Mortgage 101 – Canadian Mortgage Awards | May 2022 Part 1

In this episode of Mortgage 101 with Clinton Wilkins and Todd Veinotte, as heard on CityNews 95.7 and CityNews 101.1, the guys talk about Clinton’s recent trip to Toronto to attend the 2022 Canadian Mortgage Awards! The awards changed up its categories this year and Clinton walked away with a regional and national award. Find out about them in the video or transcript below.

Mortgage 101 with Clinton Wilkins & Todd Veinotte: Canadian Mortgage Awards

Don’t feel like watching the video? Check out the transcript below.

Transcript:

Mortgage 101: “Maybe it will be in the Guinness Book of World Records with the most talk radio about mortgage lending.”

Todd Veinotte: [00:00:00:02] So from what I can understand and by the way, for those who are just tuning in for the first time, we’ve done this a long time. Give everybody a little history lesson because we’ve got some, what’s the terminology that I’m, I can’t think of it.

Clinton Wilkins: [00:00:13:10] Seasons? Our seasons of our show.

Todd Veinotte: [00:00:15:14] Yeah.

Clinton Wilkins: [00:00:15:15] This is the fourth year that we’ve been doing Mortgage 101.

Todd Veinotte: [00:00:19:23] Legacy! Is what I was looking for.

Clinton Wilkins: [00:00:20:04] A legacy and we have a lot of content out there. I don’t think probably anyone across this country has done more hours of radio talking about mortgage lending than you or I have

Todd Veinotte: [00:00:30:23] Probably on the planet.

Clinton Wilkins: [00:00:32:02] You know what? I’m okay with it.

Todd Veinotte: [00:00:34:27] I’m okay with it as well.

Clinton Wilkins: [00:00:36:11] Someday, you know, maybe it will be in the Guinness Book of World Records with the most talk radio about mortgage lending.

Todd Veinotte: [00:00:43:20] There you go. So what are we talking about? Just for people who want to know if they want to tune in for the rest of the hour. What can they expect?

Everyone has been impacted by real estate recently

Clinton Wilkins: [00:00:50:19] You know, we talk about mortgage lending. We talk about real estate. We talk about things that are in the news that are, you know, impacting you and me, really. You know, mortgage lending is one of the most nuance-y things I think that’s out there. It’s very daunting for a lot of people.

Todd Veinotte: [00:01:03:19] Yeah.

Clinton Wilkins: [00:01:04:08] And there’s a lot of moving parts.

Todd Veinotte: [00:01:05:25] Especially now with so much going on. Right? With housing, this has become one of the hottest topics in Canada.

Clinton Wilkins: [00:01:15:05] You know, and it’s a topic that impacts everyone, Todd. It’s not just the poor that it’s impacting. It’s not just the rich, it’s not the middle class. Everyone is impacted by really what’s going on with the real estate market and what’s going on with the federal government, what happens with the banks and, you know, the Bank of Canada, everyone is impacted in some way. And, you know, I don’t think anyone’s talked about mortgage lending as much as we have lately, but it’s in the media every day!

Todd Veinotte: [00:01:44:26] Every day.

Clinton Wilkins: [00:01:45:16] And, you know, for us, we’re involved because, you know, we’re obviously in the media and we’re obviously very involved with mortgage lending, but it’s getting the conversation started, which I think is really, really cool.

“You had a quite an accolade recently.”

Todd Veinotte: [00:01:58:08] Well, before we get to that, you had a quite an accolade recently, in all seriousness, why don’t you tell everybody about it? I know that you are very modest and don’t want to share this wonderful news with the audience, but force yourself to let everybody know. How incredible you are.

Clinton Wilkins: [00:02:15:08] When I was listening to the promo of the show, I was like, You know what? That’s kind of cool. We can certainly talk about the Canadian Mortgage Awards. We refer to them as the CMAs and some people are like, “Oh, my goodness, you’re going to, you know, the Canadian Mortgage Awards” or “You’re going to the Country Music Awards,” but it’s actually the Canadian Mortgage Awards. And it was hosted in in Toronto you know, just over a week ago.

Todd Veinotte: [00:02:41:04] Quite a gala?

Clinton Wilkins: [00:02:41:19] It was quite a gala. There was 1,000 people. And I have not been to an event like that obviously in a couple of years.

Todd Veinotte: [00:02:47:25] Yeah. Because of the pandemic.

Canadian Mortgage Awards category changes

Clinton Wilkins: [00:02:49:01] Even like pre-pandemic, to go to an event with 1,000 people is really pretty amazing. I’ve been to the CMAs three or four times before and this was certainly the biggest one. And I was nominated in a category of mortgage broker of the year for Atlantic.

I thought I might have been a bit of a shoo-in because I was named Canadian Mortgage Broker of the Year twice before for the country. They used to only have one award and the award was for mortgage broker of the year under 25 employees. And they used to have another award that was mortgage broker for the year 25 employees or more.

And I had one in the under 25 category, obviously. We have a relatively small team here. And you know, the last year I sat out because, you know, I had won three years in a row. You know, I like to give somebody else a chance. And this year they started this new category of these regional awards. I’m like, you know what? It could be cool to win, you know, in Atlantic Canada. I already know that we do a great job, Todd, but it’s nice to be recognized in a room of your peers.

What we didn’t know or what, maybe I didn’t know, you know, being oblivious and in my own little world of mortgage lending all day, every day. These regional awards rolled up to a national award. So the winners of all of the regional awards then we’re in a category for basically the entire country.

Enjoying time with people you haven’t seen in a while

Todd Veinotte: [00:04:18:22] Yes.

Clinton Wilkins: [00:04:19:07] And you know, the night the night continues on. We have a couple.

Todd Veinotte: [00:04:24:12] Were you drinking?

Clinton Wilkins: [00:04:25:08] A couple glasses of Moët.

Todd Veinotte: [00:04:27:21] Were you drinking?

Clinton Wilkins: [00:04:29:07] Yeah, I think we had a couple of drinks.

Todd Veinotte: [00:04:30:19] Okay. Did you have a buzz?

Clinton Wilkins: [00:04:32:08] Yeah, I was probably feeling pretty good. I’ll show you the video here after. Jonathan did a little snippet.

Todd Veinotte: [00:04:39:17] You always get a buzz with these events. You get all folksy.

Clinton Wilkins: [00:04:43:02] It’s the nerves.

Todd Veinotte: [00:04:44:08] Start smooshing around the room and you get that sway going.

Canadian Mortgage Awards Atlantic winner

Clinton Wilkins: [00:04:48:15] It’s people haven’t seen in a couple of years, right? And you know, I won the regional award. I’m like, you know, it was I thought it was between me and there was one other guy. There was this mortgage broker over in Newfoundland, and he’s really, really good. I respect him a lot. And, you know, everyone in the category, we’re very respectable mortgage brokers. I obviously know what we do. And it’s not just radio that we do. You know, I do some TV stuff. I wrote a book about mortgage lending. I do a lot of coaching and I’ve been really involved with our national professional organization, as well.

I thought we probably had a very good chance of winning the regional one so that happened and after I won the regional one, I’m like, “You know what? This national award might be in sight,” even though I had no idea it was actually even a thing. And, you know, there was a winner in each region and the winner in Ontario, who I know and actually used to work under our Centum banner. I knew she was very good.

And I thought, you know what? If anyone’s going to be winning, it’s either going to be me or it’s going to be her. And, you know, Ontario in some ways is the epicentre of Canada. You know, our listeners in Ottawa are obviously in the nation’s capital, which is in the province of Ontario. There is a world outside of Ontario. And obviously that’s why we’re here and that’s why you’re probably listening to us live on the air. And, you know, in Halifax, there’s obviously a lot of really good things on the go.

I think to even win on a regional level is really, really exciting. But when that national award came up and I saw that, obviously I was nominated for that based on winning in Atlantic, I thought, you know what, I can put Halifax on the map again. And before it was almost like I was the underdog.

You know, it was the underdog winning against a country of very seasoned mortgage brokers. I mean, I’ve been doing this for 16 years. There are some people who have been in the industry for 30 and 40 years that I was competing against, and I didn’t compete on the amount of transactions that we did or the amount of volume that we did.

You know, I was able to compete on the thought leadership. I was able to compete on, you know, leadership within our team, our clients, media, stuff like that. So I think that was really exciting. And when I won the award for the country, like, I got up and I’m like, I would not be here if it wasn’t for my team, our clients, our business partners. You know, I wouldn’t be here because it takes a village.

Canadian Mortgage Awards National winner

And I know as cliché that might be, I may show up and I may do a lot of transactions, but I have a lot of support. I have support right here locally in the office, like we’re doing our recording right now and we have obviously one of our amazing team members here working and we’re working into the evening.

Todd Veinotte: [00:07:59:23] I told her she could leave.

Clinton Wilkins: [00:08:01:16] I know. And guess what? She wanted to stay and listen to the first segment of our show.

Todd Veinotte: [00:08:06:25] I still say she should go.

Clinton Wilkins: [00:08:09:26] I think she probably will after this. Just to wrap up this award thing.

Todd Veinotte: [00:08:13:13] Yeah.

Clinton Wilkins: [00:08:14:19] To win a national award from Halifax means something.

Todd Veinotte: [00:08:19:06] Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Clinton Wilkins: [00:08:20:04] And I think obviously it means a lot to me and my team and to Halifax and to Atlantic Canada. But to win from Halifax, I think, is really something that’s special. And I’m not saying that we are the be all and end all of mortgage lending. I’m not. But I think what we do is different.

I think it’s unique and you know, obviously that’s been recognized on the national level and you know part of our corporate group, we went out for some drinks after the awards, as you do, you know, to celebrate. And you know, he asked me, he’s like, “What is next for you?” You know what I think is next?

Todd Veinotte: [00:08:57:04] What’s next? An international award?

Clinton Wilkins: [00:09:00:01] No, I think what’s next is maintaining what we have, Todd. You know, I think sometimes people want more and more and more and more. But, you know, sometimes it’s good to be where you’re at and maintain and be consistent. And I think that’s kind of where we’re at.

Todd Veinotte: [00:09:13:14] All right. We want more and more as well, but we need a break first. We’ll be right back. Mortgage 101: Your Guide to Homeownership.

If you have any questions, get in touch with us at Clinton Wilkins Mortgage Team! You can call us at (902) 482-2770 or contact us here.

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