Mortgage 101 – Mortgages Without Judgment

Todd Veinotte, Clinton Wilkins, and Blair Patterson address questions from listeners, the importance of automatic savings, and touch on the growth of the Halifax region.

Todd Veinotte
All right, welcome back to Mortgage 101. Your guide to homeownership with me, Todd Veinotte, our mortgage guru, Clinton Wilkins and our guest. Clinton, your employee.

Clinton Wilkins
He’s your returning guest of the show; he was on last year, and he said he didn’t love it, but I twisted his arm to come back. Now he’s been with us for almost two years, which is very impressive because let me tell you, this is a hard business for sure.

Discussion on Mortgage Basics

Todd Veinotte
Bair, why don’t you tell everybody a bit about what you do?

Blair Patterson
Yeah, I work for Clinton and clients will call in and I help them get a mortgage application started and find them the right mortgage and product.

Todd Veinotte
Nice, and over time, do you learn much from Clinton?

Blair Patterson
It’s a wealth of knowledge. And over time, I’ve learned a ton from Clinton.

Todd Veinotte
Is he a jerk sometimes in the office?

Blair Patterson,
Ha ha no.

Clinton Wilkins
That’s right!

Todd Veinotte
We’re doing something a little different, and with the help of our production team, of course, we get to give them kudos on the street and ask them some questions. Let everybody know what we’re doing.

Clinton Wilkins
We had our production team down on the waterfront this week asking, I’ll say, some of our fans, but people knew about our show. They wanted to have questions answered on the radio and here on our podcast. So we’re gonna play our question. We’re gonna answer it live on the air, and we’re talking all this month about pride and homeownership. So Blair and I can tag team. Here are some of these questions, and we’ll go from there. So why don’t we fire up the first question?

Preparing for Home Ownership in the Future

Question One
I would ask them what I need to start doing now in my mid-20s to prepare myself for buying a home, let’s say, in 10 years, any accounts I should be signing up for with my bank? Any tax credits? Any areas I should be looking into in the province? Any type of home that’s better for me as a first-time buyer? I just want to know where I should start.

Clinton Wilkins
That sounds like one of these questions we’d hear on the radio. There are a lot of points there. There are many types of accounts to sign up for. An RRSP, especially if you’re at work, and they offer an authorized payment, so get it set up. Make it automatic. Do it. Do it. Do it. The other thing is the first home savings account, a great option to be able to save on your own. And if you utilize both these accounts to their max, you’ll be in a great spot in 10 years to be able to buy a home, and you may even have enough for 20% down. But the one thing that I will say time is money here. So in 10 years, this property might be worth a lot more. 10 years is a long run time. So I think you need to think about how you can make this happen in one year. Three years, five years, seven years, 10 years is a long, long time. Blair, what do you think?

Blair Patterson
Yeah, here in Nova Scotia, we have down payment assistance. You may not have to wait that full 10 years to enter the housing market. So that’s something to consider when it comes to the right type of house. I always tell my clients, your first house isn’t your last house, so buy a condo, buy a semi-detached, get in the market, build up that equity and get in that inflation lift.

Clinton Wilkins
I love it. And you know, I think in terms of interest rates, you’re dating the rate, you’re marrying the home. But as we know, marriages aren’t forever, so get into your starter home, and it’s a great way to get into the property ladder. Okay, why don’t we hit us with our second question here?

Understanding Mortgage Payments

Question Two
If I could ask a mortgage expert one question, it would be: What is the price of a mortgage? Because I’m not gonna lie. I don’t know a thing about mortgages, and I don’t even know how much I’d be paying for one if I had one.

Clinton Wilkins
Oh my God, I love this one. Blair, over to you.

Blair Patterson
Yeah, that’s a comprehensive question. I guess the price of a mortgage, you’d want to make sure your payment kind of lines up with your income, and typically that means not more than 39% of your income is going towards your housing. So when it comes to the price or payment, it’s all kind of is geared towards your income and affordability.

Clinton Wilkins
And I think the rate’s important, but Blair, you kind of hit it on the head. Rate is not everything. The payment is very, very important. So, know what you can afford. But again, it’s going to come down to your income.

Todd Veinotte
And of course, you talk about the dream of home ownership, and there’s nothing wrong with somebody starting the conversation. Somebody may think I couldn’t qualify for a mortgage, or I don’t have enough money, or perhaps they do, or perhaps there are things that you can help them with?

Blair Patterson
I find the people who come into the office, and they’re like, “Oh, I feel so unprepared. I’m not ready.” Those are the ones that are the most prepared.

Clinton Wilkins
I mean, before we even start our show, I was talking to our production team, and they’re getting into checking their credit, which I love. And one of our folks said, “What do you think my credit score is?” I said, I have no idea, but I bet you it’s in the seventies. How about 730 and he’s like 790 and gave me a big high five. These are great things that we need to do to be prepared to make a big purchase like a home.

Todd Veinotte
So when you’re investing for a down payment, is it best to put money in monthly dollar cost averaging, I guess, as opposed to?

Clinton Wilkins
I love a preauthorized payment. I love an automatic payment because, you know what, Canadians are not good savers, right? Let’s be honest and true, right? I’m not a great saver myself, but the reason that I have money is that I made it automatic. And you know what, I just it just came out. Every week, I have money coming out of my bank account. I put money into my TFSA, I put money into my RRSP, and you know what, they’re both maxed out. I would not have maxed out RRSP, and I would not have maxed out TFSA if I hadn’t made it automatic. Because you know what, as much as I’m good at giving advice, sometimes you’re not good at taking your advice. But I did it, I did it, and I made it automatic, which is great.

Todd Veinotte
And the dollar cost averaging that times the market, instead of trying to time the market with one lump sum payment. Agree you’re purchasing every month, so there’s going to be fluctuations.

Clinton Wilkins
And it’s if you’re waiting to put money in at the end of the year, you may just spend it. That’s right, like Blair, what do you tell people when they’re trying to save?

Blair Patterson
When are they trying to save? I encourage them to do that. To the automatic deposit. I was saying people are their habits, and you need to get into the habit. Oh, 100% putting that money away. You don’t want to see it, you don’t want to touch it, and whatever’s left for you at the end of that is where you’re spending money.

Challenges for Queer Clients in Home Ownership

Clinton Wilkins
Let’s do a little segue like Blair, when we’re talking about pride and home ownership, I know you’ve had a lot of queer clients over the last two years. What do you think, like, their number one challenge has been, like, getting into the housing market?

Blair Patterson
I know you talked about that earlier. Essentially, I think a lot of people have experienced judgment their whole life, and then when it comes to the mortgage, they’re afraid of more judgment when it comes to credit, they don’t want to have to then explain themselves. Explain themselves, their situation, and their gender. So I think just kind of reaching out and having that trust, and you talked about isolation as well, just kind of, you know, wanting to be out there and talking to someone and essentially getting the right advice.

Todd Veinotte
I’m really surprised that there are people still feeling these barriers. It’s kind of disheartening to me, in a way, but it exists.

Blair Patterson
Yeah, for sure, especially in the trans community. People, you know, they present one way, you pull their credit, and their old name comes up; they find sometimes, a lot of embarrassment about that. And there is nothing to be embarrassed about. And you know, I’m here to help, essentially,

Clinton Wilkins
Let me tell you, there is some additional documentation that’s required. Like, I have trans clients, I have some, and you need to get, sometimes, the name change document. You need to get some of their birth certificate. There are multiple documents that you may need, in addition to the normal verification that we do at the end of the day. It’s about knowing your client, and we want to make sure that we’re protecting the client and we’re also protecting the lender. And I think for us, like we’re sensitive enough to it, that I can ask the right questions, like they’re not judging, but I think from a borrower’s perspective, they’re feeling judged already when you’re coming in and doing a mortgage application, regardless of your situation.

Todd Veinotte
Blair, do you feel empowered? You might feel empowered to be, to be having such a great career, and to be doing so well working for a great company like Clinton, which you can work for for a very long time, the stability of that, I mean, that’s got to be very empowering for you.

Blair Patterson
It feels incredible. Essentially, it’s been incredible growth this year, and the Halifax region is doing very well. I think a lot of government initiatives coming around with defence spending will only help to help the region, and the growth has been incredible.

Clinton Wilkins
That brings up a really good point, Blair’s background, he wasn’t in mortgage finance his entire career. Like Blair, you were in the Navy before you became a mortgage broker. Why did you want to make that career change?

Blair Patterson
Yeah, essentially, I just wanted to help empower people financially. For people in the military in this region, I know exactly the journey they’ve gone down when it comes to moving, getting posted, and what they’re entitled to, and it helps me help them in a better way.

Todd Veinotte
Okay, so what would you say? You’ve got a good that must be a really good client base for you, referral base? I would think, yeah, the military.

Blair Patterson
Yeah, absolutely. It’s one of the area’s biggest employers. And being able to help people in the military, in the queer community, like Clinton said, we don’t judge. We’re here to help and get people into home ownership.

Todd Veinotte
Indeed, okay. Mortgage 101, your guide to home ownership with Clinton Wilkins and me, Todd Veinotte and our guest, of course. Mortgage 101, we will be right back.