Mortgage 101 – loving the mortgage industry | February 2022 Part 1

In this episode of Mortgage 101 with Clinton Wilkins and Todd Veinotte, as heard on CityNews 95.7, the guys talk about loving your mortgage in this month’s episode all about love! Learn why Clinton and the team love the mortgage industry and how brokers can get you a catered mortgage product for your needs. Stay tuned for the next three segments coming soon where Clinton and Todd will talk about, how to love your existing home, first-time home buyers trying to get into the market and what happens to the home during matrimonial breakdown.

Mortgage 101 with Clinton Wilkins & Todd Veinotte: loving the mortgage industry

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

Transcript:

It’s time to love your home with renovations!

Clinton Wilkins: [00:00:00:02] February is the month of love.

Todd Veinotte: [00:00:02:03] Love your home, right?

Clinton Wilkins: [00:00:03:11] It’s love your home. That’s certainly what we talk about all February. And you know, in some cases, existing home owners really, you know, need to maybe put a little bit more love in their home, or maybe you should really love where you live. And I think that’s a conversation that we’ve certainly been having the last couple of years, Todd.

You know, people, I think are right sizing their homes, you know, people the way people are living has changed. And, you know, I think the mortgage piece is certainly one piece of loving your home. You want to really have the best mortgage you can have. I think that may be increase your love a little bit.

But you know, there are certain things you can do to your home and maybe love it a little bit more and maybe you can leverage the equity. And maybe that’s a conversation that we can have around, you know, potentially refinance. Yeah. And they’re certainly a lot of people who are doing renovations. You know, I think a lot of people are doing renovations this year and have done, you know, renovations and even last year.

“I would say 50 per cent of the files we work on have a family component involved”

Todd Veinotte: [00:00:57:24] Yeah, something that. Not to be a downer on love, but part of this obviously are partnerships and marriages and all of that stuff. And perhaps later in the show, we can talk about when people enter these, these relationships, these contracts, because in a way it is.

Clinton Wilkins: [00:01:14:17] It is a contract, just like a mortgage would be.

Todd Veinotte: [00:01:16:06] Just like your mortgage is a contract, and I think maybe we could, not to be a buzzkill about Valentine’s, but we could delve into how people should go into these things with their eyes open because as you witness on a daily basis, I’m sure, these things break down sometimes, right?

Clinton Wilkins: [00:01:29:12] You know, I would say 50 per cent of the files we work on have a family component involved, Todd. You know, I get people separation agreements and, you know, divorce agreements and court orders and interim orders and all these things every single day.

So, you know, I don’t have a law background, but I certainly have read a lot of separation agreements. It doesn’t necessarily mean anything to me. I mean, I see everything. But it certainly does have an impact. And, you know, February, hopefully it’s still unicorns and rainbows, and everything.

Todd Veinotte: [00:02:00:07] But that’s not life, right?

Clinton Wilkins: [00:02:01:11] Cupid, and all these things. But you know, that’s not life. And I think that we need to be, you know, cognisant of that. A lot of relationships do break down.

Todd Veinotte: [00:02:10:04] All right. So perhaps we can save that for last?

Clinton Wilkins: [00:02:12:00] Yes. I think that certainly something really important to talk about, and I think that’s a conversation to have in February. And how can you prepare yourself?

Loving the mortgage industry

Todd Veinotte: [00:02:17:15] Yeah, we’ll do that in the last segment. So I guess we should tee this up and just we have new listeners all the time. We’re new in Ottawa, obviously. So why don’t you just kind of let everybody know about some of the things that you’ve done in this business for how long? Because not everybody knows Clinton.

Clinton Wilkins: [00:02:32:00] Yeah, I think it’s a good we’ll continue kind of doing this intro, at least for the first couple of shows. You know, the first show that we were on in Ottawa was last show. You know, we’ve been doing this show here in Halifax for the last four years and even before that in a different format on CityNews and the predecessor News 95.7.

I’m a mortgage broker, you know, I live and work and I’m from Nova Scotia and I’ve been in the industry for 16 years. It seems like yesterday I was fresh out of university. I can remember, even like the first transactions that I’ve done, I even remember these transactions, and a lot of those clients are still my clients today.

About 60 per cent of the transactions that we do every day are existing clients, you know, like you and me. But 40 per cent of the transactions that we do are our new clients. So we’re seeing new clients every day, which I think is really, really cool.

Certainly, we’re seeing a lot of first-time home buyers and we’re seeing a lot of people who maybe own their existing home and are looking at doing, you know, a refinance or a renewal or, you know, lots of different types of transactions. You know, we have people that are buying rental properties and cottages and, you know, primarily here in our office, we do residential mortgage lending.

You know, the majority of the transactions we do are prime, you know, bank style deals. This is what we do every day. But because we do have such a great team here and you know, we have, you know, six mortgage brokers now. And lots of support staff, like we have as many support staff as we do mortgage brokers here

You know, we are doing a lot of different types of transactions. And, you know, I think leveraging the amount of transactions that we’re doing is really very good for clients because A) you’re probably getting a slightly better rate from us than maybe you would from, you know, Joe Blow down the street.

Brokers get you a more catered mortgage product

Todd Veinotte: [00:04:20:18] Or just the bank.

Clinton Wilkins: [00:04:21:24] That’s really what I mean. Like Joe Blow blank. You know, when you walk into the bank branch, obviously, they only have so much buying power. And I think just, you know, our volume, we were able to leverage,

Todd Veinotte: [00:04:32:01] You have 40 some lenders, right?

Clinton Wilkins: [00:04:33:04] Yeah. With 40 some lenders, we do the majority of our business with five lenders, Todd.

Todd Veinotte: [00:04:37:14] Yeah, but you still have that versatility if you need.

Clinton Wilkins: [00:04:40:13] One hundred per cent. And you know, that’s why leaning on a brokerage like us that has the experience, we know when to hold them and we know when to fold them. So that’s one thing, but we know when a file will work with certain or different lenders.

And it’s not that we’re so busy that we’ll just try like one thing and give up and say, “No, this isn’t doable.” We know when it’s going to work and when it won’t. And typically what we say, every Canadian can get a mortgage, right?

Todd Veinotte: [00:05:08:00] It’s just how much you want to pay.

Clinton Wilkins: [00:05:09:18] It’s how much do you want to pay in terms of a rate and how much skin do you want to put in terms of the, you know, the equity position or the down payment? So, you know, we’re able to work through these things and we look at income and credit and assets every single day.

Todd Veinotte: [00:05:23:01] All right. So it’s the month of love. So you love this business, obviously, you’ve done it for a long time. You’ve been very successful at it.

Clinton Wilkins: [00:05:30:03] I mean, 16 years,

Todd Veinotte: [00:05:31:10] Sixteen years, yeah.

Clinton Wilkins: [00:05:31:24] There’s been times I wanted to quit, though, Todd. I’ll be honest with you, just like anything.

The team loves helping clients

Todd Veinotte: [00:05:34:26] Who hasn’t, right? So what is it, I guess if you had to define and you’ve already kind of touched on it, what is it that you love about this business?

Clinton Wilkins: [00:05:43:08] I think that every day is a different day. I think that’s really cool. I also think that, you know, helping clients is really rewarding. You know, obviously this is, you know, a good business, and I’ve invested a lot of my time, my heart and my energy into doing mortgage lending, you know, learning, you know, teaching training. I wrote a book on mortgage lending, as you know.

Todd Veinotte: [00:06:05:17] What’s it called again?

Clinton Wilkins: [00:06:06:22] Confessions of a Halifax Mortgage Broker. It’s actually available on Amazon.

Todd Veinotte: [00:06:11:11] So people will know how to find it.

Clinton Wilkins: [00:06:12:22] Oh yeah, they can just go on Amazon. You can actually order a paper copy right from Amazon.com, and they’ll put it right in your mailbox.

Todd Veinotte: [00:06:20:28] But that’s the point. That’s how much you love it.

Clinton Wilkins: [00:06:23:07] It’s a book for consumers. It’s not a book for mortgage brokers. It’s not a book for bankers or industry people. It’s a book for consumers.

And it tells my story, and it also tells a story of some of my clients and kind of their experiences and their situations, and how we were able to make it work.

So, you know, I believe in in mortgage lending. Obviously, we do this show and I think this is the only show of its kind in this format, at least in Canada. I’m sure there’s podcasts and stuff like this, but I think, you know, on a news radio station, this might be the only one.

Every mortgage file is like a snowflake

Todd Veinotte: [00:06:54:18] For four years running.

Clinton Wilkins: [00:06:55:17] For four years running. You know, we have we’ve had a lot of conversations about like wild and different things and like so many little like micro niches. I think that’s really cool. But what’s really interesting about what I do every day, every single client that I see is like a snowflake.

And February, we’re still in the winter. I can tell you, there’s probably a little bit of snow outside in Halifax. Some of that’s turned ice and there’s probably some snow in Ottawa. Super cold. Every file is like a snowflake and it’s just so unique and every day it’s a challenge.

And I just love getting up and there’s nothing more that I would rather do than help customers and talk about mortgage lending all day long.

Next up: Renovations, first-time home buyers and matrimonial breakdown

Todd Veinotte: [00:07:36:25] What do you want to talk about in the next segment? What do you think that people really need to know about the month of love?

Clinton Wilkins: [00:07:41:00] Well, I think they really need to know. Obviously, we want to talk a little bit about what happens when love doesn’t happen anymore, i.e. matrimonial breakdown.

Todd Veinotte: [00:07:48:27] We’re going to do that in the last segment.

Clinton Wilkins: [00:07:51:09] I think we also need to talk about how can you love your existing home and maybe look at ways to improve it. And how can you potentially love a new home. So we’re going to certainly talk about these things and hopefully you stay tuned and stay warm.

Todd Veinotte: [00:08:07:14] And speaking of people, if they if they love what they do, their employment as well is hugely important here as well, right?

Clinton Wilkins: [00:08:16:03] Oh yeah, exactly.

Todd Veinotte: [00:08:17:07] Gotta be able to pay that mortgage for that 25 years, right?

Clinton Wilkins: [00:08:19:12] Exactly. And I mean, that’s certainly a part of, you know, loving your life, maybe Todd, right?

Todd Veinotte: [00:08:23:20] Yeah, exactly. That’s all part of the attitude, right?

Todd Veinotte: [00:08:26:08] One hundred percent.

Clinton Wilkins: [00:08:27:02] Yeah. And do you love your help here, your producers here?

Clinton Wilkins: [00:08:30:12] I think we have some of the best team for the show.

Todd Veinotte: [00:08:32:28] You want to give them a shout out? You never do.

Clinton Wilkins: [00:08:34:19] I mean, I think I give them shout outs all the time.

Todd Veinotte: [00:08:37:02] Never.

Clinton Wilkins: [00:08:37:18] Maybe what we should do is we’re recording this right now and we’re doing a video and it’s going to be on Facebook and on Twitter and Instagram and all these things. Maybe we’ll do a little reverse photo. So the folks from home, if you’re listening, you can tune in and you can see a photo and you can see our setup.

Todd Veinotte: [00:08:53:18] There you go. All right. So we’ll be right back here in CityNews 95.7 and in Ottawa as well. Mortgage 101 continues.

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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