Episode 92 Transcript – Bell Alliance interview

[Hello, my name is Richard Bell and welcome to Bell Alliance Television. I'm joined in studio today by Jessi Johnson who is the head of the Jessi Johnson Mortgage Team. Jessi is a Mortgage Broker. Welcome Jessi.] Hello. Thank you for having me on. [My pleasure. Any career you could've picked you became a mortgage broker. What took you down that path?] Well, it all started back when. I was in my early twenties and I was actually looking into and researching on how to buy your first home. I attended a first time home buyers seminar and they had a realtor and a broker speaking. This was my first time being introduced to a mortgage broker. I didn’t even know they existed let alone what they did. By the end of the seminar I learnt two things. One, what a mortgage broker did and two, I was not remotely qualified at the time. [So that second bit of news wasn't the best news.] But it allowed me to prepare myself for the future. [Why would someone turn to a mortgage broker to get financing through as opposed to the more traditional walk into your local bank branch?] Well, banks are good for day to day banking. If you’re going to get a mortgage this is a pretty big lifetime decision choice. If you pick someone who does this as a full time job in my opinion, a broker is going to work as a liaison between the client and the bank. No matter how bad the picture of the client is, the broker turns it into this beautiful picture, this beautiful painting, presents it to the lender to get it’s approval stamp. Bottom line, they’re going to work on your behalf to get it done. The interesting thing about a broker is if you are the client, I’ll foresee a problem, not saying there’s a problem with you, I’ll foresee an issue way in advance. I may have taken it to 2, 3, 4, 5 different lenders and you would not even know, to get it done. You still get good rates, you still get the mortgage. It’s the same thing whereas if you go to a bank you’re going to have issues. You’re unfortunately limited to the options, the one or two rates, that they’re willing to give you. If there’s a problem, good luck. [Well it certainly strikes me as not quite as simple as it was in my day when I was first buying a home. The products are much more complicated now then they used to be. I guess that's a role you're able to do, identifying the issues and packaging it up to present to the lenders.] It is. [What's the process you go through when you first engage with your client?] First things first. Clients always call and want to meet me in person. Before you actually do that you need to look at their portfolio. You’ll want to review it and ask a bunch of qualifying questions which will lead you to where they fit in the puzzle. What I mean by that is, I bring out my clients in phases. Phase one is your first home buyer. Phase two is a little more educated client who’s now into refinancing and hopefully learning how to pay the mortgage off faster. Phase 3 is your investor or advanced strategies like the Smith manoeuvre. By asking all these qualifying questions I can dictate where they fit from there. [I guess the beauty of all this from the consumer's perspective is the get access to your service but in fact they don't have to pay. The bank is paying you.] Absolutely correct. I think one time in my life I’ve had to charge a broker fee just because it was a really complicated deal that I wasn’t getting paid from the bank. A $1,000 I think I charged them. It was nothing. Generally the banks, how it works is, they pay the broker as a thank you for generating the business. It’s a small percentage of the mortgage and our goal is to do enough where we can actually feed ourselves at the end of the day. [If there's one piece of advice you have for someone who's looking at getting a mortgage what would that be?] Can I make it two? [Sure, go for it!] Know who you’re dealing with. Do your due diligence, do your research. Whoever it is. Whatever broker they are. Do they have a website, blog, whatever. Get to know them a little bit as much as you can. They are going to make your life either very easy or very difficult for the transaction. My second point is establishing a team. Make sure you have your lawyer, real estate agent and broker in place. Have them communicate and they’ll make your transaction very smooth. [Excellent. Hopefully that's of assistance to you who are watching this video. Thanks very much for checking it out and thanks very much Jessi for joining me.] My pleasure. Thank you very much.