explain to the clients is
what is the role of a mortgage broker?
And what is it that we kind of do that's different and say the client
walking into their own branch
and just speaking with the teller or financial advisor
I don't really care where I'm gonna get my mortgage
as long as get it approved.
And want someone to,
shop around for me get the best deal for me.
Our job is to look out for the clients throughout the
whole process not just you know,
once your property closes
you never hear from us again, right?
What is going on guys? This is Thomas.
And yes,
you don't get to see the chibi Thomas today.
It's because I want to launch a new program to you guys
It's called Connect with Thomas,
where I want to invite different professionals from
their own industry to share about their expertise,
I will invite accountants, lawyers.
Real Estate specialists, mortgage specialists,
pretty much all profession that is related to money.
We want to come together and bring more useful content to you guys.
If this is something that you like,
make sure you give me a thumbs up
and leave your comments down below.
And for today's video,
I want to invite Andrew Chang
from City Wide Mortgage Services.
And today, here are the things that we're going to cover what is a mortgage specialist?
How is that compared to getting a mortgage from the bank?
Besides from the listing price,
What are the other costs that we have to consider?
What kind of calculation
do you have to do to get your mortgage approved?
So without further ado, let's begin.
Alright, welcome to the show.
Andrew, it's good to have you here.
How are you doing my friend?
Thanks, Thomas. And thanks for having me on.
I'm doing well. How are you?
Good. Excellent!
So for those of you who don't know Andrew
Andrew is an amazing person to talk to.
I know you specialize in helping young families and individuals
to get their first mortgage approved.
Okay. So I always like to start off with this question,
Andrew, I know you graduated
from one of the top business school in Canada,
And you actually been into different industry as well, too.
But what got you into the mortgage business?
Yeah, I've actually been in the real estate industry for over 10, 12 years now.
And I've had a lot of experiences.
I've met a lot of people along the way.
And I realized that it's a very complex and tricky situations,
especially for first time buyers
or new buyers who weren't so familiar with all the rules and regulations.
And I wanted to get into it to assist a lot of people to show them that,
You know, we can help them take care of the situations
and make this process as smooth as possible.
that's great. I do have a lot of clients come to me and say,
Hey, Thomas, I'm actually looking for my first property.
What should I do?
What are some tips that you can share with us?
Yeah, I think there's a few main tips that usually try to go over with
people to kind of get them started.
So the first thing I always try to explain to the clients is,
what is the role of a mortgage broker?
And what is it that we kind of do that's different and say,
the client walking into their own branch and just speaking with the with
the teller or financial advisor.
So there's a few big differences.
us as mortgage brokers,
we offer unbiased professional advice for the client,
and our main role is to work for the client,
not to work for the lender or the financial institution.
I think the big difference a lot of people don't understand
I'll give you an example I bank with TD Bank,
I'm just going to go walk into the branch and they're going to help me out with,
you know, applying for a mortgage and seeing how much money I can borrow.
But us as mortgage brokers,
not only do we have access to for example,
let's say TD Bank,
but we have access to numerous other banks or credit unions
or private lenders or B lenders,
depending on the client situation
that may be better suited for the client's situation.
And for their financing needs.
So, for us, we offer multiple, numerous alternatives versus a client who
just goes to the bank
and they can only be offered whatever it is the bank has to offer.
Unfortunately, the bank can't offer you other alternatives,
but we can right so that's what I mean when I say we offer unbiased professional advice.
We work for the clients best interest
it really doesn't matter who the lender is that we send you to,
we just want to make sure it's the best situation and the best fit for that client.
A big question a lot of people wonder is
oh, you know, unlike other professional services,
you know, what's your fees?
What do you guys charge?
And the honest truth is, our professional services are actually free of charge for the client.
So it doesn't actually cost the client,
anything to use the services of a mortgage broker.
So it's actually a win win situation,
because there's really no downside for the client.
And we're the ones that will do all the work,
put together all the paperwork, run all the numbers,
get the approval, do everything for the client,
so that the client really doesn't have to worry about too much
during the whole process.
So those are just some,
that's one point that I usually try to let clients know about in terms of,
what do brokers do?
How do we differ that the bank employees,
that sort of thing.
Yeah, and I think especially during this time,
everyone is so busy with the family with the business and stuff too.
And sometimes they will just like,
Hey, I don't really care where I'm gonna get my mortgage
as long as I get it approved.
And I want someone to shop around for me,
get the best deal for me and, work for my best interest,
and especially from the mortgage renewal.
Usually, the bank don't give a lot of incentive for existing clients.
Yeah, there's a lot of different situations and stuff
that brokers can benefit a borrower in many situations,
a lot of people just saying,
Okay, well, you know, when I buy the property, that's it,
and I don't have to deal with my mortgage for the next little while.
And that's not the truth
the truth is for the bank employees,
unfortunately, once you kind of get your mortgage with them,
you probably won't ever hear from them again
and then maybe five years down the road,
for example, at renewal, they might just send you a letter and be like,
Please sign here to renew with us.
But for us brokers, we walk with the client from day one
from when they start the process to however long they want to keep doing business for.
So whether it comes to the renewals
or whether it comes through buying a secondary home
or buying a rental property.
Right now, for example, due to COVID,
with interest rates in the financial markets dropping quite a bit,
we do something called midterm switches and transfers,
which for example, if a client on a mortgage,
let's say a year, year and a half ago,
when interest rates were in the mid to high 3%.
But now that interest rates are, in the low to mid twos,
it's beneficial for the client to switch out of the current mortgage
and switch to another lender that has a lower interest rate and a better product.
And we run those numbers,
we do those calculations,
because our job is to look out for the client throughout the whole process,
not just, you know, once your property closes, you never hear from us again,
so those are just some situations that we help with.
And we do a lot of future financial planning for clients as well.
Whereas, just because you buy a property now,
they may be thinking, hey,
maybe in two to three years or five years down the road,
my family may want to upgrade our property.
Or maybe we want to take equity out of the home
if the property values go up,
And pull that money to do other investments
or pay for our kids, schooling or tuition
or renovations or whatever
whatever the fact may be, right.
So we do stuff like that as well,
which is called refinancing your mortgage.
We can do stuff like debt consolidation,
where, if the clients especially during these tough times with COVID,
maybe they're having issues paying off the credit cards or lines of credit,
we can do debt consolidation where we refinance your mortgage,
and we use those funds to pay out all of your debts
at a much lower interest rate of,
let's say, two to two and a half percent,
versus paying credit card interest,
which shouldn't be crazy, like 20%. Right?
So we we try to do all types of scenarios for clients to help them out.
And that's just some of the different types of transactions
and the different types of scenarios that we as mortgage brokers can help clients out with.
Oh, wow. That's so not just giving that proposal to the clients,
but it's actually you have a holistic planning as well, too.
Yeah, exactly. We don't think of it as just like,
Hey, we're just here to get you the best interest rate and see you later
Our job is to really do mortgage planning
and financial planning to help clients not just get the best interest rate
but help them plan and set up for now and in the future, to see,
what are your plans now?
What are your plans five years from now?
What are your plans 10 years from now?
What are your plans at renewal?
That sort of thing, right?
So we always follow up,
we always touch base with the clients
to make sure everything is going smoothly according to what they want.
And we understand that life changes happen
and things can quickly change from now two years from now
and their circumstances may change.
So maybe the lender or the product or your financial situation will change.
And we will try to help map out and plan for the client
what's the best scenario can be for them at that time?
Awesome. So my next question will be
let's just pretend I'm looking for a place.
What should be my first step?
Should I come to a market specialist like yourself, or should I go to realtors?
Yeah, so my suggestion to the client is
the first step before you even reach out to a realtor
before you start looking up stuff online,
or looking on MLS is to always reach out to a specialist to get pre approved
and to see what your budget is.
I've had a lot of people come up to me and they say,
I've been looking for for a while with my realtor.
But, we've got accepted offers only to find out that
we don't get approved for financing
or we cannot afford the property price that we were hoping for.
So in order to save time, and to maximize efficiency,
I always tell clients, hey, come speak with us.
We can put together your mortgage pre approval,
we can run the numbers based on your finances,
your liabilities, everything down payment ability,
and see what your maximum budget is.
And once you have your maximum budget set up,
it'll help not only you,
but help your realtor during your search to narrow down
and know exactly how much you can borrow.
And I think that's very, very important because it really puts into perspective.
Hey, is this the right time for my clients to buy?
Or maybe we have to wait six months down the road
to save up a little bit more money.
Or hey, Wow, I didn't know I could borrow that much.
Maybe I can now afford a bigger place.
And I thought I could Oh,
because I didn't know I could qualify for so much, right?
So there's different scenarios
that it's really good to know exactly what your numbers are,
rather than just kind of estimating that,
hey, I think I could probably borrow up to this much,
but I don't know for sure.
Right. So I think that's one big step.
And I think the other big thing a lot of people have a misconception about,
especially for newer buyers is they think that hey,
once I get pre approved, that's it, I'm good to go.
And a big misconception is a pre approval essentially is
nothing more than just a glorified rate hold.
So it doesn't mean that you're approved for X amount of dollars.
It doesn't mean that once your deal goes live,
and what live means is basically once you have an accepted offer into place,
then your deal goes live for an approval.
So at that time, a lot of people think oh, once my deal goes live,
I'm automatically approved and that doesn't mean anything.
So I always like to stress to clients
when they've been told by me
or by someone else who have been pre approved,
I can do anything I want.
Now I can go buy a car, before I buy a place and take on more debt.
It doesn't mean that a pre approval really just means that it's just a rate hold for you while you're searching,
but it doesn't guarantee that you're 100% approved.
So our job during this process is to get the client pre approved.
Let them know what their budget is and walk them through until they get an accepted offer until the day that they close.
We try to guide them and walk them through that whole scenario.