Mortgage 101 – Challenges Faced by First-Time and Foreign Buyers

Todd Veinotte and Clinton Wilkins discuss the evolving landscape of mortgage lending, highlighting its complexities and the importance of staying informed.

Todd Veinotte
Welcome back to Mortgage 101: Your Guide to Home Ownership, with me, Todd Veinotte and our mortgage guru, Clinton Wilkins. When you’re on the street, do people say, “Hey, you’re the mortgage guru.” Does that happen from time to time? What’s that feel like? What’s more of an ego boost than that, or having a billboard?

Clinton Wilkins
I mean, I don’t know which one is a bigger ego boost. I think I’m kind of a little bit numb to it. I’ve been desensitized. You’re on the radio five days a week, so you’re a real celebrity, like you’re in the news, , I’m what you would consider, like, a Z-list notable person in Halifax, maybe not Z, but okay, our producers are saying C. Celebrities would have small C, definitely, very, very small. I’m glad that I’m notable, and I’m glad I’m able to be a part of this conversation. Mortgage Lending is just so important. Todd real estate, when we started the show, I don’t know, was it eight years ago? Six? Seven years ago. Hard to believe it. We’re gonna say everything that needs to be said about mortgage lending. Mortgage lending became a lot more popular. We came out in a lot more in vogue, we’ll call it, and people tune in. And when we’re coming in here today, there was a Professor from NSCC in the studio, and they were talking about Mortgage 101, and they’re like, “We love Clinton. Love listening to that show.” And get so much good advice. We’ll give a shoutout. A shout out to NSCC and the journalism program over there.

Economic and Policy Impact on Mortgage Lending

Todd Veinotte
That’s great, good stuff. And it’s interesting, because we talked about mortgage lending, but it involves so many aspects of lives, and it has so many connections to the economy, to people’s lives, it’s just government policy, to fiscal policy. And there are so many layers to all this, right?

Clinton Wilkins
There certainly is, and there are so many moving parts, and I almost feel like it’s moving faster now, Todd, than it was, and Sandi said something very interesting in one of our previous segments. She said, before 2012, everything was very stable and everything was the same. And then I’m like now nothing’s the same, and there’s so much variety and so many differences from lender to lender. And I think Sandi hit the nail on the head. What Manulife is offering versus what TD Bank’s offering versus what Scotiabank is offering, very, very different offerings.

Todd Veinotte
There are some commonalities, though, in that if you have good credit, if you have a good job, you’ll get, if you have good documents, you’ll get a report. Some of that’s not going to change, right?

Clinton Wilkins
The principles of mortgage lending are the same. It’s income, it’s assets in the credit, but the actual product you’re getting, there are going to be some differences.

Todd Veinotte
Speaking of, we touched on fraud. People fall victim to fraud all the time. And this is, this is a real issue and challenge, and you talk about why people should monitor their credit and their bank accounts and all of that. You’ve preached this ever since seven, eight years.

Clinton Wilkins
And everything, the free apps, people borrow, well, credit, karma, download.

Customer Trust and Data Security

Todd Veinotte
But it’s so important, right? We’ve seen Nova Scotia Power has had to reach and breach, not huge hurt them, but it’s in the news, and people’s financial and personal information could screw you up if you don’t have it.

Clinton Wilkins
This is why it’s so important to do business with people that you trust, specifically, like for us, we’re in the market. We have two retail locations. We have one in Halifax and one in Dartmouth, customers can come in and physically see us in person. And I think that provides a lot of comfort to people. It’s a place that they can go if they need help.

Todd Veinotte
How do you know what type of software you guys use, not to put you on the spot, but to protect your customers’ data?

Clinton Wilkins
Our underwriting platform is called File at File Logics Expert, and it’s what we consider the legacy version. At one time, this underwriting platform was owned by DNH Davis and Henderson, the people who make your checks. It was owned by that company. Now it’s fine, as is the company. What they’re doing updates all the time. And we use our CRM. We use Salesforce. So Salesforce is, I think, the biggest world. They’re on the game. And we keep security very, very high in our minds, and the type of security that we have in our offices is very similar to what a bank branch would have. Not saying that everybody has the same level of security. I’m a little bit paranoid because I want to make sure that I’m protecting my 40,000-plus customers and that their information is secure. Because, guess what, if I didn’t have customers, I wouldn’t have a business. If I didn’t have a business, we wouldn’t be able to do this show. Do this show. So it’s very, very important to us, and for me personally, 80% of my customers are repeat, whoa, whoa. So I’m seeing a lot of the same customers every single day, and overall, as our brokerage, we’re at like 60%, which is massive.

Todd Veinotte
And I’m included in that!

Clinton Wilkins
I’m included too. Lots of people, obviously, probably some people who are listening.

Todd Veinotte
It must be quite rewarding, though. Clinton, I would say not to, not to belabour the point, but there’s got to be a level of reward for you to know that you’ve helped so many people. And I mean this, that dream of home ownership, that’s got to feel good.

Clinton Wilkins
I certainly have. And let me tell you, there certainly have been some challenging times. There are some great times, but there’s nothing more rewarding than a borrower getting their very first home. I think Canadians have this dream of home ownership, and it is so possible here, but it is daunting. There are a lot of moving parts. We’re talking about stress tests, we’re talking about a pre-approval. We’re talking about saving for your down payment, the Nova Scotia Down Payment Assistance Program, which we talked about on your show, Todd. There are so many parts that need to align to make this happen. And I think for first time homebuyers, it certainly has been challenging just getting over that hump and getting into the first home. But once you own your first home, it’s so much easier after that, and when you talk about renewals and refi and maybe buying another home, it does become easier that first transaction, I think, is the hardest and the most friction.

Todd Veinotte
Okay, let’s talk before we run out of time. Time flies when you have good content. But to the Halifax market, what can you tell us?

Halifax Market Trends and Challenges

Clinton Wilkins
That’s one thing that we promised to talk about. I think in Halifax, it’s still going very, very steady. We’ve not seen the softening that they’ve seen in other markets across the country. The one thing I will note is that there are a lot of properties down the south shore for sale, and a lot of these properties are over a million dollars. And these wouldn’t necessarily be on the market for a long time, but they’re sitting now. Some of these properties I’m seeing sitting 30, 60, 90, 120 plus days on the marketplace. I think a lot of this has to do with the foreign buyers ban. It’s not in vogue, necessary to come and buy a home in Nova Scotia. Which is it, 5% or what’s the percent of that? It depends. And also, I think it’s just the foreign buyers ban; you can only buy in rural Nova Scotia. So, like you, if you’re a foreign buyer, can’t come and buy a home in Halifax? There you go. So there certainly are some limitations there, and anytime that there are rules and changes to regulatory rules that change, whether it’s provincial or federal, that will slow some buyers down, because there’s misconception misconceptions out there. There are a lot of buyers who think, Hey, I’m coming from another country. I can’t buy in Canada because of this ban. Well, you can, you just might be able to buy an urban, urban Canada.

Todd Veinotte
So overall, the market again, not enough homes, and new home construction. I think that’s the biggest challenge. Always, for seven years, we’ve been having the same conversation.

Clinton Wilkins
Some shovels are in the ground. And, we had Andy Fillmore, the mayor of Halifax, in for a Mortgage Professionals Canada conference. He came to speak two Sundays ago, last Sunday, he was here, and, think we will have him on the show. And he spoke so well about what the real needs are here in Halifax. And what he’s saying is very aligned with the industry. He knows we need more homes. He knows he has to work with the province and the feds to get all levels of government working. And what’s interesting, he has a great perspective because he was an urban planner. He knows what needs to happen here in Halifax. He needs to get counsel there, and he needs to get the civil servants there to get these shovels in the ground, and it’s going to be all levels working together.

Condos and Densification

Todd Veinotte
How about condos? Is the condo market hot or not?

Clinton Wilkins
I think it’s certainly warm. I don’t think the condo market is as hot as single-family homes, but it never has been here, Todd. It’s never been that hot, but people need places to live, and we need all levels of construction. And condos and apartments are a great way to create density, especially in our urban core,

Todd Veinotte’s
Densification is integral for a lot of reasons, right?

Clinton Wilkins
You drive down Robie Street, you drive down Young Street, you drive down Wise Road; towers are going up everywhere.

Todd Veinotte
Clinton. How do people get hold of you?

Clinton Wilkins
Check us online at teamclinton.ca/radio. We’ve hundreds of blog posts on there. We have links to our social media. You can see what Todd and I look like, and we’re pumping out lots of great content. And I would just really challenge all our listeners to do their research. Decide who you’re going to do business with and forge forward. Advice is just so important right now. And one other shout out to our guest, it’s so great to have Sandi Burns on from Manulife Bank, built to bring someone in at that level here on our show, I think is amazing, and we’ll certainly welcome her back here in the future.

Todd Veinotte
That’s Clinton Wilkins, our mortgage guru, my name is Todd Veinotte, and this is Mortgage 101. Your guide to home ownership. See you next time.